ILLITERATE SPAIN.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 17984, 30 January 1924, Page 13

ILLITERATE SPAIN.

According to official statistics, 60 per cent, of the population of Spain ia complotcly illiterate, but it must bo borne in mind (says a -writer in tho "Ninotoonth Contnry") that out of the remaining 40 per cent, which ia enppo3ed to bo able to read and to write at leaat ono half can scarcely spell, even by helping itself with a finger or by a loud voice. Hundreds of thousands of children grow up without receiving the slightest instruction; in many smaller towns and villages no schools exist, or tho existing ones are in ruins. The Spanish, school teacher is tho worst paid of all Spanish public'servants; ho is living on a famine salary inferior to that of a rural constable or of a rural postman. Indeed, one may safely state that in no European country is public education in a more neglected state than in Spain. As to secondary education, the few existing State schools are of a rudimentary type, with only a few pupils, as most of the well-to-do families send their children to private colleges run by monks (Jesuits, etc.), who, of course, are above all concerned to breed good staunch Catholics devoted to the Pope, and in science only teach tho strictly indispensable to enable their pupils to pass successfully the Stato examinations, a thing tho monks generally achieve through the enormous influenco theyr wield in Spain. Tho Spanish universities, too, are far below the standard of modern high schools; most of the professors owe their posts to tho favour of the caciques, not to their personal merits, although thero aro some praiseworthy exceptions. The -'low educational degree of the masses is chiefly, responsible for tho prevailing all-round. corruption and made possible the rule of the caciques; it is quite impossible to run a modern Stato with a population whose educational standard is that of Turkey or Persia.