The rural schools that fought illiteracy

PalmaAt the beginning of the 20th century, the Balearic Islands had nearly 370,000 inhabitants. Of these, about 300,000 lived in Mallorca and about 100,000 were gathered in Palma. They were one of the communities with the highest illiteracy rate. 77% of the population could neither read nor write – in the case of women, the figure was higher. It was from 1926 onwards, with the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, that a plan for the construction of educational infrastructure was devised to reverse the situation. The majority of those that existed at the time occupied old buildings reused as schools and had pitiful conditions of light and sanitation.

In the Islands, the one who demanded more educational centers was the inspector from Felanitx, Joan Capó (1888-1952), who in 1918 had already been one of the founders in Palma of the Provincial Pedagogical Museum to promote pedagogical innovation. He was inspired by the Institución Libre de Enseñanza in Madrid (1876). On June 10, 1926, he summoned to the museum the mayors of all the municipalities of the Archipelago, the political leadership, and representatives of the educational community. He proposed the construction of 323 new schools. “We are –he recalled– the most neglected province [in this area]. In general, there is one school for every 700 inhabitants. In the Balearic Islands, it turns out to be one for every 1,400 […]. At these moments when the budgets are being prepared, we must raise our voice”.

The school architect

Encouraging Capó at that event was the Palma native Guillem Forteza (1892-1943), who since 1921 had been the state architect for school constructions in the Balearic Islands. He took great account of the pedagogical innovation currents prevailing in Europe that called for more 'friendly' centers for learning. Throughout his career, Forteza would design 112 educational centers in both urban and rural areas: 20 in Palma and 87 in the rest of Mallorca, 12 in Ibiza, 1 in Formentera, and 2 in Menorca. His majestic graduated schools were highly acclaimed, so called because they grouped students into three grades based on age. With enormous windows and wide corridors, they were articulated around a courtyard through which light entered. The first one he built was the one in Son Sardina, in 1922.

In 1926, amidst that educational fervor, Forteza was requested by many town councils. They wanted schools for the children of a significant sector of the island's population that lived scattered in the countryside. These were the well-known rural schools. They were single-unit centers, where all the children used the same space, without gradation of levels, ages, or distinction of sexes. Attached to one side, they also had a dwelling for the teacher. The State usually financed 20% of the works, while the rest was assumed by the councils –in some cases, the neighbors organized themselves to make up for the lack of funding.

Manacor is the municipality of Mallorca where the most rural schools were built. The Association of Friends of the Museum has inventoried 37 of them. In this category, there are not only the official ones, but also those that were improvised in private houses and those that the City Council enabled in a specific place with the hiring of a teacher. In the capital of the Llevant, Forteza designed four, with even more austere lines although just as bright: those of Puig de l’Anar, S’Espinagar, Son Negre, and Sa Murtera. All of them were inaugurated around 1930.

Rural schools were also a priority for the Second Republic (1931-1936), which created the Pedagogical Missions project to bring education to the most isolated villages. In this new stage, many centers that had already been projected during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera were inaugurated. Then, Forteza's architectural model was implemented in the countryside of other municipalities. In Felanitx, six centers stood out: those of Portocolom, Son Mesquida, Son Valls-Son Calderó, Son Proenç, Cas Concos, and el Carritxó. In Inca, those of Can Tirasset and Can Boquesta. And in Campos, those of el Palmer and Can Estela (Son Catlar). Menorca is the island where this educational initiative is most present in the popular imagination. Its history can be traced in the book Les escoles rurals 'oblidades de Menorca’ (S’Auba, 2020), by Adolf Sintes.

Without Mallorcan folktales

In Manacor, however, the elderly also keep many anecdotes from those years of slow life and contact with nature. Margalina Fullana, 90 years old, sees her face light up when she talks about her ‘school Arcadia’. “I,” she asserts, “was born in Son Forteza, near Cala Varques, where my parents worked as farmers. From the age of 8, I went to S’Espinagar. It was a half-hour walk away. We had a split schedule, until around four in the afternoon. So as not to have to go home for lunch, I would take some food with me, generally an omelet and bread with sobrassada or cheese.” In the midst of the Franco regime, that large classroom in the middle of the countryside was mixed, albeit with conditions. “There were about twenty of us students, of various ages. The girls sat on one side and the boys on the other. We never mixed, not even at recess. We weren't interested in the boys' games.” That bucolic environment did not escape the ideology of the time either. “At the end of classes, they always made us sing the Cara al sol”.

Teachers also had to follow the regime's instructions, which had already taken charge of 'purging' those who had been loyal to the Republic. “For a year and a half –Fullana asserts– I had a teacher who cried out in horror when she saw that we had been given copies of Father Alcover's folktales. She took them away from us immediately. She told us we could not read in ‘Mallorcan’. And to think she was quite Mallorcan herself, from Manacor. I loved the folktales and it pained me deeply. At home, on rainy days, while the whole family cut broad beans in the attic, our parents always told them to us and I was very eager to learn more”.

The good atmosphere among the students compensated for that stifling pedagogy. “At S'Espinagar I made very good friends. At 14, I had to leave school to go help my parents. My mother, however, did not want me to stop studying. So she hired a teacher for my siblings and me who came to the house some evenings, when we had already finished all the chores. I learned more with this man than during the five years at the rural school. Even my mother sat with us to study. My father, on the other hand, never knew how to read or write”.

“Here we will speak in Spanish”

Biel Veny, 81 years old, also went to S’Espinagar. “We had one book –he points out– for all subjects. I hold a great memory of the teacher Carlos Gómez. He was from Manacor, where today he has a street dedicated to him. He was quite kind, you could tell he really liked teaching. I came from the nuns' place in town, who were very rigid”. Another student from S’Espinagar was Llorenç Pascual, 79 years old. “From our farm to the school there were four kilometers. On the way I used to meet other classmates and we would chat about our things. On the days it rained we would all arrive soaked to class”.

Magdalena Galmés, 81, also enjoys evoking her childhood in Sa Murtera, the other large rural school in Manacor. “From home, the walk took half an hour. In winter, however, it took us an hour, since we had to take a detour to avoid going through the plowed fields. It was a mixed center, but in the morning the girls went and in the afternoon, the boys.” She had a teacher from Madrid. “Her husband was a soldier and had been assigned to Manacor. The first thing she told us was: ‘Here, Spanish will be spoken. Then, outside, you can speak whatever you want.’ She treated us very well. I never saw her hit anyone.”

Decline and reconversion

In the mid-70s, with a peasantry already succumbing to the boom of tourism, rural schools began to close. The path, however, had already been laid out by the 1970 General Education Law, which imposed the transfer of students to graduated schools in urban centers. The passage of time condemned to abandonment those ancient temples that brought culture to the children of the countryside. In Manacor, starting in the year 2000, some of those that Forteza designed at the end of the twenties underwent a restoration plan for public use. Today they are used for meetings, workshops, and various recreational activities. The same happened in other places.

Since the mid-80s, the Balearic Government recovered the philosophy of the old rural schools with the launch, in the middle of nature, of the well-known learning camps. Throughout the Archipelago there are eight with the possibility for students to stay overnight. Four are in Mallorca: Binifaldó (Escorca) –it was the first one inaugurated in 1985–, Es Palmer (Campos) –enabled in an old rural school–, Orient (Bunyola) and Son Ferriol (Palma). In Menorca there are two: Es Pinaret (Ciutadella) and Far de Cavalleria (es Mercadal); in Ibiza, one (Sant Vicent de sa Cala), and in Formentera, another one (Sant Francesc). All are managed by the Department of Education and University.