The Present State of Peru/5d
HISTORY OF THE FOUNDATION, PROGRESS, AND PRESENT STATE OF THE ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF ST. MARK OF LIMA.
The protection and cultivation of the sciences establish the splendour and prosperity of a state. The eloquent but dangerous Rousseau, uniting to the subtility of Socrates the lofty and independent spirit of Diogenes, has in vain attempted to make us envy the wretched lot of those degenerate nations, which, under the oppression of the hard chains of ignorance, sadly vegetate in obscurity. The imperious light of truth, superior to the illusions of sophistry, and the deceptious charms of declamation, has, with the aid of reason, authority, and experience, dissipated the black clouds which the spirit of singularity accumulated over the sacred image of wisdom.
If it presides over the councils of princes, the subjects gather the ripened fruits of prudence. Under the enlightened government of Solomon, the happy Israelites increased and multiplied: they feasted and made themselves merry, reposing safely beneath their vines and their fig-trees, the peaceful enjoyment of which was secured to them. In Jerusalem, gold and silver were in equal abundance with the stones that were gathered in the way; and the cedars grew in the vallies in the same proportion as the sycamore trees.
In the days of the learned Simon Maccabeus, the felicity which had been destroyed in Judea, by the princes his predecessors, was restored. He freed the Jews from the galling yoke of the Gentiles; ameliorated their condition; selected Joppa for a haven; and made an entrance to the islands of the sea. The earth, cultivated with care, afforded copious harvests. The elders, seated in the streets, had but one theme, that of the abundance amid which they lived. The young men were clad in rich and gaudy attire. The temple was embellished with sumptuous vessels which served for the sacrifice. The kings who were hostile to him, held Simon in respect. And, lastly, he distributed justice with impartiality; fulfilled his promises; and was solely occupied by the grandeur and freedom of his subjects.
To soften the asperities of a people, to purify their customs, and to extirpate their inveterate abuses, is the fruit of wisdom, and not of a rigorous legislation. In this part, the weakness of the law is the necessary effect of its vigour. The furious surge of the enraged ocean does not leave any mark on the rock against which it breaks; and the impetuous torrent moistens the earth less than does the gently falling shower. Thus, the useful mechanism by which heavy bodies are raised, does not require the greatest degree of force, but the favourable combination of distances and directions.
Every beneficial result is to be expelled from the influence of letters. Being present to our mind, they are at once the accuser, the witness, and the judge of our actions. If they do not always free the heart from the disorders by which it is enthralled, they succour it in the respective intervals of silence and repose, when the tumult of the passions allows a glimpse of the precipice to which they lead. This return to truth can never be expelled from ignorance; since, from an unacquaintance with evil, it may, with the purest and most sincere intentions, persist in its practice without inquietude or remorse.
By an attentive survey of the history of every age, we shall perceive that nations have been freed, by the victorious persuasives of wisdom, from the barbarous and sanguinary customs by which their annals were disgraced. By breathing sympathy, gentleness, and friendship, it obliges the ferocious man to yield to the accents of its enchanting voice. It speaks to him a soft and flattering language; points out to him the truth clad in the flowery ornaments of the graces; embellishes in the view of the intractable savage the scene of the new world to which it conducts him; gilds the chains it has provided to unite him with his fellow creatures; and forms between them a mutual and beneficial correspondence of obligations and services.
This advantageous progress would, however, be of little duration and consistency, if, the seeds of fecundity being once scattered, care were not taken to perpetuate their culture. It is therefore the aim of literary bodies to preserve them by emulation, by reward, and by competition. The light of truth is preceded by faint glimmerings, by perilous systems, and by a repetition of experimental researches. It is prepared and announced by error itself. Observations, contestations, and disputes, operate but slowly in dispersing the thick cloud by which it is covered and surrounded, until at length the humbled spirit is forced to yield to the amiable yoke of virtue. The vicious Polemon, perfumed with odours, entered the school of Xenocrates, to insult that rigid philosopher in the delivery of his lesssons; but being moved by his discourses, he threw off the effeminate ornaments by which his head was covered, and instantly set about the reform of his manners.
To establish them most conformably to the spirit of religion and society, in the extensive possessions which had recently been annexed to the crown of Castille, was the ardent wish of the monarchs of Spain. With this view, the emperor Charles, and his august mother, lent a favourable ear to the representations of friar Tomas De San Martin, first provincial of the order of Saint Domingo in Peru, and afterward bishop of Chuquisaca, who, in the name of the city of Lima, and conformably to the instruction with which he had been furnished on his departure for Spain in 1550, in company with the licentiate Gasca, solicited the foundation of a general seminary of learning, with privileges, franchises, and exemptions, similar to those enjoyed by the celebrated university of Salamanca. The apartments of the principal convent belonging to his order were to be assigned to this establishment.
The royal schedule of approbation reached Lima in 1553; but as there was not any aid, beside that of three hundred and fifty piastres in gold which the order had set aside as the basis of the establishment, the project of a general instruction in all the sciences, could not be carried into effect by the reverend priors who were successively rectors of the school. The annual allowance of four hundred piastres, settled on the foundation in 1557, by the then viceroy, the Marquis of Canete, did not suffice to arouse it from the languid state in which it had continued, the sum being too small to correspond with the various objects for which it was destined. The epoch of the stability of the academy may be dated in 1571, when the rectorship was transferred from the regular clergy to secular doctors. Caspar Meneses, doctor of medicine, and master of arts, was at that time appointed rector, under the protection of the viceroy, Don Francisco Toledo, who may be considered as the real founder of this seminary of learning.
It obtained the name of the university of St. Mark, instead of that of St. Domingo, by which it had been before distinguished, in 1574, at which time many titular saints having been proposed, the rectors, masters, and prelates, proceeded to draw the lots. The decision was in favour of St. Mark, who was declared the patron of the establishment. A convenient site for the ere6tion of a new building, in a central part of the city, having been made choice of in 1576, it was begun, and has progressively risen to the size and splendour which are admired at the present time.
The illustrious protector of the academy, Don Francisco Toledo, being desirous that the professorships and courses of public instruction should be permanently established, assigned to them a fund of twenty thousand three hundred and twelve piastres, arising from the tributes paid by the Indians. This fund having been secured, the lectures which were to be given daily by the professors were regulated as follows: two on grammar; one on the general Indian tongue, necessary at that time for the propagation of the gospel; three on philosophy; three on theology; three on laws; two on canons; and two on medicine.
The above rent being subject to the decrease of the numbers of the Indians on whom the contributions were levied, the receipts gradually fell off, until at length it became necessary to seek a more solid and secure fund for the discharge of the salaries of the professors and officers. For this purpose, fourteen thousand nine hundred and six piastres, arising from the produce of the nine-tenths set aside for the royal treasury by all the dioceses of the kingdom, were assigned in 1613, by the viceroy, the marquis of Montes Claros. To this new fund considerable additions were subsequently made, by the generosity of several individuals, and the zeal of the ministers of the church.
In 1691, a professorship of medicine, after the practice of Galen, was founded; and as the useful anatomical lessons, without which the obscure labyrinth of the human body could not be developed, were still needed, a professor was appointed in 1711, for the delivery of these lectures, and for the practical demonstrations which were to take place weekly, in the royal hospital of St. Andrew, on one of the dead bodies. In 1790, an amphitheatre was erected for the use of the anatomical students.
It being one of the provisions of the laws of the kingdom, that the Castillian tongue should be generally spoken, and the Indian idiom extinguished, the professorship which had been established, for the teaching of the latter, at the time of the foundation of the academy, was suppressed in 1784, and one of moral philosophy substituted in its stead.
The fees disbursed on the admission to the different degrees, were originally very high. Each doctor of the faculty, besides paying a considerable sum to the rector, head master, register, and other officers, was obliged to fee all those who composed the chapter, or assembly, at the time of his admission. If he took a secular degree, he gave to each of them a velvet bonnet; and if the degree was ecclesiastical, a bonnet of cloth. To this gift he added another, of six fat hens, four pounds of cold viands, and a pair of gloves. These disbursements, united with the expences attendant on the public exhibition of a bull fight, in the great square, on the day of admission, and the sumptuous entertainment given to all who were present, were found, on an average estimate made in 1743, to amount to the extravagant sum of ten thousand piastres for each degree. To remedy this inconvenience, it was then settled that the graduate should pay into the chest of the institution the sum of two thousand piastres, to be divided equally among the do6lors; and should provide a slight refreshment for those who were present at his examination. He was, besides, to bestow small fees on the rector, head master, register, and other persons holding literary employments in the college. The gross amount of the charges has been since reduced to one thousand and sixty-six piastres.
To obtain the degree of doctor, that of bachelor is, in the first instance, indispensably requisite. For this purpose, the student must be provided with a certificate of his having attended five courses in the faculty to which he aspires, together with another certificate of his having taken the private lessons, without which his studies would have been incomplete. The expences of this degree are moderate, amounting to twenty-five piastres only. Conformably to the spirit and tenor of the laws of the kingdom, whenever ten degrees of bachelor have been conferred, a similar degree is to be bestowed on a poor scholar, as a stimulus to application, and a recompense for the successful prosecution of his studies; but this favour has been liberally dispensed by the academy, which, with a view to the prosperity and cultivation of the sciences, has not limited itself to the number of indigent students for whom the above legislative provision was made.
The ceremony of the reception of a doctor in this university is not uninteresting. On the day appointed, at sun-set, the interior of the hall having been lighted, and the doors closely barred, the examination commences before the masters and doctors, who alone are allowed to be present. Between the first and second lessons, an oath is administered by the rector to each of the assistants; and when the second lesson is concluded, four of the doctors, the junior taking the lead, maintain a controversy with the candidate. This does not, however, prevent any one present from making such observations as he may deem essential to his further satisfaction and security. The rector, the president, the four replicants, and the six most ancient doctors of the faculty, now proceed to vote privately; and by their suffrages, the individual who has been examined is either admitted or rejected. The whole concludes by a refreshment of sweetmeats and jellies, substituted to the supper ordered by the ancient institutions of the academy.
On the following morning, the degree is conferred with every solemnity. Provided the ceremony be not, by especial favour, performed in the interior of the university, the chapel of the Blessed Virgin, belonging to the great church, is splendidly ornamented; and thither the graduate, accompanied by the students, collegiates, and do6tors, proceeds to make his profession of faith. The rector having administered to him an oath to defend the mystery of the immaculate conception, and to detest the execrable doctrines of tyrannicide and regicide, the degree is delivered to him by the head master, at the same time that the register invests him with the badges of his newly acquired dignity. This being done, a Latin oration is pronounced in his praise, and a theme proposed to him for the exercise of his talents.
The number of doctors is not limited. At this time (in 1791) there are-one hundred and thirty-four in the faculty of theology; in that of laws, one hundred and sixty-four; in that of medicine, twelve; and six masters of arts. If, in former times, the number was still greater, the establishment may now boast, that it reckons among its members many individuals of pre-eminent merit and distinguished qualities, employed in the discharge of the most important and honourable functions of church and state. Of these, it will be sufficient to cite the names of his excellency Don Antonio Porlier, counsellor of state, and first secretary of the general dispatch of justice and indulgences of Castille and the Indies; his excellency count Castillejo; the count Del Puerto, eldest son of the latter, and nephew to the duke of San Carlos; Don Balthazar Companon, archbishop of Santa Fé, &c. &c. The direction and government of the academy belong entirely to the rector, who is annually erected, by secret votes, on the 30th of June. His age must exceed thirty years; and he must have been received into the community of lay brothers, and have taken the second ecclesiastical degree. The chapter is at liberty to re-elect him on the following year, but not for a longer time, it being the privilege of the viceroy, as vice patron, to continue him for a third year, if that should be deemed essential to the prosperity of the establishment.
The other ministers and officers, elected in the same manner, are the two principal counsellors, the one who filled that office the preceding year having the title of vice-rector, to supply the place of the rector in cases of sickness or absence; but when he has completed his year, the chapter is free, on the re-election, to appoint two other counsellors at its pleasure, he whose degree has a priority of date becoming the vice-rector. There are besides, two minor counsellors, belonging to the community of bachelors, one of whom was formerly a prebendary of the principal college of St. Philip, the other of that of St. Martin. These two posts are now occupied by the students belonging to the royal seminary of St. Charles, The procurator-general is likewise one of the principal ministers of the academy. His office corresponds to that of fiscal, his opinion being usually taken before any important resolution is adopted. This appointment is commonly bestowed for life on one of the professors of canons or laws; and the offices of chaplain, treasurer, principal beadle, minor beadle, and alguazil of the academy, are also holden in perpetuity.
The solid and established rents of the university amount to one thousand two hundred and thirty piastres only, the produce of a few small sums laid out in annuities, destined to defray the expences of the festivals of the patrons, St. Mark, and Santa Rosa, and the other charges incurred in the ornaments and repairs of the building. They would not suffice for these purposes, if several of the chairs formerly occupied by professors were not vacant, and if those by whom the others are filled did not give up the one-half of their salaries, to augment the capital of the establishment.
Notwithstanding this paucity of means, the academy has on every occasion displayed its generosity. The sumptuous gifts it has presented to the crown, in moments of difficulty, are recorded in the registers of its chapters. They exceed at this time a hundred thousand piastres; and it would be difficult to find in the city of Lima a public work to which it has not contributed with cheerfulness and promptitude. It is impossible to read without satisfaction the sacrifice of life, goods, and persons, made by the doctors, masters, and students, in 1709, when the English, having invaded the port of Guayaquil, excited a general panic throughout the kingdom. They enrolled themselves, without any exception of classes or conditions, for the king's service, and formed themselves into companies. Dr. Martin de los Reyes took the command of the company of the ecclesiastics who composed the chapter; that of the seculars was commanded by Dr. Bartolome Romero; and that of the students by Dr. Tomas Salazar. The rector, Don Isidora Olmedo, to evince his attachment and fidelity to his sovereign, took the command in chief.
It has been observed by an illustrious Spaniard[1], that "one of the best ascertained reasons of the decay of universities, is the antiquity of their foundation; because the plan of studies established at the commencement, not having afterward undergone any reform, it follows that they must still retain the dross and impurities of the remote ages, and cannot be freed from them without the intellectual lights afforded by time, and by the discoveries of the eminent subjects of every part of the literary world."
On consulting the archives of the celebrated academies of Europe, we shall soon be made sensible of the solidity of these observations. Abstract ideas, despicable chimeras, and vain subtilties, explained in a coarse and barbarous style, formed the proud and useless science which resounded in their halls. From them, as from a dark chaos, the errors which went abroad were disseminated. If the information which relates to the general ignorance of nations, had not been transmitted to us by the most authentic testimonies, it would be difficult for us to persuade ourselves, that it attained the scandalous degradation of ordering the fathers who composed the council of Chalons, to correct the rituals with all possible care and exadtitude, from an apprehension least, in petitioning God for a favour, the ecclesiastics should demand precisely the contrary. At a period not so remote, a respectable Spaniard, Clemente Sanchez, wrote as follows: "As a punishment for our sins and transgressions, there are at this time many priests entrusted with the cure of souls, who are utterly ignorant how to teach the things that belong to our salvation."
This grievous scourge infested all Europe. When the doctrines of Luther first found their way into the North, the greater part of the clergy of Scotland believed him to be the author of the New Testament[2]. The general synod of Russia having been convened in 1723, for the presentation of a bishop, said to the Czar Peter: "We can find none other than Ignorant persons to propose." The university of Paris worded in the following manner a receipt it gave to the congregation of St. Germain: tenemus nos plenarie pro pagatis; and the parliament published one of its edicts in the following terms: pagatores pagabant pagam die asignato pro pagatlone.
The lustre of the academy of St. Mark has never been tarnished by these blemishes. From the earliest date of its establishment, the eminent men by whom it has been ornamented have been the object 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 effects 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 subjects of high consideration in each of the faculties." The marquis of Montes Claros, in his introduction to the ancient constitutions, expressed himself in a similar manner in 1614; and the learned Don Francisco 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 which 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 instruction, from that conjunction 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 eighteenth century, an enlightened Spaniard, in speaking of his nation, has observed: Paucissimi sunt qui colunt literas, cæteri barbariem: when, in 1771, the heads of the university of Salamanca, on being solicited by the supreme council of Castille, to reform their studies, replied, "that they could not depart from the system of Aristotle: that those of Newton, Gassendi, and Des Cartes, did not symbolize so much with revealed truths; and that neither had their predecessors sought to be legislators, by the introduction of a more exquisite taste in the sciences, nor could the university presume to become the author of new methods:" when that of Alcala asserted, at the above time, "that the study of Roman jurisprudence ought to be the first object of those who devote themselves to the laws:" at that very epoch, we say, the academy of St. Mark adopted the new plan of studies which had been drawn up for their better regulation. Free from the decay by which many other seminaries of learning have been obscured, it has preserved a brilliant succession of eminent subjects in all the faculties. The list of them would be immense; and the works with which they have enlightened the public, would form a collection of no small consideration.
If many of the excellent productions of American genius have remained buried in oblivion, without having, through the medium of printing, obtained the recompense of fame, it was, in past times, the effect of the impossibility of defraying the expences, combined with the risks attendant on their conveyance to Europe[3]; and at all times that of the distance which unfortunately intervenes. On this head, an eloquent Peruvian writer, Father Torrejon, has observed: "They spring up as near to the sun which illumines, as they are remote from the one which commands; and the distance either denies them its influence, or it is weakened by the obliquity of the rays. It is for this reason that many plants, which, if favoured by a greater proximity, would be as loftily elevated, as majestically crowned, are now condemned to wither and decay."
We forbear to record the very flattering encomiums which foreign writers have bestowed on the academy of St. Mark, and on the genius of the natives of Peru. Laying aside, therefore, every spirit of party and of national pride, we shall conclude with the words of Fadrique Turio Ceriol, in his work on the education of a prince: "Each country has its virtues and its vices. It has its good and bad men; its learned and unlearned; its acute and torpid; its skilful and unskilful; its loyal and disloyal."
- ↑ Count Campomanes, governor of the supreme council of Castille, in his reply on the subject of the plan of studies of the university of Salamanca.
- ↑ History of the House of Tudor.
- ↑ Father Melendez, in the introduction to his Tesoro verdadero de Indias (real treasure of the Indies), speaking of the MS. work, entitled, "Description and Population of the Kingdoms of Peru," by Reginaldo de Lizarraga, bishop of Chile, which, having been sent to Madrid to be printed, was denied that advantage, through the neglect of the person in whose possession it was, remarks as follows: "Such are the risks incurred by the unfortunate writers of South America, who send their books to be printed in Spain, that the correspondents retain the money, theirs being the country where they know it is to be had, applying it to their own purposes, even when the proprietors are present, and still more so when at the great distance of the Indies. The manuscripts are thrown aside as waste paper, and the wretched authors consigned to oblivion."