Heath's Modern Language Series: The Spanish American Reader

Heath’s Modern Language Series
BY ERNESTO NELSON
FORMER PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LA PLATA AND DIRECTOR GENERAL OF SECONDARY AND NORMAL INSTRUCTION IN THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC
WITH FULL NOTES AND VOCABULARY
D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY D. C. HEATH & COMPANY ——— All rights reserved

As an educational commissioner from the Argentine Republic to the Panama Pacific International Exposition, I was very much gratified to note the constantly increasing interest on the part of the High Schools and Colleges of this country in the study of the Spanish language. At the same time, realizing from personal investigation that most of those who study Spanish are prompted to do so by the present widespread interest in Spanish America as a legitimate and profitable field for American enterprise, I could not help wondering whether the reading matter used in connection with the study of this language should not be enlarged so as to include some discussion of the subjects directly connected with the work for which these students were preparing themselves.
One of the most amazing things in this country to the visiting Latin American is the almost absolute lack of anything like adequate information as to what the Spanish American countries are doing in the present, or what they have achieved in the past. This lack of information is particularly noticeable in the high-school texts upon History and Geography—not to mention those on the less common subjects of social and political economy—and is most lamentable of all in the text-books in Spanish used by the students of that language.
It seemed to me, therefore, that there was great need of and that the time was ripe for a book which, while affording the student of Spanish abundant exercise in the reading of that tongue, would at the same time give him some adequate idea of the physical aspects of the various Southern republics, their commercial and transportation routes, their agricultural and industrial products, the opportunities they offer for business and industrial investment, and the manners and customs of the people themselves together with their social and political creeds and aspirations, as expressed by their most noted statesmen and writers. It seemed to me that such a book could not fail to be favorably received by both teachers and students in this country.