GENERAL IMPRESSIONS OF BRAZIL. 



499 



studies. The instruction in both is thorough, though per- 

 haps limited ; at least I felt that, in the former, in which 

 my own studies have prepared me to judge, those acces- 

 sory branches which, after all, lie at the foundation of a 

 superior medical education, are either wanting or are 

 taught very imperfectly. Neither zoology, comparative 

 anatomy, botany, physics, nor chemistry is allowed suf- 

 ficient weight in the medical schools. The education is 

 one rather of books than of facts. Indeed, as long as the 

 prejudice against manual labor of all kinds exists in Brazil, 

 practical instruction will be deficient ; as long as students 

 of nature think it unbecoming a gentleman to handle his 

 own specimens, to carry his own geological hammer, to 

 make his own scientific preparations, he will remain a mere 

 dilettante in investigation. He may be very familiar with 

 recorded facts, but he will make no original researches. On 

 this account, and on account of their personal indolence, 

 field studies are foreign to Brazilian habits. Surrounded as 

 they are by a nature rich beyond comparison, their natural 

 ists are theoretical rather than practical. They know more 

 of the bibliography of foreign science than of the wonder- 

 ful fauna and flora with which they are surrounded. 



Of the schools and colleges in Rio de Janeiro I have more 

 right to judge than of those above mentioned. Several of 

 them are excellent. The Ecole Centrale deserves a special 

 notice. It corresponds to what we call a scientific school, 

 and nowhere in Brazil have I seen an educational institu- 

 tion where improved methods of teaching were so highly 

 appreciated and so generally adopted. The courses of 

 mathematics, chemistry, physics, and the natural sciences 

 are comprehensive and thorough. And yet even in this 

 institution I was struck with the scantiness of means for 



