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Costa Rica:
ALeader
in Uteracy
N
inety-two percent of
Costa Ricans are
literate, a point of pride for
this country of 2.5 million.
The Costa Rican literacy
rate is among the highest in
the world; in all of Central
and South America, only
Uruguay's rate is higher.
Good financing and high
teaching standards are
partially responsible. The
nation, which abolished its
army in 1949, spends about
one fourth of its budget on
education. Another factor is
that Costa Rica has virtually
no minority population.
Costa Rica, of all Latín
American countries, had no
large native populations
when the conquistadors
arrived in the New World.
When !he Spanish settled
Central America, they
developed !hose areas with
large numbers of lndians
first, treating Costa Rica as
a frontier region. In countries
such as Nicaragua and
Guatemala, the Europeans
taught their own people and
left the lndians lo their own
education. Thus large
segments of the population
remained illiterate.
Costa Rica was settled by
a mainly Spanish population
that did not significantly
intermarry with the natives.
When formal schools were
set up, the Spanish had a
largely homogenous group
F
or the first time in Australian history, women
~
outnumber men. For every 100 Australian tema/es
~
more than 15 years of age, there are on/y 97
.,
Australian males, according to family researcher
"
Brian English of the University of New South Wales.
~
Pork Linked to
Cirrhosis
consumption with cirrhosis, a
i
chronic degeneration of the
liver.
that could be worked with
easily. Schools in remole
rural areas have opened in
Costa Rica, and new
young-adult education
programs have begun for
those who were not
educated earlier.
Costa Rica 's educational
system now faces a number
of challenges, not the least
of which are the nation's
economic difficulties. The
nation, per capita, is one of
Traditional
Families
to Vanish?
T
he traditional family in
the Industrial World is
vanishing. According lo a
recen! report of the U.S.
Bureau of the Census, the
traditional household
the world's most indebted.
Also, economic troubles in
neighboring Nicaragua have
prompted probably more
than 250,000 Nicaraguans
lo settle illegally in Costa
Rica. Another 20,000
Nicaraguans have arrived in
Costa Rica as refugees.
Refugees typically suffer
difficulties adjusting lo new
environments, and this could
lower Costa Rica's literacy
rate. •
-one in which the father
earns the overall family
income and the mother
contributes her talents as a
homemaker for a family
including two children-now
accounts for only 4 percent
of U.S. households.
By contras!, the number
of single-paren! families has
grown 69 percent from 1973
lo 1985. •
O% '50
'60
'80
R
esearchers al the
University of Ottawa
have linked pork
In a study of 16 nations
with readily available
!
statistics for consumption of :.:
pork, beef, fat and alcohol ,
Changing
U.S.
Household
Sinc:e 1950 a steady increase in single heads
of houschold has been oocurring.
Dr. Amin Nanj i and Dr.
Samuel French found a
correlation between eating
pork and the incidence of
cirrhosis of the liver-an
even higher incidence when
both pork and alcohol were
consumed. No connection
was found between cirrhosis
and beef consumption.
~
According to Dr. Nanji,
~
writing in
The Lancet:
"The
~
mortality rate from cirrhosis
z ...
was directly related lo
per-capita pork consumption
in these countries [Sweden,
Norway and Finland). In
Canada the mortality from
cirrhosis in each province
also correlated with pork
consumption but not with
alcohol intake."
The researchers said that
the way in which pork
consumption "might cause
or enhance" cirrhosis
remains a mystery. Yet the
team concludes that
cirrhosis mortality directly
relates to the amount of
pork consumed.
Perhaps the researchers
would do well to examine
Leviticus 11 :7-8: "And the
swine . . . you shall not eat,
and their carcasses you
shall not touch. They are
unclean lo you"
(Revised
Authorized Version) .
Meanwhile, why not write for
our free article "ls All Animal
Flesh Good for Food?'' •
The
PLAIN TRUTH