Evening star., 1941-10-12
ChIeonPeons Better 7 TheirLives
Under Rural Education Drive
Record Eeg-Producing
Chickens Convincing,
Visitor Explains
By JESSIE FAINT EVANS.

Chile has made great strides dur
ing the last two and half years in
improving living. conditions among
its peon or tenant class of farmer
and worker" according to Senorita
Graciela Mandujano, leading femi-
nine rural economist of this republic
to the South.
Senorita Mandujano is concluding
a visit to Washington as the high
light of her present trip to the
United States, sponsored by the Ma
tional Federation of Business and
Professional Women'S Clubs of this
country in the interest of good
neighbor relations.
There was time, not so long
ago either" she said in our interview,
when we took visiting foreigners to
our beautiful haciendas and farms,
but Whisked them, oh so quickly, by
the wretched little hutS of our peon
class of tenant farmers and workers,
huddled together in their squalor on
the roads leading away from them,
This was because we did not want
to admit existence of the conditions
in which they lived. Now, through
Chiles Institute of Rural Informa-
ton, we are facing our problem and
doing something about trying to de-
velop this group of tenant farmers,
sharecroppers and workers into
ChileS middle class of the future"
About As per cent Of Chile'S popu-
lation of 100000 people is made up
of the group to which she refers, and
of their number at least 60 per cent
are illiterate. so" she declared,
I'VE could not afford to waste our
present generation of adults by wait
ing for their children to grow up
before we began to do something
about trying to establish better
homes and improve living conditions.
Our immediate problem was twofold
in character. lack of education on
the one hand and lack of means
on the other. To try to solve it,
we had to start from the bottom
up. on a simple practical basis, not
to lay something beautifully ideal on
from the top and let two or three
generations go by while it permeated
downward"
Practical Results Expected.
Chile's Institute of Rural Informa-
ton. which has been making such
strides in rural education among
this country's agricultural workers.
was established by its Minister Of
Agriculture It is financed by the
Chilean Board of Agricultural EX-
ports. A group of broad-visioned
business executives, who are de-
manding practical results in addition
to a general educational policy, is its
board of directors.
Patriotic Senor Horacio Serrano,
large landowner himself. is the
director of this project.
In soft-spoken, typically feminine
Senorita Mandujano, the Institutes
associate director, is placed the
direct responsibility of producing
those practical results which Senior
Horacio and his associates expect
and are receiving.
Her job has been set up under a
missionary system in 25 educational
units or groups Each in turn has
leader responsible for inspiring and
teaching certain selected families to
constitute themselves such examples
of improved living conditions that
their neiphbors will wish to go and
do likewise.
Asked how the system was got
under way. she said Poor stock
Chilean hens seldom lay more than
20 to 80 eggs a year. When we in
troduced some of your choice stock
U. S. A. Rhode Island hens as
gifts from the Chilean government.
with very explicit directions as to
their proper care and feeding, those
hens Of yours became the mis-
Sionaries Almost Immediately they
began laying so manv eggs that it
was plain to be seen that their yield
was to be 200 to 300 eggs a year. and
we were of to flying start, as you
say here
Results were equally satisfactory
with selected gift stock of goats and
pigs. These poor people had never
before known what it was like to
own such animals And, just as had
been the case with the recipients of
the new stock Of hens, groups of
neighbOrs began vying with each
other to be deemed worthy of SIM
liar gifts and honors from our gov
ernment. Parallels were easy to
draw, too, as to the fact that if