FINAL ACT OF SECOND PAN AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS. 8 1 



The Nations of the world must needs be on speaking terms, and as 

 Spanish and English are at present the most widely spoken of any 

 languages in the Western Continent, the Congress felt justified in singling 

 them out by way of illustration, not with any desire to restrict the 

 advocates of Pan Americanism to those two languages, for Portuguese 

 and French are likewise spoken by American peoples. But a beginning 

 must be made, and the Congress felt justified in recommending Spanish 

 because it is the official language of eighteen of the twenty-one American 

 Republics, and in recommending English, because it is spoken by approxi- 

 mately one hundred million people in the United States, and a knowledge 

 thereof is bound to become more essential the more closely the Americas 

 are drawn together. 



But the purpose is not merely that Spanish should be taught in schools, 

 colleges, and universities of the United States and that English be taught 

 in the educational institutions of Latin America. The knowledge of the 

 language is not the sole aim, but of language as the key to unlock the 

 treasures of American life, literature, history, and social institutions. It 

 is to be borne in mind that the word commerce does not figure in this 

 article. The Congress looked beyond material interests to the things of 

 the spirit, well knowing that an understanding based upon an appreciation 

 of and a respect for the intellectual life and the achievements of the 

 Americas would be the great bond of sympathy between the peoples of 

 all the American countries. 



ARTICLE 18. The Second Pan American Scientific Congress recommends 



that 



The study of sociology in American universities where it is not at 

 present taught be inaugurated. 



One of the purposes of the Congress is to bring about a correct under- 

 standing of the relations of the American Republics and of their peoples 

 one with another through a common interest in science, industry, and 

 art, and, above all, through the development of their bonds of sympathy, 

 difficult to analyze but necessary to any permanent or adequate con- 

 ception of Pan Americanism. 



One of the means to this better understanding is an accurate knowledge 

 of the social environment of the inhabitants of the different American 

 countries, of the elements entering into their social conditions, and the 

 factors of their social development. These are difficult and delicate 

 problems, and conclusions of value can only be reached if the subject 

 be approached in the spirit of the investigator, with the impartiality 

 becoming science and in the spirit of detachment especially difficult in 

 the consideration of social questions. 

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