The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1931-02-26
Public Schools of South America

Public SCHOOLS OF SCUM AncT1Ca
At the last meeting of the Ora
datin. Club with Mrs. A. ]. Lies
as hostess, the following interesting
paper on the Public Schools OF
South America" was read by Mrs.
G. P. Vail:
Popular education in a people
saturated with traditions of the Old
Spanish Colonial regime is like a
plant in an alkali soil. The be-
nighted hewers of wood and drawers
of water do not desire education
because they do not see that it will
help their children to earn more
than their fathers or that it would
lead them up into occupation and
rewards reserved for the higher So
cial class. The higher class GER
tainly desire education for their
own children. How else should
they be trained for public life or
fitted to follow the learned profess
sions? They never think of educa-
ton as a means of diffusing OPP
portunity throughout all classes.
That is not their program.
It is not easy for us to realize
how many powerful interests in a
South American country are pour
ing sand on the axles of education
al progress. The Liberals may en-
act their school law. but it is quite
another thing to plant public ele-
mentary schools. The owners of
the estates sell all their products
at it's world market price, but they
buy their labor at figure far be-
low it's true market worth. They
tie the Peon with a debt so that
he must accept whatever they al
low him. They defraud him be-
cause he is too ignorant to reckon
the amount of debt to his master
-oId GIeAe Gnq lsnm gu UuouM uoIJ
vision for himself and family. This
is part of the masters game to
keep knowledge from his Poems so
that they may be helpless, unam-
bilious and submissive to the mast
er's will.
In Chile the ordinary landed
proprietors are said to look with
disfavor upon popular schools lest
the children of the masses grow UP
demanding, or restless and mi
grant. In general the master and
man agree that the poor ought to
follow the fathers calling and be
content to stay on, in his fathers
mud hut and satisfied with the old
wage and hard rough life attached
thereto.
One in sixteen is enrolled in
school. There are 100000 Indians
in Ecuador in population of liz
million and their children are get
ting no education at all. Only
about one-fourth of the Poems
children are receiving instruction.
The law requires the master hav-
ing ten or more families of labor
ers on his estate to maintain a
school for them, but this law is
seldom carried out because many
families lie too scattered for their
children to be brought together
every day. 1t might require 100
square miles to furnish enough
children to make school.
Peru gets about $4,000 annually
thru the elementary school which
covers two years of instruction and
is compulsory. In the next higher
type of public school which would
be the Bird, 4th, and 5th grades the
enrolment out of population as
large as Texas would total 5000. In
one year only 480 pupils completed
the Fifth year of work. The chill
dren of the well-to-do are not in
such schools but in private schools.
It gives one vivid sense of the
aristocratic spirit of the govern
ment of Chile to find that there are
only 3,026 public elementary
schools whereas 10000 are needed
to accommodate the 100000 chill
dren Of school age. Only 300 900
children are enrolled in elementary
schools, Of which number perhaps
$4,000 are in Parish schools. The
existing public schools are full and
children have to be turned away.
Although the state maintains fine
high schools the public elementary
school does not lead up to the high
school at all. To get your children