MEN OF GENIUS 
most important Brazilian commercial ventures. Having 
had an American and English education, Dr. Rodriguez 
has been able to establish in Rio the best edited and 
produced daily newspaper in the world. Its complete 
service of telegraphic news from all over the globe — on 
a scale which no paper, even in England, can equal or 
even approach — the moderate tone and seriousness of its 
leading articles, its highly reliable and instructive columns 
on all possible kinds of subjects by a specially able staff 
of the cleverest writers in Brazil, and the refined style 
in which it is printed, do great honour to Dr. Rodriguez. 
Then comes another man of genius — Dr. Francisco 
Pereira Passos, who, with Dr. Paulo de Frontin, has been 
able in a few years to transform Rio de Janeiro from one 
of the dirtiest and ugliest cities in South America into the 
most beautiful. The great drive around the beautiful bay, 
the spacious new Avenida Central — with its parallel 
avenues of great width—-the construction of a magnifi¬ 
cently appointed municipal theatre, the heavenly road 
along the Tijuca mountains, encircling and overlooking 
the great harbour, and a thousand other improvements 
of the city are due to those two men. Dr. Paulo Frontin 
has also been active in developing the network of rail¬ 
ways in Brazil. Whatever he has undertaken, he has 
accomplished with great judgment and skill. 
It would be impossible to enumerate here all the clever 
men of Brazil. They are indeed too numerous. The 
older generation has worked at great disadvantage owing 
to the difficulty of obtaining proper education. Many 
are the illiterate or almost illiterate people one finds even 
among the better classes. Now, however, excellent and 
most up-to-date schools have been established in the 
principal cities, and with the great enthusiasm and natural 
facility in learning of the younger generations wonderful 
results have been obtained. On account partly of the 
exhausting climate and the indolent life that Brazilians 
7 
