TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



9 



and the Pernambiicans, can produce the greatest 

 number of inventive sreniuses and men of learning: 

 among the Brazihans. The study of divinity was 

 formerly much promoted by the Jesuits, in whose 

 college many men of distinguished merit were 

 brought up. The Roman classics are diligently 

 studied at the gymnasium, if we may call by that 

 name the establishment for the education of young 

 men. The study of philosophy, which was for- 

 merly taught here as in most of the schools of 

 Brazil, according to an ancient system founded 

 upon Brucker's Institutiones, has lately taken a 

 new turn, since the Kantean philosophy has been 

 rendered accessible to the Brazilian student by 

 Viller's translation.* Antonio Ildefbnso Ferreira, 

 the second professor of philosophy, whom, after 

 our departure from S. Paulo, we met with at the 

 house of his father at Ypanema, had made him- 

 self pretty well acquainted with the system of the 

 northern philosopher, and we were very agreeably 

 surprised at finding the terms and ideas of the 

 German school naturalised on American ground. 

 Thus the more temperate southern zone of the 

 new continent, in consequence of the rapid pro- 

 gress of civilisation, adopts not only the practical 

 branches of study and knowledge, but even the 

 more absti^act lucubrations of pure science. The 



^ Which however, in truth, is but a poor exposition of the 

 system of the German philosopher. Trans, 



