Inicio minha conferência com urna interrogação: haverá uma educação brasileira ? Em que sentido se pode falar numa educação brasileira ? Parece-me que são necessários uma delimitação e um esclarecimento a respeito da extensão dessas expressões. Não há uma educação brasileira no sentido de uma técnica de ensinar, de métodos pedagógicos, do objeto mesmo do ensino. Mas, ainda que conservando objetivos e processos que são universais e, pode-se dizer, intemporais, a educação é um processo da vida. Destinando-se à formação do homem, a fazê-lo adquirir um modo de comportamento para uma atuação na sociedade em que vá viver, e a resolver os problemas que esta lhe vá propor, não se pode compreender a educação destacadamente das formas da vida social e da circunstância histórica e mesológica.

The history of Man is marked by recurrent autocratic rule. In fact, autocracy in its various guises is perhaps the most prevalent form of political authority in history. Latin America has suffered autocratic rule as has the rest of the world; but while the genus is autocrat, the species, caudillo, is almost unique to nineteenth-century Latin America (more specifically, Spanish America). To understand the distinctive qualities of the caudillo, as opposed to any other kind of autocrat, one must examine the historical matrix of nineteenth-century Latin America and the cluster of cultural values that at once limited and provided opportunities to persons in the society. The question becomes one of interaction between the temporal and cultural circumstances, and the variable of choice of action by men.

“This period [1928-1934] between the murder of Obregón and the election of Lázaro Cárdenas is most perplexing,” wrote one of the most perceptive foreign observers of the Mexican scene some years ago. “If it were possible to discover what had taken hold of the leadership of Mexico in those debased and clouded years, it would illumine much of Mexican history.”

What are the reasons for perplexity? Basically, they are two: that the events of this period do not seem to fit the generally accepted view that the history of Mexico from 1910 to the present day forms one grand panorama of historical evolution called the Mexican Revolution, and that the only explanation that has been offered of why they do not seems inherently improbable. The view that the Mexican Revolution is a coherent whole we owe principally to the Mexicans themselves and to sociologists who see revolutions in general and the “Great Revolutions” in particular as social rather than political events.

Atendência para polarisar dialeticamente as situações socio-culturais chegou a conquistar dentistas do calibre de Georges Balandier, que investiu ha algum tempo contra os estudos de mudança cultural e contra a antropologia prática ou aplicada. Este trabalho, embora não se preocupe com “choques entre civilizações”, tem como presuposto a possibilidade da mudança cultural e se contem nos limites da etnopsiquiatria e da etnopsicologia.

In recent years the foreign policy of Mexico has often been criticized in the United States. The reaction of Mexico to steps taken by the United States in Latin America—in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and elsewhere—has led to statements about Mexican foreign policy that indicate little understanding of Mexican mentality, history, and approach to international problems. Of primary concern in any attempt to shed light on the foreign policy of Mexico is the place of the Mexican Revolution in shaping the nation's approach to international problems.

The Mexican Revolution has had profound effects on the development of the country. Since the beginning of the Revolution in 1910, Mexico has followed a path to political stability unique in Latin America. The Revolution and its effects on subsequent Mexican attitudes have been studied by many scholars in attempts to learn lessons for the other developing nations of the hemisphere.

One of the most important developments in Latin America since the end of World War II, has been the rapid growth of all major cities, generally at a pace well beyond the rate of growth of the rural areas as well as the countries as a whole. The expansion due to normal growth (high birth rates coupled with declining death rates and increased longevity) is at times high. However, such growth has often been augumented sharply due to a seemingly irreversible flow of migrants from the rural areas. And among the many problems and difficulties raised by such migration, the very large squatter shantytowns are perhaps the most obvious as well as the most misunderstood developments that have resulted. Both popular journalists and academic social scientists have commented at length and in lurid terms about the "belts of mushrooming misery" and the "festering sores" which these squatter settlements supposedly comprise.

This paper posits the thesis that the age-old conflict between the agricultural and pastoral ways of life continues to be a major obstacle to agricultural and rural development throughout Latin America; and the same probably is true in many other of the so-called “underdeveloped” portions of the globe. A quarter of a century of professional involvement with Latin American societies has convinced me that improvement that is designated as “type of farming” in the sociocultural system is an indispensable part of the modernization of agriculture. I firmly believe that in most places it is of the utmost importance to combine both livestock and crop enterprises in a close symbiotic relationship in individual farm units. This definitely is not the case throughout Latin America, and this conclusion is exemplified by the fact that neither by personal observation, nor by reading, nor by questioning others have I been able to discover a single instance in which a farmer grows a crop of corn and then uses it to fatten his cattle for the market.

To say that the Brazilian scene has been volatile—politically and economically—during the past ten years is to risk an understatement. A mere listing of the presidents of Brazil during this limited period illustrates the point. It begins with the enormously popular— then and now—Juscelino Kubitschek, who represented the industrialization of Brazil and the move away from the coast with the decision to create a new capital in Brasilia. Then, the overwhelming electoral victory of Jânio Quadros—the enigma of Brazilian politics who had been such a successful Mayor and Governor of São Paulo only to resign the presidency after six months for reasons that still remain unclear today. Next came the then Vice President João Goulart, who was visiting Red China when he heard he was to become President. Although his powers were curtailed before he was allowed to take office, he served long enough to create an impression of corruption and leftward drift and the reality of almost runaway inflation—factors which led to the revolution of March, 1964, and the administration of Marshal Castello Branco.

The centennial of the birth of Manoel de Oliveira Lima, an event of December 25, 1967, was allowed to pass virtually unnoticed by the Latin Americanists of the United States. Outside of the commemorative exercises on December 13 at The Catholic University of America where Oliveira Lima taught during the quiet last years of his life, and to which he gave his celebrated library, nothing else was done to call attention to the anniversary of Brazil's most famous expatriate, its most effective intellectual ambassador in the United States, and its great historian.

La sociedad es la estructura formulada que emana de un modo particular del vivir en conjunto. De ahí que convivencia signifique connivir, vivir-con, es decir, vivir en compañéa de otros. Y como convivir implica tanto un lapso de tiempo como un ámbito donde pasar ese tiempo resulta que la sociedad habrá de requerir una locación permanente donde la misma se produzca. Por otra parte, para que la sociedad sea esa sociedad y no otra deberá poseer ciertos rasgos específicos que la distingan haciéndola única, es decir, volviéndola país. Y estos rasgos o actitudes o prácticas institucionalizadas en la medida que hagan sentido a todos sus miembros por igual configurarán el chasis donde la estructura social de la nación proseguirá una marcha articulada y sin tropiezos.

La atención médica es una de las áreas donde muchos han estimado que más cambios favorables a la población se han efectuado por el régimen que gobierna a Cuba desde 1959. Este artículo no va a entrar en un análisis de esos cambios ni pretende hacer un juicio sobre los mismos. Pero sí aspira a que la situación que existía anteriormente se conozca un poco mejor para que de esa forma el interesado en estas cuestiones tenga más elementos de juicio.

Es necesario destacar que el sistema de atención médica en Cuba hasta 1958 resultaba único, si se compara con los demás países de este hemisferio, por el predominio de instituciones no lucrativas que prestaban servicios médicos a sus asociados mediante el pago de cuotas muy modestas. Este sistema estaba tan enraizado en el país que aún hoy se notan amplios vestigios del mismo a pesar de los cambios que han tenido lugar.

Students of slavery and the plantation system long have realized that there were differences between the forms taken by these institutions in the New World colonies of the peoples of the Iberian Peninsula and those of the Anglo-Saxon nations of northwestern Europe. Several attempts have been made to compare selected areas of Iberian and Anglo- American plantation societies in the hope of specifying the nature of the differences. Unfortunately, these comparisons, rooted at times in the best techniques of historical and, in cases, sociological analysis, have focused on the Spanish colonies—and most often on the Cuban case—as the example of the Iberian pattern, arid the southern part of the United States, or parts of the British West Indies, as representative of the Anglo-American form.

During the past quarter of a century, Argentina has undergone a series of diverse political experiments. These included the rise and fall of Juan Perón (1943-1955), the military caretaker governments of Generals Eduardo Lonardi and Pedro Aramburu (1955-1958), the emergence and overthrow of Arturo Frondizi (1958-1962), the interim government of José Guido (1962-1963), the election and downfall of Arturo Illía (1963-1966), and finally the coming to power of General Juan Carlos Onganía. Onganía presently rules the country with no intention of loosening his control on the levers of power.

The Perón regime revealed a semitotalitarian tendency, an obsession with the building of new political authority and community. The Aramburu administration attempted to prove that the Perón regime was criminal and a destroyer of Argentine civilization. Ignoring the primacy of politics, the Frondizi government tried desperately to cope with the rapid economic development. Inertia characterized the Mia administration.

En los últimos días de julio de 1963, el que escribe estas líneas, durante una breve visita al Perú, tuvo ocasión, una vez más, de presenciar un cabildo abierto. Por cierto que el entonces recién inaugurado, ahora ya depuesto, Presidente Belaúnde Terry, se suponía iba a asistir al acto. Pero una avería en el helicóptero que le conducía le impidió llegar más allá del Cuzco. La ocasión de aquella asamblea, verdaderamente popular, era el elegir al alcalde y regidores de la pequeña villa de Chinchero, situada en plena Sierra peruana. Reuniones semejantes se estaban celebrando aquel mismo día, último domingo de julio, en los demás pueblos, cabezas de partido. Dato interesante es que las discusiones se condujeron en la lengua quechua, única que comprendían los asistentes al acto, en su totalidad indígenas.

The first English travel literature dealing with the western countries of South America is that which describes the exploits of early British navigators such as Drake, Narbrough, Anson, and others.1 These accounts, however, are mostly limited to descriptions of the coastal areas, and very little is included about the inland country, the people, and their way of life. It was not until after the wars of independence had been fought and won that the Spanish monopolistic barriers were fully eliminated, and foreigners were permitted to travel freely in the newlyemancipated South American countries. This was particularly true of Chile and Peru, to which countless Englishmen were attracted and were able to record their first-hand, vivid impressions of what they had seen.

Sumner e Keller afirman, em sua obra “The Science of Society”, que “os primeiros focos de civilização ocorreram precisamente onde as condiçães do meio físico se combinaram para favorecer o aparecimento de populaçães numerosas e o contato entre elas”. Foi o caso, segundo êles, dos vales banhados pelos ríos ñas regiões mais quentes do Velho Mundo —na China, na Índia, na Assíria e no Egito.

Também Ferreira Reis aqui categòricamente declarou, ao abrir êste Seminário, que “Nos trópicos, encontraram os europeus não apenas espaços físicos possuídos primàriamente por sociedades que não se distinguiam pela manifestação de culturas materiais e espirituais. Encontraram, também povos que se realizavam com a maior grandeza, seja no social, seja no econômico, seja no espiritual. O inventário de que já dispomos acêrca dêsses povos permite a certeza de que, muitos dêles, haviam criado áreas de civilização de que se podia ufanar a espécie humana. Foi assim nas Américas, no Oriente e na própria África”.