OUT FROM BOLIVIA

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19825, 30 December 1938, Page 12

OUT FROM BOLIVIA

A MISSION TEACHER COUNTRY PROGRESSING Since the settlement of the dispute between Paraguay and Bolivia the latter Republic, which at one time was looked upon as one of t'he backward ones, has: been making great strides in social and industrial advancement, said Miss D. M. Smith, who is attached j to the Bolivian Indian Mission. She is at present visiting relatives in Dunedin on a 12 months' furlough. Miss Smith has bean in Bolivia for five years. She speaks Spanish and the Quecuha native tOngue, and has been teaching in a school for missioners’ children in the town of Cap!nota, in one of the central provinces of Bolivia. Speaking of education in Bolivia, Miss Smith said that it was nominally compulsory and State controlled. During the past 10 years it ha’d made great strides in tackling the problem of illiteracy and now the percentage of literacy was rising steadily. Missionary schools catered for the native children but they had to conform 1 to standard's set by the State, the schools of which were modelled upon tire lines of those in the United States. (British subjects in Bolivia were very well treated, Miss Smith said, nnd near Oapinola were several British-owned ranches. It was the aim of every Bolivian witlh any pretensions to culture to be able to speak English, which quite a number did with great fluency.