First it was a Boy’s school, later barracks and last a university. It was created by law 12 of 1873. It had faculties of Law, Medicine, Engineering and Philosophy. The skeleton of the English and the priest without a head. Gallery of Guanentino Rectors. Other teaching institutions which ended illiteracy.
Ten years ago, the illustrious writer and academician of the history of Santander, Juan de Dios Arias wrote a volume of more than one hundred pages (96) from which I extract annotations about the institute, once a university. The history of this university is linked to San Gil. Its existence was ennobled by sweat and tears of the ancestors of the town. The trajectory from a village to a city was vital and indestructible.
The Tunja Corregidor Dr. Eustaquio Galavis y Hurtado incited the Municipal Government of San Gil and the end of the eighteenth century to the foundation of classes of Grammar and Philosophy dictated on the southeast corner of the principal plaza in 1783, in the house of Dontildea Maria de los Reyes. The Class of Philosophy was directed by Dr. Jose Maria Martinez. The Chair of Theology was founded by Decree of General Antonio Narintilde on February 18, 1812. The First Chair of Grammar was headed by Isidoro Jose Hidalgo y Rivero on September 4, 1787 with a salary of $220 per year. The rent and furniture was paid by the brothers Diego and Manuel Melendez with a budget of $6,000. The Chair of Philosophy was directed by Dr. Martinez at a salary of $400 per year, as stated by the title dispatched by General Narintilde. Then, there was a rivalry between the towns of San Gil and Socorro to establish the Guanent College. General Francisco de Paula Santander, at the request of his friend Dr. Diego Fernando Gomez, dispatched a decree on February 3, 1822, which solved the impasse between the two towns. He gave San Gil the seat of the provincial college. It was a tough battle for the eminent Sangilentilde Dr. Gomez. After the mentioned decree, he had to ght a campaign in Congress against the pretensions of the Socorrano members who alleged a better right to the college. Fernando Gomez stated that San Gil had a better climate, money and personnel to meet the needs of the institution. He won. The first Rector was Presbyter Francisco Jose Otero under the protection of Saint. Joseph and Saint Peter, thus the name of San Jose de Guanent given also by General Santander’s Decree on May 22, 1824. The people of the province celebrated with jubilation. The municipal governments of Barichara, Zapatoca, Giron, San Joaquin, Mogotes, Onzaga, Guane, Aratoca, Curiti, Valle de San Jose, Pinchote and San Carlos del Pie de la Cuesta celebrated the Provincial College for the Sangilentildes. Due to the zeal and patriotism of Dr. Gomez and the Otero Family, they donated big sums, a library, other belongings and scholarships in favor of the College. The services were widened to accept students from Tunja, Bucaramanga, Mlaga, Pamplona and Venezuela. In 1825, the representatives Ramon Gomez, Salvador Silva, Jose Ignacio Martinez Reyes, Francisco Otero Reyes, Ignacio Martinez and Jose Ignacio Uribe, trunks of respectable Sangilentildeas families, obtained moneys from the central power of Santa Fe de Bogot for the nancing of the college and its future.
In 1824, the institute had a budget of $34,600. During the war, it went up to $61,000. Fifty years later, the President of the Sovereign State of Santander converted the college into a university on December 4, 1873, as annotated by Juan de Dios Arias The Decree of November 14, 1875 signed by General Francisco de Paula Santander and Lino de Pombo, Secretary of Interior and Foreign Relations, created the Chair of Medicine and Surgery. It was directed by Dr. Zoilo Villafradez. It was established that the medical students would practice with the patients and cadavers of the local hospital. From the Botanic Expedition, the Anatomy courses were established in Colombia. Half a century before, in 1802, courses were opened in the San Juan de Dios Hospital of Bogot under the direction of Father Miguel de Isla expeditionary and monk of the Hospitaler Community. His famous conferences and manuscripts were carefully kept in the ofce of the physician Miguel A Rueda Galvis of Bogot. They were inspired by the teachings of Heister. They were part of the Guanentina Medicine Lectureship, thirty two years later, in 1835. I observed some yellowish notebooks of anatomy conferences tied up with sisal thread in the Guanent College Library. They belonged to the unknown student Guillermo Pereira Gamba who converted the anatomy classes of Father Isla into good verses in the Nebrija style. Here is an example of the Neurology lesson: “The nerve is a white cable that starts in the brain and conduces the animal spirit throughout the body, to serve to its parts sensitivity and movement”. These were the lessons that the Guanentino physicians had to memorize, as well as the Royal Edicts to attack the epidemics of the countries discovered by Columbus. One lesson exists in the National Library from the Archbishop Viceroy of Santa Fe for the treatment of chigoes with hot olive oil and the application of the copaiba balm to the navel of the newborns. The students of grammar and mathematics also had to learn the lessons in verse. I presume that the medical students were knowledgeable in bleedings and intestinal purges part of the therapeutics of the time. Ibantildeez relates some good anecdotes in his Cronicas de Bogot . In them he narrates the incidents of the midwife Melchara and Favio Rotta. Of Don Favio I remember some verses written by a beloved disciple which states: “Favio became a physician to calm hunger he cuts the vital stamen of his patients. Let the authorities know that this is a serious business. Stop Favio’s steps or enlarge the cemetery”.
By the Decree of May 22, 1835, the then Vice-President of the Republic in charge of the Executive Power, Division General Francisco de Paula Santander, with the signature of the Secretary of Interior, Jose Manuel Restrepo, created the Chair of Law. The subjects included: Principles of Legislation, Philosophy and Political, Natural International, Spanish, Indian and Civil Law and Latin. I found a petition of pupils headed by Jose Alejandro Quintero y Buenahora to pay the salary of the Latin Professor Rafael Maria Rueda who had suspended classes for that reason. Later, there were courses of Universal Literature, Languages, Canonic Law, Drawing, Agronomy, Music, Engineering and Mathematics. The Lectures of Philosophy and Literature started with 107 students in 1873 under Dr. Narciso Cadena, benefactor of the University. There were many Guanentino professionals who left those classrooms, among them the engineer Abelardo Ramos, constructor of the famous iron bridge mentioned before, nanced by the Guanentino attorney Cerbeleon Patintilde and the physicians Jesus A Reyes, Jacinto and Guillermo Leon, the latter Director of Medicine. During the time of Rector Afanador, there existed famous chairs which backs had signs that read: “Long live General Obando”. They were brought in 1837 by the Rector Presbyter Pascual Afanador who was Representative to Congress, revolutionary senator, leftist politician and supporter of General Jose Maria Obando. The historian Joaquin Posada Gutierrez (97) with his dangerous and threatening style and veracity states: “He resists the malignant struggles to corrupt and demoralize him, which would have made impossible any social order and anarchy and insecurity would dominate over the Laws of God and men and even petroleum”.
In 1851, the Rector wrote in Pinchote a work entitled: Cartas a la Nobleza Sangilentildea (Letters to the Sangilentildea Nobility) which is a sociological document. The people’s character and spirit are exalted. The idiosyncracies and false lineage of personages of the town are described. Not the Sangilentildea society proper, but any like San Gil’s which renders a pagan vassalage to hypocrisy and prejudices. In Presbyter Afanador’s work, the described social stratus are classied in rst, second and third classes in Popayn, Mompox, Ocantildea, Buga, Cartagena, Tunja and all the cities of Spanish predominance, in the Republic, at that time. It is true that “Humanity descended from flint makers” as a Creole sociologist stated. During the times of Cartas a la Nobleza Sangilentildea, lineage depended on acres which permitted to live in the area of the city plazas. These people were “noble”, cultivated and virtuous they loved letters and spiritual things they had traveled to the old continent or studied in Bogot and owned a selected library. Few towns in New Granada had the San Gil’s social nucleus of Dons, white and handsome, as the King of Spain and his Court. The people of that time were jealous of their ancestry. Data of the National Historical Archives states: Salvador Plata, a wealthy man, neighbor of San Gil, whispered to someone that Juan Estevez, of lack of fortune, was a “Don Nobody”. When the latter found out, he made a suit to a calumny judge. There are twenty-ve les about this trial because the subject was of a “very noble lineage”. (98) Another subject had been carrying heavy stones from a public land for the construction of the college. Other people volunteered to follow him, and the Chapel “Santa Barbara” next to the old building was constructed. Later, these served as laboratories of chemistry, physics and anatomy. From that time dates the old furniture Guanentinos knew with marks, legends and initials of previous revolutions engraved by soldiers and revolutionary students. In 1871, there were lectures of calligraphy, calculus, algebra, trigonometry, accounting, geography, cosmography, physics, English, Latin, music, political economy, public constitutional law, Spanish law, botany and arts and crafts. In law, it was followed with much attention, the French Napoleonic Code, Vincio, Kees, Andres Bello, pandects, restitutives, statute laws, Justinian Institutes, edicts, records, Castilian, Indian and Ecclesiastic Laws by Murillo and Gonzlez. mathematics by Euclid and Wolo, Rueda’s accounting, Caro y Cuervo’s text of Latin and Martinez Silva’s history and geography were followed.
Another curious event is the following: When the illustrious philosopher Don Florentino Vesga was Rector in 1870, many books, including the Roman Index, came to the library requested by the ex-alumni General Santos Gutierrez, later, President of the Republic. Many students left the school angry. For this reason, Dr. Carlos Martinez Silva found the “Colegio del Espiritu Santo” (Holy Spirit College) in Dr. Antonio Martinez’s home. Among the professors were the mathematician Pablo Antonio Rueda and Miguel Antonio Caro, later, President of the Republic. Mr. Caro gave Humanities classes for four years. The Colegio Espiritu Santo closed after competing with the Guanentino Institute. In 1886, Manuel Silva Bantildes was Rector, an energetic and angry man. In the school’s magazine (99), a student described Mr. Silva, thus: “We have to give credit to this Rector’s energy. A man who has been able to reorganize the College after the war, when people believed in the ‘Sacred right to rebellion’, when youngsters vibrated to the sound of a military trumpet, when the games were reduced to combat with oranges, limes and other less harmful projectiles, when the spirit of violence dominated and even the most pacic child aspired to die above a barrel of powder as the Hero of San Mateo. Then, as now, violence was combated with violence. The Rector chose two formidable ferules, a heavy dark wood nicknamed “La canela” (the cinnamon) and another one of a yellowish orange color called “La naranja” (the orange). There were slaps to whomever would dare to disturb discipline, young and old, even the ones who would comb their beards. Dr. Silva Bantildes would make them kneel in the halls as a punishment for any fault committed. At the end of 1886, Dr Silva presented a lucid corporation of disciplined students whose brains bustled with ideas of progress, civic-mindedness and reasonable evolution to replace the dogma “Sacred right to rebellion” which made torrents of precious Colombian blood run.
“The slaps and the kneeling on uneven bricks, holding a couple of other bricks with the arms in cross, the quiet room and the memorization of the texts to the letter made the students to become aversive to the college and some of them celebrated its closing with rockets, noise and tumult”. The institute had to confront many incidents, due to political bloody struggles, revolutionary strife and the economical situation of the moment. Many rectors left their position to represent the people in the nation’s different congresses or to occupy high governmental positions. In 1895, its perpetual syndic, Leocadio Gomez, had to leave to the neighboring Republic of Venezuela because he opposed the conscation of the school’s real estate. After 1907, during the life of the Department of Galn, the college functioned ve years as a seminary, by contract with the Diocese’s Bishop. Later the building became a government ofce. In the meantime, the institute was in the Society of San Vicente de Paul’s property. Later, in this latter building, there was a school for teachers. They were the cultural foundation of the ladies of society of the times. Some of them organized the Sacred Heart College for women which I will mention later.
In 1890, the College’s Rector was Dr. Teolo Forero Prada. His son Camilo relates, in Cronicas Guanentinas, “The college had an English teacher named Beatriz Otero Frasser. Around this time, the college built 1500 seats and there was no house or public ofce which did not have these type of seats with the CG letters on the back”. On February 21, 1924, the municipality contracted the Brothers of the Christian School to run the college for twelve years. Soon, there were modern laboratories of physics and chemistry, an excellent museum of natural sciences, stadium and Olympic pool according to the most advanced La Salle Pedagogy. There were 400 pupils, and some of them, from other departments of the country, formed colonies. They were successful in many elds of knowledge and politics. In 1925, the official monthly magazine of the college, Auras del Fonce, appeared. The contract with La Salle pedagogues was renewed for ten more years. In 1928, the College acquired the “Quinta Guanent” located in the San Juan de Dios Barrio in front of the hospital of the same name. On July 20, 1929, the Bishop Leonidas Medina blessed the first stone of what was to become a giant building, but the expensive foundation became a winery and later a building for the Colombian Tobacco Company. That was the end of the Law 54 of 1928 which ordered the nancing and construction of the ancient Guanent College. In 1940, a bronze bust of General Francisco de Paula Santander, benefactor of the institute, built in its patio, was transferred to the “Casa de Santander”.
The new college was built over the panorama of the city, next to the Conciliar Seminary. In 1930 the Guanent Stadium and the pool served in the Fifth National Olympic Games celebrated in 1941. On February 15, 1933, the rich museum of natural sciences was inaugurated under the direction of the eminent French scientist of the La Salle Community, Brother Niceforo Maria, of kind memories. At the end of 1941, twenty-four of us became Bachelors. I did an apologia in honor of the 25th anniversary of the graduation celebrated in San Gil. After 1950, the college has been run by priests and maintained its national standard. Manuel Ancisar in his book entitled Peregrinacion de Plata, (Silver Peregrination) stated: “I found handsome, slender and intelligent students whom I observed during the examinations of literature, speculative philosophy, mathematics, English and French under the Rector Presbyter Felix Giron, illustrious and true patriot of uncommon virtues worthy of directing that interesting school which is the best ornament of the town”. Under the Rectory of the La Salle Community the Board of Directors were Attorney Raimundo Rueda Rueda, Luis Antonio Rueda and Rodolfo Rueda Pinilla as Principals, the Odontologist Campo Elias Franco, Jose Dolores Rodriguez and Alberto Silva Mrquez as Alternates. The following ladies excelled for their spirit of disinterested cooperation with the institution: Elvia Rueda de Camacho, Rebeca Rueda, Teresa de Rueda, Isolina de Rueda, Carmen Camacho de Franco, Margarita Quevedo de Silva, Elvia de Rivero, Emma de Gomez, Silveria de Laurens, Helvia de Gomez Silva, Carmen Silva de Arguello, Maria de Jaimes, Maria Jaimes de Garcia, Esther de Garcia, Delia de Gomez, Julia de Rodriguez and Romelia Rueda de Rueda.
Let us see now the complete gallery of Rectors of the San Jose de Guanent College from its foundation to the present:
Presbyter Francisco Jose Otero 1825 - 1826, Fray Javier Martinez 1827 - 1828, Presbyter Inocencio Vargas 1829 -1830, Dr. Gregorio Posada 1831 -1832, Presbyter Jose Pascual Afanador 1832 -1836, Dr. Emeterio Arenas 1836 -1837, Rudesindo Otero 1838, Jose Maria Martinez 1839, Isidro S. Hidalgo 1840, Eloy Durn 1841, Francisco de Paula Orbegozo 1842, Bishop Juan de la Cruz Gomez Plata 1843, Antonio Uribe Silva 1844, Presbyter Jose Pascual Afanador 1846 - 1848, Presbyter Felix Giron 1849, Domingo Pentildea 1850, Juan de Dios Navarro 1851 - 1852, Rafael Calderon V. 1853, Presbyter Ramon Rueda Navarro 1854 - 1858, Daniel Parga 1859 -1860, Donato Vargas 1861 - 1864, Pedro A. Castantildeeda 1865, Dr. Nepomuceno J. Navarro 1866 - 1867, Florentino and Antonio Vesga 1868 - 1873, Dr. Narciso Cadena became Rector of the University from 1874 to 1876. In 1877, the University did not function. Jose Maria Uricoechea 1878 - 1879, Dr. Angel Maria Otero 1880, Antonio Barrera Forero 1881, Dr. Luis Silva Bantildes 1882, Antonio Barrera Forero 1882, Vicente Parra R. 1882, Dr. Nepomuceno J. Navarro 1883 - 1884. In 1885, the University did not function and it became barracks. Presbyter Manuel Silva Bantildes 1886, Presbyter Rafael Forero 1887, Dr. Teolo Forero Prada. 1888 - 1891, Presbyter Aquilino Nintilde 1891 - 1892, Dr. Vicente Martin Pez 1893 -1894, Dr. Teolo Forero Prada 1895, Dr. Julio Solano 1896, Dr. Abdon Muntildez Espinel 1897, Dr. Juan B. Ortiz y Cifuentes 1898, Dr. Olimpo Jose Snchez 1899, the University did not function until October 1905, because of the Thousand Days’ War. Presbyter Luis Domingo Mantilla 1906 - 1907, Pascual Moreno 1908, Eliseo Martinez 1909, with the Presbyter Olimpo Jose Snchez it became a seminary in 1910. Dr. Roberto S. Gomez 1911, Luis Maria Cubillos Paredes 1913, Presbyter Felix J. Serrano 1914, Dr. Efrain Barbosa M. 1915 - 1916, Dr. Antonio Gutierrez Perez 1917, Dr. Policarpo Motta C. 1918, Julio Barrera 1919, in 1920, the University did not function, Dr. Manuel V. Mejia Moreno 1921 - 1923, Dr. Luis Alberto Castellanos. From 1924, forward, the Brethren were: Idinael Henry 1925 - 1928, Florencio Rafael 1929 -1934, Roberto 1935, Francisco 1936, Estanislao Leon 1938 - 1942, Arturo 1943, Daniel de la Salle 1944, Gonzalo Carlos 1949, Presbyter Marco Fidel Reyes 1950 - 1951, Presbyter Josue Gomez Parra 1952 - 1953 and Alberto Luis Barrera 1954. From Otero Muntildez’s Wilches y su Epoca, (Wilches and his epoch), I have extracted the Law 12 of 1873 about the creation of the University.
“The Assembly, with regional spirit, advised Dr. Otero of the foundation of the University, with a budget to reorganize the old Colleges of Pamplona and Velez and to deny help to the College of San Jose de Guanent of San Gil, glorious birthplace of illustrious men. Article 75. To authorize the Executive Power of the State, to arrange with the Municipality of San Gil, the establishment of a University. Article 77. To maintain the University, It is appropriated $4,000 a year from the State Treasury. Article 79. The President of the State is authorized to apply this law. Mr. Ramon Mateus from the San Gil Government and Dr. Felipe Zapata, General Secretary of the Sovereign State of Santander, whose contract is approved by the President of the State Dr. Francisco Cadena on December 4, 1873. This Contract was notarized in San Gil on December 21, 1873, and, later modied on May 18, 1874”.
Thus, the University became a brilliant reality and Dr. Narciso Cadena was the Rector in 1873. By special decree, other courses were introduced, trigonometry and agronomy.Would it be difcult to restore, some day, the University? In June, a deplorable event happened. It shook San Gil society as the chronicles of the time showed. It was the death of Professor Manuel Bond who drowned in the Fonce River trying to save an artisan. The University was in mourning. Funeral honors were decreed by the Guanent Departamental Chief, General Francisco Santos Carrentilde, and the Rector and the Vice Rector of the University made speeches at his funeral. Professor Bond was highly esteemed by the society for his competence and his character. The establishment had 106 pupils, of which 49 were residents, but this beautiful realization did not resist the revolutionary winds which blew sinister over the land shortly afterwards. It was an example of Santandereanos’ pride and energy during times when people were not cultivated but they knew how to impose their will intelligently. To nish, there were the Guanentina chronicles in the College about the break of discipline, such as the abolition of ferules. I will always remember the famous dark room of punishment with its correspondent skeleton to study elemental anatomy and physiology. There was the tradition that every night, a headless priest, would roam the principal patio at midnight. Many times he was seen, but the priest was no other than the playful Brother Salvador of the Christian Schools or an animal.. As Toms Rueda Vargas (99) states: “President Lopez did not know how to distinguish a horse from a Christian Brother”.
Those exuberant nights when in the company of Jose Benedicto Hernndez, Rafael Gelves, Carlos Orduz and others, who I do not remember, headed by Humberto Marin, we assaulted the College pantry. We would ll our packets with jam, cheese, sweets, apples, and other foods destined to the Brethren’s table. We would share the conscation religiously among the bosom friends.
Other bad pupils spent the night planning mischief while others learned by memorizing Latin declinations, the formula for the binomial square or physical laws, or, bombings with Shinola shoeshine clandestinely stored in the student Eduardo Ordontildeez Rueda’s trunk. Sometimes, the ones who were to graduate would tie up with a very long sisal thread, jars, plates, jugs and buckets which would be pulled at a determined time crashing to the ground with an infernal noise. From his cell, the reverend on call would come out angry to nd out from the “A” student, nicknamed the “whistle blower”, what had happened? Then there would be punishments for the entire week, “lines” which consisted of copying sardonic phrases hundred of times. These La Salle pedagogues, to whom I owe my meager culture, did not know the orange and brownish ferules. One of the traditions of this kind, when the illustrious gentleman Domingo Pentildea was Rector in 1850, is that there was someone in charge of discipline, who, according to Camilo Forero Reyes, hated the students. Then, there were a group of students called “the seven devils”. The devils obtained the disciplinarian’s key, soap and razors and shaved Don Domingo’s skeletal horse from head to tail. As a result, the disciplinarian resigned.
The Santandereano poet and jurist Jorge Saul Meneses, alumnus of the college wrote the institute hymn in 1937. The music was composed by Father Cosme Meneses. The stanzas state:
Guanentinos: Close your ranks and listen in silence a rumor…the rumor of the waves which spend time mumbling their eternal song. It is a song of wandering mermaids which serenades San Gil the smiling and august city that is a castle and garden. She copies the shakes of the stars and cultivates the flower of peace the one who speeds to meet time and progress in its triumphal carriage. Guanentinos: Colombia is looking at us, Santander, God and country trust in us. Let the squad advance that the future is seen at our feet. This is the song which would fill our chests with illusions. Those which life teaches afterwards how they fail.
THE COLLEGE OF “LA PRESENTACION” (The presentation)
The College started its existence in 1885 with 268 students. Since then, the flower of the Sangilentildea womanhood has been educated there, giving them the most rened social conditions and distinguished home virtues. The classrooms were next to the San Antonio Asylum, in a building of solid and ancient structure. It was directed by the Sisters de Tours, a community founded in Sainville, France, in 1684 by the venerable Maria Poussepin (1653 - 1741). The Archbishop Vicente Arbelez, with the Government of Cundinamarca, brought the Sisters to Colombia on June 21, 1873. Ten years later, the religious ones were in San Gil exercising their apostleship. The institute remembers two nuns with special veneration and affection. The self-denying Mother Agustina of French nationality and Mother Angela, a sweet teacher La Presentacion Sisters have a well deserved pedagogic fame throughout the national territory main cities. The following Sisters, in their order, have been Rectors of the College: Presentacion 1885, Agustina 1890, Francisca 1897, Angela 1899, Maria del Rosario 1903, Manuela del Carmen 1919, Ines 1923, Juliana 1924, Enriqueta Maria 1929, Mother San Avelino 1935, Sor Lucia Clementina 1940, Maria San Pedro 1947 and Francisca de los Angeles 1952. The College has a beautiful church. There, the liturgical service of the Community is celebrated daily. The renowned exposition, at the end of the year, reveals the artistic quality of the students. It is evident that life in the College of la Presentacion is under the holy fear of God and subtle strong discipline. The mischievous chronicle is rare, but the gallery of alumni is brilliant. The College is one of the institutions that the Sangilentildea Society is proud. THE OFFICIAL COLLEGE OF THE “SAGRADO CORAZON”, (Sacred Heart) Since its foundation in 1930, it has acquired the unanimous appreciation of the citizenship due to its ponderable studies in commerce, literature and nances. Its classrooms remember the teacher Elena Arenas.
Each year a good number of its students receive a degree in Commerce. Most of these ladies work in the city’s banks and industries. At present, the college has about two hundred students belonging to the most honorable Sangilentildeas families and neighboring towns.
It functions in a modern building in harmony with the commercial pedagogy. The Directors of the School have been: Maria Baron de Vargas from 1930 to 1931, Amelia Torres de Barrera from 1934 to 1936, Delia Riveros de Posada from 1937 to 1940, Crmen Amaya de Noriega from 1931 to 1945, Ofelia Garcia Serrano from 1946 to 1953 and Carmen Otero Motta since 1954.
There is also a technical exposition in this institution at the end of the year, which due to its depth and quality cause great impression to all visitors and students’ parents. There are about three hundred graduates per year in San Gil. San Gil is second to Bucaramanga in official schools graduates, and third in private schools, after Bucaramanga and Barrancabermeja in the Santander Department In this school, Esperanza Gallon, “Miss San Gil”, competed with Elisa Rueda the title of “Miss Santander” which the former won. Both ladies were the maximum flowers of the southern race. On November 11, she was elected the National Queen in Cartagena. Later, she obtained the title of Beauty Queen of Central America and Caribbean in Barranquilla in competition with international beauties. Another educational institute is the Art and Trade School. It was founded in 1891 under the auspices of the Society of San Vicente de Paul. It depends on the Ministry of National Education. It offers a three year course. Its purpose is to teach students the liberal arts, and it offers courses of mechanics, carpentry, cabinetwork, tapestry, electricity and metal works. The school was closed in 1899 as a result of the One Thousand Day War. The rebel troops took away the tools which produced its total ruin. After the situation was normalized, the Rector, Moises Berbeo, grandson of the Comunero, reestablished it with more instrumental and pedagogic donations. As a result, it is the only school of its kind in the south of the Department. Some students go to specialize to the capital of the Republic or the City of Bucaramanga. Well-known for their knowledge were the professors of 1899: Ricardo Luna of music, Pedro M. Hernndez of tailor’s trade, Fernando Olarte of trade of a shoemaker, Urbano Correa of blacksmith’s trade and Rito A. Caballero of carpentry. During the last years the institute has been headed by the Engineer Hector Cubillos, Don Manuel Becerra and the former Rector Manuel A. Gonzlez Ortiz. It is very sad to register the Santander Department, traditionally, as one of the highest of illiteracy in the nation, after Bolivar and Boyac. Fortunately, someone once said: “A valuable minority constitutes a majority”. This valuable minority saves the ignorant majority. They are not the Santander people who use shoes and ties, but those intellectuals of the country of whom we are proud, poets, writers, academicians, artists professionals, the university, the colleges and the academies. Fifteen urban groups exist in the Municipality of San Gil, ten rural and ve Parishes. There are two schools for boys and one for girls. In the rural towns, the schools of Buenos Aires, El Cucharo, Ojo de Agua, Macanillo, Alto Encinal, Palo Blanco, Tres Esquinas, Versalles and Vejaranas are open for business every year owing or not the teachers’ salaries. In the urban area, the schools Normal de Sentilderitas, the official college of women and the night school function. In 1951, the primary schools had a population of 1,065 students. This number has been triplicated since the Departamental Secretary of Education, Dr. Jorge Snchez Camacho has intensied the pedagogic activities of the Department.
We will pay homage, in this opportunity, with emotional gratitude, to Helena Forero, distinguished pedagogue lady who founded and directed the “Liceo Infantil” in San Gil, in 1928, where I had the fortune to complete the primary instruction. Today professionals and businessmen are the nal balance of the pedagogic system of that school of positive spiritual progress.