UNIVERSITY OF ST. MARK, 



nished by these blemishes. From the earliest date of its esta- 

 bHshment, the eminent men by whom it has been ornamented 

 have been the obje6t of the most authentic praises. In a royal 

 schedule, dated in 1588, Philip II. thus expresses himself: 

 Our Lord has been well served, inasmuch as the efFe6ls have 

 corresponded with the intention, to the manifest advancement 

 of the general prosperity of the kingdom, by the means of the 

 great exercise of letters made in the aforesaid university, which 

 has thus been enabled to produce subje6ls of high considera- 

 tion in each of the faculties." The marquis of Montes Claros, 

 in his introdu6lion to the ancient constitutions, expressed him- 

 self in a similar manner in 1614 ; and the learned Don Fran- 

 cisco Toledo asserted, that the tranquillity and harmony 

 which the kingdom enjoyed, were the fruit of the progress and 

 cultivation of letters. " In dissipating," he added, " those 

 dark clouds w^hich a blind religion had accumulated around 

 the throne, they had multiplied the soft chains, the bands of 

 flowers, which, even in submission, were the sure guides to 

 freedom and repose." 



It must be confessed, that our academy has not been able to 

 free itself entirely, in the mode of instru6tion, from that con- 

 jundlion of metaphysical opinions, which, on pretext of the 

 investigation of truth, and the exercise of the understanding, 

 occasion a loss of much time, to the prejudice of essential 

 principles and solid acquirements. But when, in the eigh- 

 teenth century, an enlightened Spaniard, in speaking of his 

 nation, has observed : Pauciisimt sunt qui colunt literas^ cceteri 

 harhariem: when, in 1771, the heads of the university of Sa- 

 lamanca, on being solicited by the supreme council of Castille, 

 to reform their studies, replied, " that they could not depart 



from 



