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Show 132 Objections to this latter plan are analyzed as well as the position taken by those who consider it advisable, pedagogically and psychologically. Following, Dr. Comas briefly reviews the solution of this problem in several countries: Indonesia, Philippine Islands, Pakistan, Burma, New Zealand, African Territories under colonial regime, Lybia, Haiti, United States, Guatemala and Bolivia. He concludes this second part with some remarks on the conclusions arrived at by the Commission of Experts appointed by Unesco in 1951, amply presented in the volume titled Use of Vernacular Languages In Teaching published also by the Unesco. In the concluding part the author recalls the resolutions adopted in this respect since 1944, in numerous Inter-American Congresses and Assemblies: II Pan-American Conference of Women (1924), II Inter-American Conference of Education (1934), VII American Scientific Congress (1935), III Inter-American Congress of Education (1937), I Inter-American Indian Congress (1940), Regional Seminar of Education in Latin-America (1948), II Inter-American Cultural Council (1951), Committee of Cultural Action of the OAS (1953), and III Inter-American Indian Congress (1954). All these resolutions favor the use of the mother tongue in the first school years to pave the way for learning the national language. 1957 Editorial. "El Analfabetismo Y El Congreso Por La Libertad De La Cultura," America Indigena, XVII No. 2 (April, 1957), pp. 115-120. Numerous and interesting are the considerations and recommendations put forth in Inter-American Assemblies, but frequently there are many which cannot be put into practice since the way to give them a practical and effective application is not indicated. For this reason they are the object of multiple and frequently mistaken interpretations. Indians and mestizos in thousands of rural areas could be taught to eat ham, fish, shrimps, and other foods which they have never tasted, but this does not mean they could be brought to consume them regularly because these are foods not easy to obtain in such areas, and even if they were, the people lack the economic means to acquire them. The same happens with learning to read and write, since this knowledge is static, passive, of small significance if the one who possesses it has no reading material nor means to buy " it, which, with rare exceptions, is the case in these villages. As |
