Cuap. VIII. EDUCATION. 185 
scarce, for the rate of interest on lent money or overdue accounts is 
24 to 3 per cent. per month ; this is the same, however, as that which 
rules at Para4. The shops are numerous, and well stocked with English, 
French, German, and North American wares ; the retail prices of which 
are very little above those of the capital. There is much competition 
amongst the traders and shopkeepers, yet they all seem to thrive, if one 
may judge from external appearances ; but it is said, that most of them 
are over head and ears in debt to rich Portuguese merchants of Para, 
who act as their correspondents. 
The people seem to be thoroughly alive to the advantages of educa- 
tion for their children. Besides the usual primary schools, one for 
girls and another for boys, there is a third of a higher class, where 
Latin and French, amongst other accomplishments, are taught by pro- 
fessors, who, like the common schoolmasters, are paid by the provincial 
government. ‘This is used as a preparatory school to the Lyceum and 
Bishop’s seminary, well-endowed institutions at Para, whither it is the 
ambition of traders and planters to send their sons to finish their studies. 
The rudiments of education only are taught in the primary schools, and 
it is surprising how quickly and well the little lads, both coloured and 
white, learn reading, writing, and arithmetic. But the simplicity of the 
Portuguese language, which is written as it is pronounced, or according 
to unvarying rules, and the use of the decimal system of accounts, make 
these acquirements much easier than they are with us. Students in the 
superior school have to pass an examination before they can be admitted 
at the colleges in Para, and the managers once did me the honour to 
make me one of the examiners for the year. The performances of the 
youths, most of whom were under fourteen years of age, were very 
creditable, especially in grammar ; there was a quickness of apprehension 
displayed which would have gladdened the heart of a northern school- 
master. The course of study followed at the colleges of Para must be 
very deficient ; for it is rare to meet with an educated Paraense who 
has the slightest knowledge of the physical sciences, or even of geo- 
graphy, if he has not travelled out of the province. The young men all 
become smart rhetoricians and lawyers ; any of them is ready to plead 
in a law case at an hour’s notice; they are also great at statistics, for 
the gratification of which taste there is ample field in Brazil, where 
every public officer has to furnish volumes of dry reports annually to 
the government ; but they are wofully ignorant on most other subjects. 
I do not recollect seeing a map of any kind at Santarem. The quick- 
witted people have a suspicion of their deficiencies in this respect, and 
it is difficult to draw them out on geography ; but one day a man holding 
an important office betrayed himself by asking me “on what side of 
the river was Paris situated?” The question did not arise, as might 
be supposed, from a desire for accurate topographical knowledge of the 
Seine, but from the idea that all the world was a great river, and that 
the different places he had heard of must lie on one shore or the other. 
The fact of the Amazons being a limited stream, having its origin in 
narrow rivulets, its beginning and its ending, has never entered the 
heads of most of the people who have passed their whole lives on its 
banks. 
