Por una coincidencia afortunada para ese vínculo, firme y tenue a la vez, hecho de la substancia del aire y de la duración de un tiempo sin fragmentos, que suele establecerse entre el lector y el autor no conocido personalmente, empiezo a escribir estas notas al alño cabal, día y mes exactos, de haberse extinguido la vida espiritualmente rica y laboriosa del profesor Inman.

Lo llamo profesor, no exactamente porque hubiera ejercido la cátedra, sino en el sentido de aquella relación filial que la palabra posee con la idea mayor de maestro, relación, por cierto, nada frecuente hoy en las rutinas académicas. Maestro, pues, de formas antiguas, totalidad edificante, entrega de la inteligencia y el corazón a causas nobles y a discípulos contados más allá de la lista de clase.

In recent years, working cooperatively through the Council of Central American Universities and working vigorously, too, as independent universities, the five national universities of Central America have been carrying through a tremendous program of academic reform.

Five major movements in Central American higher education have worked toward the elimination or reduction of the traditional isolation of the virtually independent professional schools of which the universities have been composed. These are:

1. 1. The creation of university cities in which the various divisions are brought together physically.

2. 2. The creation of general studies programs of a year or more into which all entering university students are placed.

3. 3. The development of departments in the basic disciplines which serve the pre-professional general studies program and also tend to offer for all of the professional schools in the university the courses in these basic subjects needed in professional curricula.

4. 4. The strong interest that is arising in post-graduate studies, especially of a regionally planned type.

5. 5. The growing concomitant interest in research with a view that it, like the training of many kinds of professionals, is necessary for the social, economic, and industrial development of Central America.

The Redman, the Negro, and the white man were the three colors in the human palette of Nueva Granada. With these and their derivatives time has worked, during the course of four centuries, to create every possible mixture, blend, and shade of mankind, every human color possible without the addition of the yellow element from Asia. But the more important blendings were those of the white and Indian to form the great mestizo group of the highlands and of the white and Negro to produce the mulattoes who share the hot, sultry lowlands with the more pure-blooded descendants of the Africans. In the twentieth century the immigration of a few hundred Japanese, who settled in the Cauca Valley, has added the last of the major human types to the population of Colombia.

Desde Que en 1906 publicó en Madrid su libro Los negros brujos, Fernando Ortiz —tenía entonces veinticinco años— ha venido dedicándose, con toda la claridad de su mente, al estudio y a la divulgación de cuestiones sociológicas relacionadas principalmente con los negros. Con esa obra, inició él en Cuba el estudio científico del negro, por lo cual es el verdadero descubridor de los aportes del negro al proceso cubano de integración cultural, y el precursor del afrocubanismo. En tales estudios sólo le antecedió, en la América latina, Nina Rodríguez, del Brasil, y desde que el gran etnólogo falleció, Fernando Ortiz es el decano de los afronegrólogos del Continente suramericano.

Sao vários os geógrafos e cientistas sociais modernos para quem o determinismo geográfico não explicaria as atitudes econômicas, religiosas, políticas dos grupos humanos: conseqüência de complexa simbiose entre o habitat e as estruturas sociais. Essa orientação sociológica, antropológica, ecológica é, de modo mais específico que a dêsses geógrafos e cientistas sociais a de Gilberto Freyre, quando, v.g., referindo-se as questões concernentes à projetada reforma agrária, no Brasil, chama a atenáão para o fato de que, em país tropical como êste, constituí a monocultura latifundiária “urna verdadeira perversão do seu destino natural” (o “agrário diversificado”), devendo, a política social a ser seguida nesses países reduzir ao mínimo “as sub-áreas, puramente rurais, de monocultura” (outrora latifundiárias) e estender “sôbre essas sub-áreas atividades e populações, que de rurais passassem a urbanas” (ou melhor, de “lavouras imperiais” passassem a ser, “tanto quanto ecolõgicamente possível”, áreas de produção diversificada e de atividades mistas como as agro-pastoris). Se a técnica, —acrescenta Gilberto Freyre,— permite maior produtividade, cabe à “estrutura sócio-econômica medir o teor das necessidades humanas”.

Rapid Modernization is Latin America's chief development requirement. Its costs and benefits are central questions for educators, developers and leaders to ponder and help answer.

Among the requirements of educational modernization is the adoption of curricula more pertinent to new social, political and economic needs than the outmoded curricula most schools and universities still have. Curriculum changes must also be accompanied by the introduction of new methods of instruction, improved physical facilities and raised academic standards. Another immediate challenge to the effectiveness of Latin American education, especially of universities, is the development of ways to engage facilities and faculties in significant service to public and private development activities. Contributions of educational institutions to the processes of national development no longer depend solely on their capacity to supply well-trained graduates. They must also contribute to the formulation and implementation of research and policy in the applied fields of government and industrial development.

La nota de amargura circunstancial, ya observada, en Crepusculario (1923), el primer libro publicado por Pablo Neruda, proviene de la percepción crítica y compasiva de ciertos detalles de la vida chilena, tanto de la capital como de la provincia; la constatación amarga de músicos ciegos, mercachifles venidos de otras tierras, sucios barrios sin luz, maestranzas desoladas, y prostitutas deshechas por la miseria, se expresa sobre todo en poemas publicados ya en la capital.

“One of the chief objects of my administration,” Woodrow Wilson stated on March 11, 1913, after learning of political unrest in the Caribbean, “will be to cultivate the friendship and deserve the confidence of our sister republics of Central and South America, and to promote in every proper and honorable way the interests which are common to the peoples of the two continents.” Believing, however, that “cooperation is possible only when supported at every turn by the orderly processes of just government based upon law, not upon arbitrary or irregular force,” he wanted the Latin American nations to build their governments upon the same foundation of law and order as that of the United States. On the part of his own nation, he renounced, in his Mobile Address of October 27, 1913, the “Dollar Diplomacy” of his predecessors Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, and proposed instead a Pan American Pact to provide mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity.

Hasta los críticos más ardientes de la Unión Soviética han de admitir que las realizaciones de ese inmenso conglomerado de repúblicas en el campo de la educación pública han sido impresionantes en las últimas generaciones. Lo certifican los hechos y las cifras disponibles tanto en fuentes soviéticas como en las occidentales, al extremo de que la abundancia de datos numéricos al respecto hace más bien pensar en un exceso de “kremlinólogos”.

Por ese motivo fue con gran placer que acepté la invitación de J. Gvishiani, vicepresidente del Comité Estatal de la URSS … para la Coordinación de la Investigación Científica, en el marco del intercambio cultural norteamericano-soviético, para tomar conocimiento directo de la labor que realizan en Moscú diversas ramas de la Academia de Ciencias, particularmente el Instituto de América Latina. Habituado a estudiar in situ los problemas interamericanos —materia a la que vengo dedicando desde hace varios años mi más fervoroso empeño— traté de aprovechar al máximo la experiencia que se me brindaba.

In the Broadest historical and technical sense recognition in international relations refers to the acknowledgment by a nation of any change in a situation in a foreign country. The authority to extend recognition is an attribute of sovereignty by which a nation, government, or people fixes its relations with other nations, governments, and peoples, thus establishing or reestablishing a legal continuity which has, for one reason or another, been broken. Decisions on recognition are usually restricted to the recognition of new states, the recognition of belligerency or insurgency, and the recognition of new governments. They involve such questions as the following: When does a state acquire juridical personality and become entitled to enjoy the rights and incur the obligations of a state under international law? What cognizance can or should governments take of the domestic situation within another state? When does a new government begin to function formally in international relations?