62 ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



and then went to Paris, where he fell in with anarchists and 

 imbibed their doctrines. He quarrelled with his wife, deserted 

 her, and afterwards obtained a separation, and left her to 

 take care of his three children. All were disinherited in the 

 will, which he made at Montjuich, just before his death, and 

 his fortune left to Soledad Villafranca, his mistress, who was 

 younger than his eldest daughter. He died a comparatively 

 rich man, for he obtained from Mile. Ernestine Meunier, a 

 pious old lady of Paris, money to found children's asylums 

 in Barcelona, which were to be operated under Catholic aus- 

 pices as religious institutions. He even gave her a statue of 

 Our Lady of Mount Carmel, in token of how he was conduct- 

 ing them. At her death, she left him property in Paris, upon 

 which he realized over a million francs. She died a Catholic, 

 putting that very expression in her will, and left legacies for 

 Masses for her soul. 



After her death, he changed his asylums into La Escuela 

 Moderna (the Modern School), a name which he took over 

 bodily from a greater man, the historian, Don Rafael Altamira 

 y Crevea, one of the foremost professors of the University of 

 Oviedo, who had used it for many years and had used it in a 

 religious sense. After the bomb-throwing episode of 1906, 

 the various branches of La Escuela Modema were closed, and 

 a new name, La Escuela de la Casa del Pueblo, was adopted. 

 A bookselling and journalistic venture was added to it. Books 

 from the French and new books written in Spanish, in which 

 all mention of God or country were omitted, were compiled. 

 As a rule, these books are inferior to the text-books used in 

 the Catholic and government schools, as a comparison of the 

 two sets of books upon any subject will demonstrate. His 

 chief instructor for the girls' schools was Mme. Clementine 

 Jacquinet. She was a French anarchist, who kept a school at 

 Sakha, in Egypt, for several years. This school was closed 

 by the British authorities and Mme. Jacquinet banished from 

 Egypt on account of its anarchistic character. She describes 

 herself as "an atheist, scientific materialist, and anti-religious, 

 because religion, dividing men, constitutes the real obstacle to 

 progress, an anti-militarist and anarchist." She had a large 

 share in preparing the school books for La Escuela Modema. 



A glance at some of the teachings of the text-books of 

 La Escuela Moderna, intended for the minds of tender young 



