Such being the inauspicious account of the only college of the department at present in exercise, the schools of elementary instruction do not seem to be in a more flattering position, though official measures have been taken to diffuse instruction among every class of the community. To the credit of the chief of the department, commands were issued by him for the erection of schools of elementary instruction in all the provinces, with orders that proper reports concerning their condition should be regularly forwarded to the prefectorate at Pasco.
To these important subjects the prefect in the mensage, or report, to which we have already alluded, endeavoured to awaken the attention of the departmental junta assembled in the city of Huanuco; when it was declared that the method of mutual instruction, adopted in that capital of local jurisdiction, in no way corresponded in its advantages or results to the time devoted to it by the pupils, or to the hopes at first entertained of its higher practical utility as a system.
The failure implied on this occasion may possibly have been less the fault of the system than of those who offered to apply it; for it was remarked as very worthy the consideration of the honourable junta, that, in reference to many of the schools intended for the improvement of the indigenous or Indian race, wherein they were merely taught a jargon of Spanish which they could not comprehend, it were better for them to be left in an untutored state of mind than to be placed under the melancholy influence of such teachers as presided over them. These were represented to be so imbecile, and so unacquainted with the merest rudiments of reading, or so abandoned and drowned in vice, as to be persons utterly unfit to guide the mind of infancy and innocence into a proper path. The junta were therefore called upon by their prefect to appoint some better means of instruction, which might at once serve to improve the virtuous feelings of the individual, and promote the national cause of civilization.
HOSPITALS AND CHARITABLE ASYLUMS.
It is affecting to think that, notwithstanding the wealth of which this department is the seat, the sick and invalid in general cannot find a home or place of assistance under their sufferings.
In Huaras, as well as in Huanuco, there were formerly well-endowed hospitals, but these are now fallen into such decay for want of funds for their support, that few indeed are the sick who can be accommodated or relieved in them; and, consequently, those in charge of these once useful establishments are daily put to the pain of refusing admission to a great many distressed persons, who are induced to seek their protection in the hope of being cured of their ailments, or, if not, at least to breathe their last in the bosom of kindness and charity.
We are told by the prefect that an asylum or house of relief for the distressed poor never existed in the department: but, in his report to the departmental junta, he urges with an earnestness honourable to his feelings, that humanity calls for the immediate institution of establishments of this kind on behalf of the wretched victims of misfortune, whose very misery plunges them into despair. He also holds it to be a matter of public expediency to find a fixed home, and steady occupation, for those abandoned objects of compassion, who make traffic of their degradation and a boast of their debasement.
VACCINATION.
In the year 1832, it was found that the small-pox had just left dismal traces of its ravages in the department: fathers mourned their children now dead, or so disfigured and mutilated as to become unfit for the active business of life; the widow, too, wept for her lost husband, and the offspring of a mutual affection were left to feel the want of a father’s care.