People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1897 — Public Education In Spain. [ARTICLE]

Public Education In Spain.

The following facts in regard to the state of public education in Spain are taken from a Madrid letter to the Independence Beige: “The condition of public schools is miserable, in spite of the school law of Sept. 9, 1857, which made attendance .obligatory and free of cost, and the law of 1870, providing punishment for parents who do not send their children to school. Both laws have remained mere dead letters. In 1887 it was estimated that of 10,000 persons in Spain, 1,889 men and 960 women could read and write. This is 28.49 per cent. One hundred and twenty-six men and 217 women could read only, which is 3.43 per cent. Two thousand eight hundred and eighty-five men and 3,916 women—i. e., 68.1 per cent—could neither read nor write. There are at present 22, 996 elementary schools; the laws provide 4,130 more than this number. Only 41 per cent of Children of school age receive a very scanty instruction. More than half are vagabonds or street beggars. Night schools are not in existence. “The pay of teachers is pitiable. Of 14,430 teachers, 787 do not get more than $25 a year; 1,784 receive from $25 lo SSO; 5,031 have a salary of SSO to $100; the next class consists of 3,067, drawing SIOO to $125 annually, and so on, the number of teachers decreasing, to S4OO and more a year, which sum is enjoyed by 77 teachers. And if they could but draw their salaries! Part of 'them must collect their pay from parents, most of whom have little or nothing themselves; others are to get their competency from the communites, which often are wprse off. In 1893 the communities owed to teachers $1,600,000, and there are teachers who have seen no salary in years. “It.realy is no wonder that some teachers should get even on the sums granted for school materials or by fictitious charges for such. In what state under such circumstances are schoolhouses and class : rooms easily may be imagined. The total levy for school purposes by the communities is $5,200,000, ana by the provinces $400,000. The state spends the formidable sum of $213,600 for instruction, while to the very wealthy clergy the state pays $8,000,000 annually. This contrast is significant of the ideas held by Spanish statesmen as to the necessity of public education. Now let the reader imagine what Spain does for education in her colonies, in Cuba and in the Philippines, if such is the condition of the mother country.”