A History of Spain / founded on the Historia de España y de la civilización española of Rafael Altamira

by Charles E. Chapman; Rafael Altamira

The Casa de Contratación as a maritime university.

There were also various other institutions of higher education. One of them, the Estudios Reales de San Isidro of Madrid, founded early in the reign of Philip IV for the education of the sons of the greater nobility, ranked with the universities. Jesuit teachers were installed. This was not the first instance of Jesuit instruction in the peninsula. By their vows the Jesuits were obliged to found “colleges,” but this term meant houses for study, only in that the members of the order living in these institutions pursued investigations there. Gradually, outside pupils began to be accepted by the Jesuits, who soon won a great reputation for their efficiency as teachers. Their teaching was markedly influenced by Renaissance ideals, for the study of classical authors formed one of the principal elements in their curriculum. They devoted themselves to the education of the wealthy classes, leaving the field of vocational preparation to the universities. Apart from the Jesuit colleges there were various schools, both religious and secular, primarily for the study of Latin. They were in essence schools of literature, at which students were given practice in the writing of poetry and the reciting of verses, both Latin and Castilian. It is said that there were more than four thousand of these institutions in 1619, although their numbers declined greatly with the advance of the century. In addition there were many schools of a purely professional character, such as those for the study of religion, war, medicine, and nautical science. The school of nautical science of the Casa de Contratación of Seville merits special attention. Among the manifold functions of the Casa in its relation to the Americas was that of the pursuit of scientific studies to facilitate overseas communication, and this was carried out to such an extent that the Casa was a veritable maritime university. Mathematics, cosmography, geography, cartography, navigation, the construction and use of nautical instruments, and military science (in so far as it related to artillery) were taught at the Casa, and in nearly all of these respects that institution not only outranked the others in Spain but was able also to add materially to the sum total of world knowledge. Primary education continued to be neglected. The current belief was that it was unnecessary unless one intended to pursue a professional career. The education of the masses for the sake of raising the general level of culture, or even for technical advancement, was a problem which was not as yet comprehended. Such primary schools as there were, were usually ecclesiastical or private foundations. Reading, writing, arithmetic, and Christian doctrine were the subjects taught. Taken as a whole it will be seen that the number of teaching establishments had vastly increased over that of the preceding eras. An understanding of the superior facilities available for the upper classes would not be complete without a reference to the extraordinary diffusion of printing in this era. Although the publication of works was subject to various conditions, printed books fairly came into their own, for the first time in the history of the peninsula. A number of great libraries were formed. It is worthy of mention, too, that it was at this time that care began to be taken in the accumulation of public documents in archives. In 1558 Philip II founded an archive at Rome, and in 1563 made a beginning of the famous state archive at Simancas.

Neglect of primary education.

Great age of printing.

Beginnings of public archives.

Luis Vives and Spanish originality in philosophical studies.

The revival of classical studies, which made available the writings of many Greek philosophers whose works had been unknown to the medieval scholars, and the complex movement of ideas engendered by the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Reaction were the fundamental causes of the flourishing state of theological and philosophical studies in this period, especially in the sixteenth century. While this was by no means confined to Spain, the peninsula furnished its quota to the great names of the period. The philosopher Luis Vives (1492-1540) may be mentioned by way of illustration. Vives, who spent most of his life in Flanders and in England,—in which latter country he was the teacher of Mary Tudor, the later queen of England,—was regarded by contemporaries as a philosopher of the first rank, on a plane with Erasmus. Nearly a century before Francis Bacon (1561-1626) suggested the necessity for the observation of nature as the basis of knowledge rather than the blind following of classical texts, Vives had pronounced the same idea. Of importance, too, were his pedagogical doctrines, which profoundly influenced Comenius. The case of Vives was not unique, for the ideas which were later to be made famous by Reid, Descartes, Montaigne, Charron, and others had already been expressed by Spaniards of the sixteenth century. The common note in all their works was that of great liberty of thought in all things other than the Catholic faith, and in particular that of a reaction against submission to consecrated authority, which brought them into opposition to the slavish acceptance of classical writings so much in vogue among the Humanists. In so doing, the Spanish philosophers were only expressing their national traits, for the Spaniards have always been able to reconcile their support of absolutism in government and of the principle of authority in religion with a degree of individualism that cannot be found in lands whose political and religious ideas have been more democratic. Partly on this account Spanish thought has not received due credit, for, though there were Spanish philosophers, there was no school of Spanish philosophy. Furthermore, sweeping originality of thought on a universal basis was precluded by the necessity of subordinating all ideas to Catholic doctrine, while the philosophers who have attained to the greatest fame in modern times expressed themselves with independence in that respect, or at least without the preoccupation of not departing from it. That Spaniards were capable of originality within the field of religion itself was proved by the development of Spanish mysticism, already alluded to.

Important character of Spanish writings on jurisprudence, politics, and economics.

In jurisprudence and politics Spanish writers gained an indisputable title to originality of thought, of positive influence on the civilization of other countries. This was due in part to the continuous warfare, the grave religious problems, and the many questions arising out of the conquest, colonization, and retention of the Americas, but it was also a result of a natural tendency in Spanish character to occupy itself with the practical aspects of affairs, directing philosophical thought toward its applications in actual life,—for example, in the case of matters to which the above-mentioned events gave rise. Spanish jurists achieved renown in various phases of jurisprudence, such as in international, political, penal, and canonical law, in the civil law of Rome and of the Spanish peninsula, and in legal procedure. Not Grotius (1583-1645), but his Spanish predecessors of the sixteenth century laid the foundations for international law, and the great Dutch jurist more than once acknowledged his indebtedness to Spaniards, who, like Vitoria and Vázquez, had provided him with rich materials for the thesis he set forth. Among the writers on political law may be mentioned Solórzano, whose Política indiana, or Government of the Indies (1629-1639), was a noteworthy exposition and defence of the Spanish colonial system. In economics, too, the Spaniards were necessarily outstanding figures in their day, since the Spanish empire was the greatest and for a time the most powerful of the period. National resources, the income and expenditures of the state, and the method of the enjoyment of landed property were the three principal questions to engage the attention of the Spanish economists. When Martínez de la Mata declared that labor was the only true source of wealth, he was in so much the precursor of Adam Smith (1723-1790). Some economists expressed ideas which sound strangely like those set forth by Spencer, Wallace, Tolstoy, and others in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such as the following: that immovable property should be taken away from the private individuals possessing it, and be redistributed under the control of the state; and that society should be considered as having legal title to lands, giving only the user to individuals. Luis Vives was one of the representatives of these ideas. The principles of these economists found little support in practice, and cannot be said to have attained general acceptance among the Spanish writers on these subjects.

Páez de Castro and the new sense of historical content.