The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1912-08-31
THE LATIN REPUBLICS
Far Ahead of the United States in
Education and Culture.

Lima is not only remarkable for
it's churches and saints, it is also dis
tinguished for it's schools and schol-
ars. Here is found the oldest univer-
sity of the New World, that of San
Marcis. It was established in 1851,
fifty-six years before the English set
tiers landed in jamestown; fifty-eight
years before Hudson sailed into the
Bay of New York, and sixty-nine years
before the Mayfower touched the
shores of New England"
This quotation, says America" is
taken from an excellent book on
South America, entitled "Along the
Andes and Down the Amazon" by H.
J. Mozans, Phi. D., the perusal of
which should lenghten the intellectual
reach of many of our countrymen.
With the common run of Protestant
authors, who in the last century es-
sayed to treat of Mexican or South
American history, "illiterate Latins"
is phrase quite as common as Span
ish greed" or ''Romish superstition"
Yet not only in Peru do we find uni
FCA0 Oily Al CAO hAOOAO VI
the sixteenth century, but in New
Granada also, Mr.. Mozans points out.
For Archbishop Torres had the "Col-
legio del Rosario" started in 1868,
seventy-three years before Harvard
was even thought of. Zeal for educa-
ton was so common, indeed, among
the Catholics of Colombia that there
were some two dozen colleges thriving
there under the kings of Spain.
Hand in hand with the South Amer
lean churchman's enthusiasm for learn
ing went his interest in books and
printing. To the Jesuits of Peru be-
longs the honor of publishing the first
work to be printed south of Mexico.
1t was catechism, which they issued
at JUL, on Lake Titicaca, in 1877. In
Lima during the seventeenth century
more than four hundred works were
printed, and circle of colonial au-
thors was formed, who in many cases
used Spanish that rivalled in elegance
that of the classic writer's over the
sea. F'The Christiada," for instance,
an epic poem by Fray Diego de Ojeda,
has passages in it, says Quintana,
equal to Homer or Dante, while Sor
Francisco Josefa de la Conception, a
nun of Tungo, was prose writer who,
''by her purity of language and deli
cacy of sentiment, is entitled to rank
with distinguished ornaments of the
cloister like Sor Juana Ines de la
Cruz, of Mexico; Sor Maria de Geo,
of Portugal; Sor Gregoria de Santa
Teresa, of Seville, and Sor Ana de
San Jeronimo, of Granada, Spain.
Mention should also be made of Padre
Juan de Castellanos, who wrote in
i verse valuable history. Indeed, many
of the chronicles of the Spanish con-
quest are in metrical form.
Another book that those who speak
contemputously of the 'Illiterate Lat
ms could read with profit is Charles
; F. Lummis' 1.-THE Awakening eof a
Nation; Mexico of Today" "It has
pleased that certain class of histori
ans" he observes, whose emotions
swell with distance and the dark, to
depict the Spaniard as having destroy
|, ed some Utopian civilization of the
Aztecs and replaced it with his infer
ior own. To this amiable freak oil
prejudice and the armchair there is
but one competent answer-go and
: see."
/ This, Mr.. Lummis did, and theI
published most interesting account
of what he had observed and learned
i during his sojourn in Mexico. He
. found "the largest, noblest Christian
/ church in America" standing on thu
spot where five hundred captives 1