of education."

"The country will bless your memory, Senor, if you can carry out
the beautiful and noble ideas of your dead father," said the school
teacher. "You wish to know what the obstacles are? Very well. We are
now in such circumstances that unless something powerful intervenes,
there will never be any education here. First, because there is no
incentive or stimulus to the children, and, secondly, even when there
is an incentive, lack of means and many prejudices kill it. They say
that the son of a German peasant studies eight years in the town
school. Who would want to spend half of that time in our schools,
when the benefits to be derived are so small? Here the children read,
and commit to memory verses and at times entire books in Spanish,
but all without understanding a single word. What good can the sons
of our farmers get out of the school so long as this is the case?"

"And you see the evil; have you not thought out a remedy?"

"Ah, poor me!" replied the teacher, shaking his head, "a poor
teacher cannot alone fight against prejudices, against existing
influences. Above all, I would need to have a school house, so that
I would not, as I do now, have to teach from the priest's carriage,
under the convent. There, when the children want to read aloud, they
naturally disturb the Father, who at times comes down and very nervous,
especially when he has his attacks, finds fault with the children and
insults me. You know very well that under such conditions no one can do
any teaching. The child does not respect the teacher from that moment
when he sees him mistreated by some one else without maintaining his
rights. The teacher, if he is to be listened to, or if his authority
is not to be doubted, needs prestige, a good name, moral strength, and
a certain amount of freedom. If you will allow me, I will give you an
illustration. I wished to introduce some reforms and they laughed at
me. In order to remedy the evil that I spoke of a moment ago, I tried
to teach the children Spanish, because, not only does the Government
order it, but because it will be a great advantage for them to know
the language. I employed the simplest method, used simple phrases
and nouns without making use of hard rules, with the expectation of
teaching them the grammar as soon as they had learned the language. At
the end of several weeks, almost all the smarter ones in the school
understood me and were able to compose phrases in Castellano.