6o REPORT OF THE SECRETARY GENERA!,. 



happiness in the world wherein he exercises his sovereign domain. Thus 

 a congress such as the one we are to-day inaugurating, to attend which 

 caravans of pilgrims of knowledge have come, without heeding difficul- 

 ties or sacrifices, from all parts of the continent to contribute with their 

 share toward the work for the intellectual emancipation of the species-^ 

 a congress as this, I repeat, constitutes a vivid testimony to the fact that 

 man is fulfilling his high mission and that his efforts and his energies are 

 not spared when humanity's higher interests are at stake. 



To this end it is comforting to look back to the origin of the movement 

 by which exactly one-half of the civilized countries of the globe are here 

 to-day in communion. That origin shows how the sparks of the spirit of 

 science, through their own expansive power, grow until they become large 

 glowing flames capable of serving as torches to light the world's path. 

 Twenty-five years ago a modest Chilean scientific organization originated 

 the institution of national scientific congresses, whose range did not go 

 beyond the geographical boundaries of the country, unless it was to 

 appoint a few corresponding members in the neighboring Republics. 

 Some years later the spark caught fire on the other side of the Andes, and 

 an important Argentine scientific organization, enlarging the idea with a 

 vvdder scope and acting with the cooperation and under the auspices of its 

 enlightened Government, founded the permanent institution of Latin- 

 American scientific congresses, with the enthusiastic participation of 

 scientists from all the cognate Republics of America. A complete success 

 attended the first three congresses held, respectively, in Buenos Aires, 

 Montevideo, and Rio de Janeiro. When the preliminary work of the 

 fourth congress, sitting in Santiago de Chile, was undertaken, its organi- 

 zation committee thought, in its turn, that the time was ripe for wiping 

 out the boundary lines to which these congresses for ethnical reasons had 

 been confined until then, and to give them thereafter a continental lati- 

 tude that it might be in better harmony with the universality and majesty 

 of its purposes. With that end in view they sought and secured the 

 ample, unconditional, and efficient cooperation from our great sister of 

 the north, the United States of America, which Nation participated in 

 the Santiago Congress with a brilliant representation, and now so elo- 

 quently and pleasingly shows to the rest of America its spirit of scientific 

 confraternity. 



Thus through a successful progressive evolution, impelled by men and 

 supported by governments, we have come from the modest beginning 

 of a local scientific body to the solemn and magnificent international 

 assembly which to-day unites the whole continent in a brotherly inter- 

 coiurse for the mutual benefit of all. Thus, also, permanent existence has 



