South American Universities

But what about the other American universities? We are always apt to forget that the biggest universities in the New World are south of Panama. The universities of Spain were based on the student universities of Italy—(Spanish student rectors had to pay for a bull fight as well as a banquet when they were elected to office! So that even at the time of Christopher Columbus, there were no student rectors left in Spain.) The Spanish kings took Spanish traditions to the New World and founded new universities such as that in Lima, Peru, which is nearly 200 years older than Harvard.

Some of the universities of Latin America still pride themselves on the fact that their traditions derive directly from medieval Spain and that they were only slightly influenced by Napoleon Bonaparte's reforms of the University of Madrid. Most of them are professional schools. Many of them are enormous. The University of Buenos Aires has nearly 80,000 students, about two-thirds of who are reading law. The ancient professions attract all the best students and no one wants to qualify for a career in industry. Few students, few professors, and few universities expect to play any part in the economic development of the country.

I think that only two per cent of the students of Buenos Aires are studying agriculture upon which the prosperity of the country depends; a few years ago, there were only two students of geology in the whole University, which is the largest university in a country whose mineral wealth is probably vast and is totally unknown.

There are virtually no student grants. Many of the students spend years in university before they finally abandon their academic career and leave without a degree. Many professors still regard their chairs as sinecures which give a man a salary, but require little or nothing of him in return. Professors in Oxford and Cambridge and Anglican Bishops had the same idea 100 years ago. Many professors in Europe seem to have the same opinion today. 150 years ago, Talleyrand was Bishop of Autun—and Foreign Secretary of France. He visited his diocese only once—to persuade the chapter to vote for a friend in a parliamentary election. Members of the Italian cabinet hold chairs in the University of Rome—but never lecture there. Too many part-time professors are bad, but absentee professors are worse.

Students have a most important part to play in the administration of all universities in South America. They are represented on all committees which appoint professors and senior staff. Students have vetoed a man whose standards were higher than those to which they were accustomed and who might make it more difficult to pass examinations. Sometimes they veto a man who wants to change the syllabus and stop them using their fathers' lecture notebooks.

On the other had, sometimes it has been the student representatives who insisted that scholars of distinction should be chosen rather than men whose claims were based on family influence or political pressure. I once heard the vice-chancellor of a large university in Latin America describe a novel and very courageous experiment which his university had initiated. They were allowing their students to read books for the first time in the history of the university. Apparently many universities fear that if their students have independent access to primary sources of information they will lose their confidence in the infallibility of the professoriat. No wonder some students are restless!

Much of Latin America is under the control of military dictatorships, and many universities have page break become centres of political unrest. They are, perhaps, the only places in the country in which free discussion is possible and from which political reform can emanate, and for this reason they are feared and mistrusted by governments.