Between 1927 and 1929 sweeping educational reforms occurred that were to make Chilean educators world-famous in professional circles. The fundamentals of these changes were autonomy, complete separation of education from politics, and a certain amount of decentralization in school administration and control. This reform movement "has put its stamp indelibly on the present educational setup. Not all the gains made were retained; not all the recommendations made then were carried out, but they remained as blueprints that are now being turned into realities..."15

In April 1927 a superintendency with eight general directorates for the major fields of education-normal, secondary, commercial, elementary, agricultural, industrial, music, and fine arts-became the governing power in Chilean education. A law of the following December changed these general directorates into departments of the Ministry of Education. Technical schools for adolescents were added to the liceos as institutions of secondary education, and completion of the 6-year elementary school was made the basis for entrance to secondary instruction.16 Elementary, secondary, and technical education were thus given a degree of articulation. At the same time some curricular diversification was provided for, according to the type of school, the needs of the pupils, and the nature of the region.17 Secondary education was divided into two cycles of 3 years each, the first of general culture, the second of preparation for the university or for productive work.18 Administrative decentralization was initiated through the provision of provincial directors responsible for the supervision of all branches of education in their respective provinces. Final form was brought to the 1920 Law of Compulsory Education and definite regulation to Chile's educational system by Decree Law No. 5,291 of November 22, 1929, which set the elementary curriculum and provided for the establishment of experimental and model schools for the improvement of instruction.

In May 1931, control over academic secondary education (humanística) was returned to the School of Philosophy and Humanities of the University of Chile, with the right to determine its curriculum and programs of study; but the 100-day Socialist government in 1932 set aside this decree and since. that date secondary schools have remained under the direction and control of the Ministry of Education. Further changes in the program of study occurred in 1935 and in 1940.

The Popular Front government in 1939 drafted a "Six-Year Program for the Promotion of Public Education," which had as its objectives: The material and technical improvement of schools; extension of instruction to all children, and to laborers and farm workers; completion of incomplete (2d and 3d class) schools; support and extension of preschool education; provision of more and better buildings, school property and equipment; and improvement of vocational and teacher-training institutions. During the first 2 years, 1,700 new teaching positions were created and 468 additional schools were established, but financial difficulties resulting from the war have greatly limited this good work.

Contemporary educational thought.-According to a projected Organic Law of Education,19 prepared by the Minister of Public Education and

15 E. P. Hanson. Chile-Land of Progress. New York, Reynal and Hitchcock, 1941. p. 149.

16 Ricardo Donoso. Recopilación de Leyes, Reglamentos y Decretos relativos a los servicios de Enseñanza Pública. Art. 22 of Decree law No. 7,500. Santiago, Chile. p. 11 ff.

17 Ibid., Art. 17.

18 Ibid., Arts. 23 and 24.

19 El Projecto de Ley Orgánica de los Servicios Educacionales. In Boletín Informativo del Ministerio de Educación. Año I, No. 1, Santiago, Octubre, 1944. p. 3-15.

presented before the National Congress by the President of the Republic in 1944, education is declared to be one of the most important functions of a truly progressive state. The school is viewed as the most valuable instrument of the State for molding the minds of future generations for the advancement of the nation and the improvement of its system of government. Article I defines education as the "maximum realization of human personality" and states that it should provide the individual with a "clear consciousness of Chile's historical continuity and democratic · orientation" and at the same time "prepare him for group participation, self-improvement, and the creation of higher standards of social living."20 Article II adds that education should affect both the individual and the social environment and concern itself with both general culture and technical preparation for productive work. 21 It is further declared "that the State has the right to oblige the individual to educate himself to the point of becoming an active element in the national life; that education must not be limited to children of school age, but extended to the entire population not only in classrooms but to the urban and rural masses through all possible means offered by modern technology; that schooling should be free and that the State, for its own welfare as well as that of the individual, should make special provision for poor and abandoned children."22

Chilean educators played an important role in the Fourth American Congress of Teachers, held in Santiago in 1943, and this body's statement of the essential characteristics and functions of democracy,23 cited by the present Director General of Elementary Education in the Chilean Ministry of Public Education, may well be taken as expressing the most commonly accepted viewpoint of democracy and, by extension, of the aims of education in Chile. These essential characteristics and functions are:

1.

Respect for and dignification of the human personality.

2. Defense of public liberties, political rights, and freedom of thought for all individuals, regardless of race, class, or creed.

3.

4.

5.

Recognition of the right to work, health, and education (culture).

Guarantee of the material and spiritual wealth that is the product of work and the patrimony of the nation.

Guarantee of equal opportunity to all to participate in social functions. 6. Emphasis on cooperation among individuals and peoples of the world. Encouragement of free philosophic reflection, advancement of science and art, and freedom of religion.

7.

8.

9.

Right of group self-determination and individual voice in the direction and management of public affairs.

Planning and structuring of the national economy for the welfare of the entire population.

Many of Chile's teachers have studied abroad, in France, Germany, Spain, and the United States, and most of these teachers now occupy positions of responsibility in the school system. Upon several occasions, furthermore, groups of foreign teachers have been contracted for service in the country's educational establishments and have transplanted foreign philosophies, content materials, and practices which have taken firm root in Chilean education. This wholesale transplantation, however, is gradually and deliberately being uprooted in favor of a philosophy, curricula, teaching procedures, and personnel that have a definitely national frame of reference. Foreign ideas are not being completely discarded; they are undergoing a process of selective adaptation to conform to the specific needs of the Republic of Chile. Outstanding in

20 Ibid., p. 6.

21 Ibid., p. 6. Ibid., p. 7.

23 Oscar Bustos. A. Principios y Técnica de la Escuela Activa. 3d Edición. Imprenta R. Quevedo O., Santiago, 1944. p. 52-53.

the picture is the recognition of the need for raising the social consciousness and the standard of living of the working classes; for hastening the process of industrialization through the training of technical workers in all fields; for making the schools such that in them the pupils may experience the advantages of the democratic way of life; and for educating the whole child physically, mentally, and vocationally.

Ministry of Public Education.-Education in Chile today is highly centralized. The Minister of Public Education, a member of the President's cabinet, controls all funds for the support and development of the school system, the construction of buildings, selection of textbooks, purchase of equipment, prescription of curricula, courses of study, experimental institutions, proposals for reform-everything pertaining to elementary, secondary, and special education. The Ministry of Defense maintains and controls specialized schools such as the military and naval academies, and courses of instruction for the recruits called annually for compulsory military service. The Ministry of Agriculture maintains and directs institutions for agricultural education and extension, and the Ministry of Public Health controls the reformatories and education of juvenile delinquents. The Ministry of Interior provides elementary schooling for its State Police (Carabineros), a Police School (Instituto Superior de Carabineros), a Detective School (Escuela Técnica de Investigaciones), and adult education services through its General Department of Information and Culture, which concerns itself with traveling theatrical companies, sports and physical education, and the dissemination of knowledge through the press and the radio. Funds for public education are provided exclusively in the national budget approved annually by the Congress.

Besides the Minister, the chief officers of the Chilean Ministry of Public Education are: The Under Secretary (Subsecretario), who is the administrative head; the Directors General (Directores Generales) of Elementary and Normal, Secondary, and Professional Education; and the Director of Libraries and Museums, each responsible for the welfare of his respective branch of service.

By existing decree-laws, the jurisdiction of the Director General of Elementary Education includes all elementary, vocational, and normal schools. He also supervises the private schools that receive State aid. In this department of the Ministry are the sections of Rural Education and of Teacher training; supervisors (inspectores) of normal, vocational, physical, and special education; and general school visitors. The Director General of Secondary Education has charge of all public (fiscal) secondary schools (liceos) and all private institutions of secondary level which desire accreditation or which receive State aid. This department includes the sections of secondary school examinations and private schools, and that of educational research. It includes also the supervisor (inspector) of physical education and general visitors for the social studies, the humanities, and technical courses. The Director General of Professional Education directs industrial, trade, mining, and commercial education, and has several supervisors for this work. There are also in the Ministry of Public Education sections dealing with personnel, school accounting, statistics, buildings and grounds, and files. In January 1943, the Division of Culture and Publications (Departamento de Cultura y Publicaciones) was created for the suggestion, direction, and control of new methods of diffusing the culture in extraschool education through moving pictures, radio broadcasts, the fine and plastic arts, the theater, and the like."

24 Revista de Educación. Ministerio de Educación Fública de Chile. Santiago de Chile. No, 20, Affo IV, Abril 1944. p. 62.

Organization of education in 1945.-Chile's school system is organized in somewhat the same way as one of our State systems in the United States, although the National Ministry of Public Education has and exercises infinitely greater and more extensive powers over individual schools throughout the country than our State School Board does in the State. The public, government-owned institutions which provide a ladder-like progression from kindergarten through secondary school and the univerversity, and which at the secondary level include vocational, technical and academic schools that are largely terminal, are supplemented with government-authorized private and church schools at all levels. Practically all secondary schools, the public schools included, maintain preparatory sections which provide variable amounts of elementary education for their prospective students. Admission to vocational and technical (Arts and Trades, Mining, Business) schools is open regularly to elementary school graduates and to students who have completed two or three years of academic secondary education. An idea of the organization of Chilean education may be obtained from the following graph.