The second department will contain four hundred scholars, who pay two dollars per month, or nearly five pounds a year. It is a model or central school for forming teachers and good professors; and these are afterwards to be sent into the different provinces, in order to fulfil the desire of our Government, which is, to place in every village throughout Mexico a Lancasterian school, a printing-press, and a chapel.
The third department will contain three hundred scholars; and these pay three dollars a month, or seven pounds a year. The object intended in this department is, to teach Latin, French, geography, and drawing, on the principles of the Lancasterian system. This trial has been made, but I am not sure whether it has answered or not.
In 1823, there were introduced into the Lancasterian school of Mexico, the lessons used in your school in London, taken from the Bible, without note or comment. Some old priests opposed the introduction of these, stating that it was prohibited to read extracts from the Bible without notes. The Secretary of the Lancasterian Association, Mr. Gandéra, a very enlightened clergyman, and distinguished for his virtue and zeal in the cause of religion, supported the opposite opinion, and succeeded in establishing in the school the use of these extracts. The consequence is, that our children are acquiring a taste for the perusal of the Scriptures, and they are hence learning to be virtuous, charitable, tolerant, and free. This moral education will promote the cause of religious toleration, and will effect that regeneration which our new political system requires. We cannot remain as we are; we must go forward; and, as said in Parliament by Mr. Canning, (whose name is dear to all our hearts in South America,) “we must go forward, and keep pace with the growing spirit of the times, and the great change that has been wrought in the opinions of the world.” This great change in the general opinion is, that nations can only be happy under the banners of liberal sentiments and true morality; that, in short, the combination of political and religious freedom is as necessary for the moral happiness of mankind, as that combination of the two gasses, forming the atmospheric air which we breathe, is to our physical existence. This vast plan of human improvement is the great object of your noble Institution, an Institution which truly deserves the gratitude of the world, and the most cordial support of all who are influenced by the love of their country, and the principles of Christianity.
[7] Though this letter was not written in South America, as all the preceding were, yet its evident bearing upon the subject in hand entitle it, perhaps, to the place it occupies.
[8] At [page 32], it is stated that religious liberty was publicly acknowledged in Peru, under San Martin. This acknowledgement, in Peru, of this sound principle of policy and of justice, certainly preceded the one here referred to in San Juan. But the circumstances were different. In Peru it was the single act of General San Martin, as Protector, or Dictator of Peru, and the people of the country had no share in it, whereas in San Juan, the declaration of Religious Liberty was a legislative act.
[9] This notice, I find, is mentioned in a preceding letter, yet I leave it here also, as I think the subject is not unworthy of a repetition.
[10] This communication, bearing upon the subject of education in Spanish America, will be added at the close of this letter. When this communication is considered as the production of a native of that country, a gentleman intimately acquainted with its concerns, and actually holding a high official situation under the Government of the most populous of these new states, it may tend to confirm the favourable accounts from that quarter of the world contained in the preceding letters.
The enlightened and liberal mind of Mr. Rocafuerte, and his truly zealous endeavours to raise his country high in political wisdom, in literature, in morality, and in pure religion, are truly praiseworthy.
FINIS.
Dennett,
Leather Lane, London.