VALPARAISO. 157 
of heart, and as I have experienced the latter from all, it scarcely 
becomes me to complain of the roughness of the coat of the pine- 
apple while enjoying the flavour of the fruit. * Of many of these I 
may say, — 
‘¢ That still they fill affection’s eye, 
Obscurely wise and coarsely kind.” 
Yesterday a very interesting person sailed from hence for Lima, 
Mr. Thompson, one of those men whom real Christian philanthropy 
has led across the ocean and across the Andes to diffuse the benefits 
of education among his fellow-creatures. He had spent some time 
in Santiago, where, under the patronage of the supreme director, he 
has established a school of mutual instruction on the plan of Lan- 
caster. He has been in Valparaiso some time superintending the 
formation of a similar school, to the maintenance of which part of 
the revenue of a suppressed monastery has been appropriated. The 
governor, with the Cabildo and military officers in procession, accom- 
panied Mr. Thompson on the opening of the school, so that all the 
importance was given it that was possible, and I am happy to say 
with good effect. It is now, though so recent, well attended, and } 
have met many of the country people bringing in their children in 
the morning to go thither. + The immediate wants of Chile are 
education in the upper and middling classes, and a greater number 
of working hands. I ought, I suppose, to say productive labourers ; 
but hands, both indirectly and directly productive, are wanting. Not 
a hundredth part of the soil is cultivated, and yet it produces from 
sixteen fold on the bare coast, to a hundred fold of wheat in the 
upper country; ordinarily sixty every where, and in some spots 
ninety of barley, and so on of maize; not to mention that the fruits 
transplanted hither seem to have adopted the soil, and even to im- 
prove in quality and in quantity in this favoured climate. 
* Bishop Horne, speaking of Dr. Johnson, says, that “ to refuse to acknowledge the 
merit of such a man on account of the coarseness of his behaviour, what is it but to 
throw away the pine-apple, and to allege for a reason the roughness of its coat oe 
+ Mr. Thompson has been solemnly declared a free citizen of Chile by the government. 
