The small volume by Víctor Gallo Martínez is an extension of ideas expressed earlier in his essay “La educación preescolar y primaria,” in México, 50 años de revolución (1962). Unlike recent studies by José Bravo Ugarte or Isidro Castillo, Gallo Martínez is not concerned with documenting the history of education in Mexico. Instead, except for a brief historical introduction, his intent is to outline postrevolutionary social and economic problems and to describe the relationship of Mexico’s educational system to socio-economic conditions. His basic plea is designed to convince the reader that governmental planning in education is desirable and urgent. As an exponent, albeit critical, of official educational policy, he bases his study upon governmental sources; for example, the records of the Secretary of Public Education, the General Administration of Statistics, and the National Institute of Housing.
Gallo Martínez contributes most when he critically confronts the magnitude of Mexico’s present educational crisis. He notes a vicious circle when he observes that limited monetary resources and maldistribution of wealth makes it difficult to finance an educational system designed to solve the socioeconomic problems of today’s Mexico.
Yet this reviewer cannot wholly accept the author’s contention that governmental planning commissions and the machinery of bureaucracy—expensive machinery at that—will solve most of Mexico’s educational problems. Not all human problems lend themselves to rational solution and, in addition, government planners often employ statistical data which may reflect economic change but which cannot be equated with social change and educational needs. It is also true that it is often easier to locate problems than solutions. The author himself does not suggest policies but instead elaborately characterizes the conditions and problems which the policy must solve.
One last observation should be made. Since the author relies upon “neutral” sounding statistics and “impersonal bureaucracies” which plan educational policies that reflect “socio-economic forces,” the entire essay fails to account for the role of the individual in problem-solving situations. Gallo Martínez ignores several important contemporaries who have contributed to Mexico’s educational policies, not the least of them, Jaime Torres Bodet.
Torres Bodet, like many public educators of Mexico, has excelled in several areas of human conduct. In the 1920s he, along with Alfonso Reyes and others, helped to pioneer the creacionismo movement in poetry. By 1941 Torres Bodet had published seven volumes of collected novels and stories. As a public servant Torres Bodet has been both a member of the Mexican legation in Madrid and more recently Mexico’s ambassador to France. From 1948 to 1952 his international prestige was enhanced by the cultural reforms which he promoted as General Director of UNESCO. Primarily, however, Torres Bodet has been an educator, and it was in this capacity that two presidents, Manuel Ávila Camacho and Adolfo López Mateos, entrusted him with the office of Secretary of Public Education. Mexico’s current attempt to expand primary education (the Plan de Once Años) and wipe out illiteracy is due in large part to the efforts of Torres Bodet. Because of these many achievements and because of the self-sacrificing spirit of the man, fifteen educators, scholars, and intellectuals have attempted to sketch the man’s life, contributions, and ideas in Jaime Torres Bodet en quince semblanzas.
It would be rare indeed if a volume of this nature involving so many writers could emerge without basic weaknesses and maintain a unitary thread. An obvious shortcoming of this work is the repetition of ideas, and on occasion, even direct quotations (cf. pp. 105 & 128). Perhaps a certain overlapping of themes is to be expected, but more disconcerting is the tendency of the writers to rely entirely upon sympathetic imagination and personal memories rather than factual documentation in their evaluation of the man and his work.
But it would not be fair to criticize the book and question its value simply on the basis of the contributor’s lack of objectivity. These writers, scholars in their own right, make no pretensions to objectivity. The volume is nothing other than a tribute to the man and his ideas by his colleagues and friends. These are not words written in homage to the man as poet, or writer, or even as educator, but as a public testimony to Torres Bodet’s humanistic spirit. The object of their writing is Torres Bodet as Humanist, i.e., the Renaissance man who promotes the study of humanity in its many facets, and whose attitudes and mode of thought center upon human interests and ideals. It is this abiding faith in humanity that the authors celebrate—whether humanity be the school children of Mexico as interpreted by Luis Alvarez Barret or the indigenous peoples of which Miguel León-Portilla speaks. The theme is a spiritual one, and both Torres Bodet and his friends reflect it well as contemporary spokesmen for Mexico’s hopes and dreams.
