CiH.Vl. SOUTH AMERICA, 419 



improve so much in knowledge, that they look on their 

 countrymen as savages, and take upon themselves the 

 appellation of Ladinos. 



1 AM very far fiom imagining that the Spanish 

 language itself has the virtue of improving the intel- 

 lects of the Indians ; but only, that rational conver- 

 sation with the Spaniards would lead them to a know- 

 ledge of many things : and consequently they might 

 be brought to a greater purity of faith and practice. 

 Whereas the conversation among themselves must be 

 very low and confined : and what they have with the 

 Spanish traders who understand their language, turns 

 wholly on traffick. But if they understood the Spa- 

 nish, they would daily receive new lights by conver- 

 sing with travellers whom they attend, as well as from 

 the inhabitants of the cities, their masters, the priests, 

 the corregidors, and others ; and thus become more 

 industrious and tractable, and acquainted with the na- 

 ture of things of which before they had not so much 

 as an idea. 



Are not the differences and advantages evident 

 among ourselves, betwixt a young man whose stock 

 of learning is his natural language, and him who is 

 acquainted with others? What a superiority of know- 

 ledge, discernment, and facility in the latter! Hence 

 we may form some idea of the abject state of the hu- 

 man mind, among rude country people, who cannot 

 exchange a word with a stranger, and never stir out 

 of their village : whereas, when any one happens to go 

 to a neighbouring town, he returns home with en- 

 larged knowledge, and entertains all the village with 

 his narratives : but if he had not understood the 

 language spoken in it, he would have been little the 

 better, nor able to relate the strange things he saw 

 and heard. This is the very case of the Indians ; and 

 I am of opinion, that to teach them the Spanish 

 tongue would be the best means of improving their 

 reason, and consequently ot makuig them better 



K e 8 members 



