INTRODUCTIOJf. 



43 



shackles, a number of men distinguished for their 

 learning appeared in South America; some of the best 

 historians, mathematicians, and naturalists, have 

 sprung up under all these difficulties. The enlight- 

 ened European travellers who have visited America at 

 diflPerent times, in the pursuit of scientific objects, have 

 all expressed their surprise on finding Americans as 

 learned as themselves, and who saved them much 

 trouble by tendering them at once the fruits of their 

 researches. The taste for literature and science, was 

 confined to the Spanish Americans: the European 

 Spaniards being only men of business, and in the pur- 

 suit of wealth. It is highly probable, that the unwil- 

 lingness on the part of Spain to encourage literature, 

 may have had an opposite effect from that intended, by 

 producing a desire for what was virtually forbidden. 

 Experience proves to us, how vain is the attempt to 

 change the direction of the mind seriously bent on the 

 acquisition of knowledge. The burning thirst will be 

 gratified by some means or other. This is clearly 

 proved by the state of learning and information among 

 the higher classes in South America. Depons and 

 Humboldt both inform us, that the South Americans 

 of education, long before the revolution, entertained 

 the greatest contempt for the state of learning in 

 Spain; that their minds were completely emancipated 

 from thraldom in this respect.* They knew perfectly 

 well that Spain was overrun with priests, beggars, and 

 corrupt nobles, and that the press was enslaved by 

 the inquisition. They knew that a very different state 

 of things existed in the United States, England, and 



* See Depons* Caraccas, Humboldt, &c. 



