A Five Years' Residence in Buenos Ayres, During the years 1820 to 1825: Containing Remarks on the Country and Inhabitants; and a Visit to Colonia Del SacramentoLove, George Thomas
History
A Five Years' Residence in Buenos Ayres, During the years 1820 to 1825: Containing Remarks on the Country and Inhabitants; and a Visit to Colonia Del Sacramento
Love, George Thomas
Buenos Aires (Argentina) -- Description and travel; Colonia del Sacramento (Uruguay) -- Description and travel
At the Buenos Ayres College, pupils are taught every branch of
the classics. They have not the advantage of professors, as at
Oxford, Cambridge, Eton, Westminster, and the rest of our public
schools--professors, whose talents not only confer honour upon their
country, but on the human species generally. Some students have elicited
considerable talents. A younger branch of the Belgrano family, Manuel,
wrote a play founded on _The Virgin of the Sun_, which was performed
with success; he has likewise acquired a knowledge of the English
language, and is at present employed in the British Consul's office.
In the Merced Church, an academy is held for the instruction of 30
youths in the study of divinity.
Among the numerous seminaries here, is one kept by an English lady, Mrs.
Hyne, which receives great encouragement; she has had 70 scholars at a
time, who are taught, with other requisites, the English language. From
the anxiety expressed by parents, that their children should attain this
language, the next generation will become completely anglicised. In
placing them under the care of a Protestant lady, they are not so
narrow-minded as to fear that their religion will be tampered with.
One of the stripling scholars conversed with me the other day in good
English, which he had learned in a very short period.
A number of Buenos Ayrean gentlemen speak and write the English language
with much fluency and correctness. Don Manuel Sarratea, late a governor
of the province, and who resided some time in London as their minister,
is a proficient, and a man of talent. To the British he is very
attentive, and is much respected by them. Don Miguel Riglos is another
instance: this gentleman has made the tour of Great Britain, and speaks
English with so little of foreign accent, that, on my introduction
to him, I supposed him to be an Englishman: his manners are very
prepossessing and amiable. Some self-taught young men have also an
excellent idea of it, and others express a great desire to learn it. It
has now become a branch of education in their public schools; and, from
the continued intercourse they are likely to have with the British and
North Americans, and others who speak the English tongue, the utility
of learning it will become every day more apparent, and, as regards
business, it will be of greater importance than the French.
The prejudices of ages is fast wearing away: the South-Americans,
and, Spain herself, no longer view us as renegades, heretics,
"God-abandoned." Twenty years back, England and Englishmen were as
little known or understood by the Buenos Ayreans, as is the interior of
the Chinese empire now to the rest of the world. For centuries past,
care was taken to inflame the passions of the Spaniards against us and
our country; and it is not strange that a remnant of this animosity yet
remains. Their best poets have stigmatised us: I recollect hearing, in
Buenos Ayres, that part of Lope de Vegas' popular ballad--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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