Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, with the Annual Message of the President, December 6, 1875, Volume I
No. 116.
Mr. Williamson to Mr. Fish.
Guatemala, August 25, 1875. (Received Sept. 18.)
Sir: I have the honor to hand you herewith a printed copy and translation of a report of the minister of public instruction of Guatemala, respecting the re-organization of the university in this city. If is dated the 1st of July, but was only published, together with the decree therein recommended, in the official paper of the 20th instant.
The decree changes entirely the organization of the university as recommended by the minister, and prescribes such courses of study as are usual now in the best institutions of learning. It does not appear of sufficient importance to send to you. The organization is said to be modeled upon the French plan.
* * * * * * *
I have, &c.,
report upon a law of higher instruction.
General President: The laws organizing the public instruction of the primary and secondary order have been issued, and to fulfill the charge that you have been pleased to give me, relative to closing the work of organizing the department of instruction, I have formed the plan of a decree which I have now the honor to submit to your distinguished consideration.
The instruction in the professions, in a great measure, and secondary instruction entirely, have been intrusted to the royal and pontifical university of San Carlos Borromeo, directed by a constitution given in 1686 by King Charles II, the enchanted. Such statutes as represent ideas, necessities, and aspirations diametrically opposed to those of our time, are those that, until within a short time, were regulating the secondary instruction, and even now are determining the character and conditions of the professional instruction. It is indeed true that Dr. Galvez, the chief of the state, in the year 1832, gave some bases of instruction, differing from those fixed by the constitution of Charles II, and created the academy of sciences; but, on the 22d of September, 1855, was published a decree called “Reforms of the Statutes of the University,” issued by President Carrera, signed by Mr. Echeverria, minister of public instruction, in the first article of which is established, “that the constitution of the royal and pontifical university of San Carlos, approved by King Charles II, the 20th of February, 1686, will be regarded as the fundamental statutes of this establishment, and it will be observed in the future, as it was in 1821, the differing laws and provisions that have been given in this matter being in consequence annulled.”
Owing to the law mentioned, secondary and professional instruction returned to the old system, that is now scarcely recognized, and that system is revived that opposes in an almost fatal manner the improvement of any of the institutions, and especially of those pertaining to teaching. The practice corresponded in a faithful manner to the purposes of the legislator; so it is that secondary instruction centralized in the pontifical university had been reduced before the law of the 28th of January, just passed, to affording some imperfect knowledge of Latin, of philosophy by Fathers Balines and Arboli, and of the elementary theories of physics, and of mathematics. With this system of secondary teaching so rickety, and in a great measure absurd, the professional instruction based upon it could not avoid having the same serious inconveniences; it has been incomplete, theoretical, and in some branches absurd.
The law of the 28th of January that you were pleased to issue has removed the difficulties pertaining to secondary instruction, substituting for a programme useless and unproductive, a plan of studies in which the instruction is untrammeled and is furnished in a manner ample and efficacious, and as our peculiar circumstances demand, such as the precepts of science recommend, approved by the observation and practice of countries skilled in the matter of public instruction.
But the necessity of giving a new and suitable organization to the higher instruction is still to be satisfied. The plan that I present to you, although deficient in many respects, correcting it as experience and the lapse of “time may suggest, will perhaps contribute to improve the professional course.
In the plan the university of Guatemala is created with a double character, that of a scientific and literary body, and that of an establishment charged with affording a higher course of instruction.
A corporation that may give an impulse to science and letters is wanting in the republic. There is no reason for not possessing an institute so commendable. But as, with our few elements, it cannot be established at present in an independent manner, it is fit and advantageous to elevate the character of the university, giving to it the character and attributes pertaining to a body intrusted with the promotion of the enlightenment of the country, and the encouragement of the cultivation of science and letters.
The second character of the university is that in which it has the charge of giving instruction in professional courses.
For these purposes it is divided into faculties, which at the same time that they enjoy the privileges of being untrammeled in arranging the system of studies that are respectively under their charge, depend upon a higher council that is responsible for the general unity of the system and that takes care that the faculties fulfill the purposes of their institution.
The matter to be taught is practical and full. This last might lead one to suppose that we were intending to render difficult the higher studies. But it is not so. What we purpose to do is, that those persons who obtain a title, may not obtain it for an empty display, it being on the other hand, from its worthlessness, useless to themselves, to the family, and to society. We are trying to raise from its low position the professional course in order that it may come to mean, for those who have passed through it, an instruction practical and extensive, that may afford them at any time and in any country the means of living honorably and independently,
[Page 177]In reference to the professorships, at first sight it seems as if it would he more just and liberal to provide for them by competition among those persons who desire to perform the duties. However, observation does away with the apparent importance of this plan. The system of competition, besides the injustice that is liable to be done, drives off professors of great merit and known reputation, who do not wish to expose themselves to a doubtful result. Besides, the result of an examination does not always prove the superiority of him who obtains the professorship, it being necessary to seek not only a professor who possesses the knowledge, but one who, at the same time, knows how to impart it. To this is added that the result of competitive examinations among us would be almost always adverse to the purposes that teaching sustained by the state ought to have in view. A sworn examiner, at the most, might judge of the professional knowledge, but not of the character of the ideas of the professors, nor of the influence that these will exercise in a social, political, or philosophical point of view. The antecedents of Guatemala and its present circumstances suggest powerful reasons for rejecting the system of selecting professors by competition.
Thanks to this system, persons would be charged with the instruction who, educated in the sad times of absolutism, and under the inspiration of ideas the most obscure and of a retrograding tendency, would bring to the professorships a constant diffusion of instruction opposed to the principles of reform and progress that your government is endeavoring to sustain at all hazards. Such a result is as inadmissible as sad. It would vitiate the minds of the youth—that is the future of the country—filling them with detestable prejudices, and so would render impossible forever the attainment of the greatest and most useful object of education—which is, to implant in the youth the ideas that directly tend to the enlightenment of the republic. For all of these reasons, it is established in the plan that the appointment of the professors belongs to the government, with a regard to the statements that the faculty of the university, who are called to judge of the scientific competency of the professors, ought to present for that purpose.
The corporation of the university being divided into faculties, in charge of the teaching, it is natural to suppress the college of lawyers and physicians, establishments that in practice have scarcely answered the purposes of their institution, and whose duties and attributes can be attended to by the faculties of jurisprudence and medicine with great advantage. Therefore the plan provides for the suppression of the institutes mentioned.
I have given you, Mr. President, the observations that have appeared to me to be suitable concerning some of the principal points of the plan of higher instruction, and in closing I ought to make known to you the conviction that strengthens me in the difficulties that are to be presented in putting into operation a new system in the professional studies, arising principally from the want of personnel in sufficient numbers who unite to realize the purpose of the government. But I believe also with the greatest sincerity that your constancy and persevering patriotism promoting public instruction will cause the gradual disappearance of the obstacles that oppose the founding of a new system of primary and secondary as well as of professional instruction.