Francisco Ferrer; his life, work and martyrdom, with message written ...

His Life and Work. 33
1901, It soon absorbed and remodelled a number of the
schools established in Catalonia and elsewhere in Spain
so that already in the fourth year of its existence forty
schools have copied its methods and adopted its textbooks.
At the same period its influence had begun to penetrate in
other lands. For example, at San Paulo, in Brazil, at
Lausanne (Switzerland), and at Amsterdam, the books
published by Ferrer were adopted by the schools in those
places started on the principles of the Escuela Moderna.
When the cataclysm of May, 1906, occurred, about fifty
schools were actually in existence. Owing to Governmental
persecutions about a dozen of these institutions
were suppressed, consisting principally of the weaker
schools on Ferrer's list ; but newer and stronger institutions
sprang, phoenix-like, from their ashes. One of the
most notable of these was the Nueva Htimanidad at
Valencia, founded during Ferrer's incarceration as the
result of the enthusiastic labors of Professor Samuel
Torner. The school, which in December, 1907, had 150
scholars of both sexes and a list of forty fresh candidates
for admission—since admitted on the installation of new
and larger premises during the past year—was furnished
with all the latest requisites of modern hygiene and pedagogy.
The school was enriched with an ample collection
of specimens in botany, mineralogy, physiology, physics,
etc., specially obtained from Paris ; and provision was
made that each scholar should work at his or her separate
desk. The system here, as in the other schools, was that
of co-education of the sexes, and excellent results have
been realized by the adoption of the system. At Valencia,
as at Barcelona and elsewhere, the parents were participants
with their children in the beneficent work of education
provided by the school ; courses of Sunday lectures
by university professors on hygiene, and various other
branches of science, being organized for both young and
old. Furthermore, the experiment at Valencia induced
twelve non-Governmental schools to bring themselves into
line with the methods and principles of the school. Further,
Professor Torner issued on behalf of the school a
high-class illustrated monthly review of twelve full quarto
pages, called after the school itself, Hmnanidad Nueva,
which enjoys a circulation of 3,000 copies.
I have before me a full list of about fifty schools dating