Readings from Modern Mexican Authors

by Unknown

Rafael Ángel de la Peña was born in the City of Mexico, December 23, 1837. His early education was conducted by an older brother and his father. In 1852 he entered the Seminario conciliar, where he pursued the regular studies, including laws, making a brilliant record. From 1858 on, he devoted great attention to the exact sciences, particularly to the mathematics. For three years he taught Latin in the Colegio de San Juan de Letran; in 1862, he was Professor of Logic in the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (National Preparatory School), and was later Professor of Spanish Grammar, and, for many years past, Professor of Mathematics in the same institution. He is an excellent teacher, leaving a permanent impression upon students.

The writings of Rafael Angel de la Peña are didactic, thoughtful, and chiefly in the fields of language and philosophy. “His diction is chaste and correct; his style careful, pure, and polished; his form elegant, terse, and limpid.” Some of his addresses have attracted notable attention and are in print. Many of his most important studies were submitted to the Mexican Academy and are contained in its Memorias (memoirs). Rafael Ángel de la Peña was elected to membership in the Academy in 1875 and, since 1883, has been its Permanent Secretary. He is a correspondent of the Royal Spanish Academy and contributed upward of four hundred articles to the twelfth edition of its famous Dictionary. He is a member of the Sociedad Humboldt, the Liceo Hidalgo, the Sociedad de Historia Natural, and other Mexican societies, and an honorary member of the Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadistica. Outside of his important contributions to the Academy and to the Dictionary, his most valuable work is Gramática teórica y práctica de la Lengua castellana (Theoretical and Practical Grammar of the Spanish Language), published in 1898, which has called forth high praise from the most competent judges in Spain and in South America.

THE MEXICAN ACADEMY.

The Mexican Academy has thought well to begin the third volume of its memoirs with a brief summary of its literary labors and of the most notable events which have befallen it since the year 1880.

Perhaps someone may think such a sketch needless, since—the Academy living almost completely isolated, without holding public meetings or participating in those promoted by other literary or scientific societies, printing its productions very slowly, and avoiding publicity so far as it may,—it may be assumed that no one remembers it, or, if knowing that it exists, has an interest in how it discharges the aims for which it was established.

But, if such considerations inclined it to preserve silence regarding its internal life, it has nevertheless felt that it should make a report to the Royal Spanish Academy, as to how it has endeavored to respond to the high honor which that body extended to it, in inviting it to participate in the formation of the last Dictionary. It believed, as well, that it was under obligation to supply notice of its doings to its few devoted friends, who, far from relegating it to oblivion, do not lose sight of it, but stimulate and nourish it by the favor with which they receive its publications.

Already, in an earlier sketch, it has been stated that the Academy has, by preference, from the days of its establishment, dedicated itself to the discussion of the additions and emendations which should be made to the Dictionary of the language. It persevered in this laborious task until the month of August, 1884, when it remitted to the Royal Academy the nineteenth and final list of items for the Dictionary. The definitions proposed by this Academy were twelve hundred and eighty-five in number; of these, six hundred and fifty-two were accepted by the Spanish Academy, some with slight modification, and six hundred and thirty-three were not admitted, the greater part of these being our provincialisms.

It is necessary to admit that the harvest gathered is not large; but, though so scanty, it gave occasion to mature studies, and long discussions, of all of which there remains no other vestige than the brief notice recorded in the proceedings of the meetings.

It can be readily understood that, as the Dictionary invades the domains of the sciences and of philosophy, of the arts and industries, we were forced often to discuss topics so heterogeneous that the only points they had in common were the initial letters of their names. Thus, from the word Prostesis, we passed to study the word Positivismo, considered as the name of a school of philosophy. The mere exposition of this system and its definition occupied long and serious sessions. Equally long and exhaustive were the discussions of the definitions of one and another science, as that of Biology and that of Astronomy, or those fixing the acceptations of technical scientific and philosophic terms. Such discussions were often interrupted by dissertations and discourses upon points of Literature, Philology, and the History of our Literature. Some of these productions have been printed in two preceding volumes of the Memoirs.