THE SCHOOLS OF CORDOBA 269 



river or on the historic roads to Chile and Peru. The 



only towns of the Parana region at the end of the 



eighteenth century were Buenos Aires, Santa Fe and 



Corrientes. As to towns in the interior, Helms's 



journey in 1778 gives us some idea of their size. 



Cordoba, at the crossing of the Peru road and the 



tracks to the province of La Rioja, had then 1,500 



white inhabitants and 4,000 blacks. As it was near 



the Sierra, which provided granite and lime, it had 



some semblance of architecture, and had paved streets, 



which struck even the traveller from Buenos Aires. 



The attraction of its schools was felt over a wide area. 



We still have a list of students from Paraguay who 



studied at Cordoba University in the eighteenth 



century. I Tucuman and Salta, especially Salta, also 



were busy centres. Salta had 600 Spanish families 



and 9,000 inhabitants in all, and its influence extended 



as far as Peru and Chile. Jujuy, on the other hand, 



was a very small town. Helms mentions the decay 



of Santiago del Estero. The trade which had once 



flourisned there had, he says, gone in a different 



direction. The prosperity of Santiago was, as a 



matter of fact, connected with traffic on the direct 



route from Santa Fe to Tucuman, which ceased at 



the close of the eighteenth century. Santa Fe also 



was a decaying town at the close of the eighteenth 



century, and would remain such until the middle of 



the nineteenth. Its distress was due, not merely to 



the suspension of its direct trade with Peru, but 



also to the decay and isolation of Paraguay, which 



had provided most of its trade and for which it 



acted as intermediary with the Andean provinces. 



The great development of urban life in Argentina 

 dates from the time of the colonization of the Pampean 

 region. The ratio of the urban population has risen 

 considerably during the last twenty-five years. In 

 1895, 113 centres with more than 2,000 inhabitants 



' Published by the Revista del Iiistituto Paraguayo (vol. iv. p. 334). 



