Welcome readers to todays offering from The Philatelist. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. We have an interesting story to tell that asks the question if it can be too early to build a national university.
Todays stamp is rather a mess to look at. The paper is cheap, the building on the stamp is generic and the overprints with a new denomination are lazy. They also do not exactly give one confidence in the value of the local currency.
The stamp today is issue C248, a 1961 reprint with a surcharge on issue C230 orriginaly issued by Panama in 1960. This stamp shows the administration building of the National University. It is part of a three stamp issue in various denominations commemorating the 25th anniversary of the National University. There were issues with various surcharges into 1963. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether mint or used or which surcharge it has been stamped with, if any.
Panama came into existence after the Columbian Senate refused to ratify a treaty with the USA to give permission to build the Panama Canal. A greater Columbia had existed early after independence from Spain, but over time many areas broke off. Panama was the last area to leave but the history indicates that Columbia was not meeting the needs of the outlying areas of there would not have been such a rush to the door. It is something to consider before someone rushes to judgement on American interference.
Panama was ruled by a small connected elite that made most of their revenue from the Panama Canal, more specifically those in the country to operate it. Not much of this income made it’s way to the poor, mostly rural, mostly Indian population. At the time when the university was started in 1935, over 70 percent of the population was illiterate and a solid majority of school age children were not in school.
From these facts it is easy to see that the University was really to serve the elites themselves. At the time the percentage of college age young people in school was only 7 percent. Even today, with the large university having been in operation for over 80 years, the number attending is still around 20 percent.
Panama only started making strides reducing illiteracy in the 1960s. Getting the opportunities out into the countryside took even longer. The military in Panama eventually decided that government by and for the elites was not the best and in 1968 a coup happened. The military set a program of price and rent controls and land redistribution to help the lower classes. They also started working with the USA to get control over the canal. A controversial in the USA treaty was signed with President Carter in 1977 and now the canal is fully owned and operated by Panama.
With several smaller institutions of higher learning already existing and the ability of the wealthy to study in the USA, I think the national university could have been put off to 1965-1970. Doing so before served as a way to keep power and opportunity in the hands of the few. If the building on the stamp dated from later, it would probably be even uglier. It would have been a bigger accomplishment, because it would have extended opportunity to all.
Well, my drink is empty and so it is time to open up the conversation in the below comment section. Columbia is better off today than the territories that broke off from it, how do you think a continuation of a Greater Columbia would have worked for the people. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.