The Intellectual Background of the 1918 University Reform in Argentina

Abstract

IN 1918 THE Argentine University of Cordoba inaugurated a set of reforms which became one of the most significant developments in the history of Latin American education and student politics. The Cordoba Reform produced a renovation and reorganization of universities not only in the Plata area, but also throughout most of Latin America. Furthermore, the events of 1918 made Argentina's university students an important political force in the Republic and established models of student expression and action which have persisted into the 1960s. Also, the student leaders of the 1918 movement eventually became important members of the nation's political and intellectual leadership. Finally, there emerged from the reform a philosophy concerning social, economic, and political issues which characterized student thinking in Argentina for several decades. The students who carried out the reform were influenced by many factors-internal changes in Argentina's economic and political structure, developments in Europe and Latin America, the conditions of the universities themselves, and the current of new ideas prevalent in the Republic during the first decades of the twentieth century. The purpose of this paper is to examine particularly the intellectual background out of which the university reform developed. More specifically it will focus on two principal arguments: 1) that the prevailing intellectual climate in Argentina in the two decades prior to the Cordoba movement had a significant impact upon the Argentine university students in their actions and thoughts of 1918; and 2) that although the reform was initiated and carried out almost solely by the students themselves, with little aid or encouragement from the faculty, several prominent intellectuals served as maestros de la juventud, providing inspiration and stimulation for the students. Because the protagonists of the 1918 reform in some ways intended their movement to improve the quality of Argentina's uni-