498 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 
truth is that all steady progress in Brazil dates from her 
declaration of independence, and that is a very recent fact 
in her history. Since she has passed from colonial to na- 
tional life her relations with other countries have enlarged, 
antiquated prejudices have been effaced, and with a more 
intense individual existence she has assumed also a more 
cosmopolitan breadth of ideas. But a political revolution 
is more rapidly accomplished than the remoulding of the 
nation which is its result, its consequence rather than 
its accompaniment. Even now, after half a century of in- 
dependent existence, intellectual progress in Brazil is man- 
ifested rather as a tendency, a desire, so to speak, giving 
a progressive movement to society, than as a positive fact. 
The intellectual life of a nation when fully developed has 
its material existence in large and various institutions 
of learning, scattered throughout the country. Except in 
a very limited and local sense, this is not yet the case in 
Brazil. 
I did not visit San Paclo, and I cannot therefore speak 
from personal observation of the Faculty which stands 
highest in general estimation ; I can, however, testify to 
the sound learning and liberal culture of many of its 
graduates whom it has been my good fortune to know, 
and whose characters as gentlemen and as students bear 
testimony to the superior instruction they have received at 
the hands of their Alma Mater. I was told that the best 
schools, after those of San Paolo, were those of Bahia and 
Pernambuco. I did not visit them, as mv time was too 
/ V 
short ; but I should think that the presence of the profes- 
sional faculties established in both these cities would tend 
to raise the character of the lower grades of education. 
The regular faculties embrace only medical and legal 
