Coming down on the steamer you became deeply interested in all you heard of it. A nobleman, who shared his Emperor’s banishment ten years ago when the republic began, was making a brief visit to his old home. One day he said very sadly to some American people of Brazilian experience: “What do you think of my country since the republic?” The gentlemen replied: “It has improved in many ways.” The Count said: “You are republicans, of course; yet is not my country very different from yours?” “Yes, _because there has been no education of the common people, and they have not been accustomed to self-control_.” Then an outline of what American missionary schools are trying to do for all grades, “gentle and simple,” in this city, was given, to his great surprise.[5] [5] See Appendix. Here are items you find in your reading: “Less than thirty years ago it was common for men to lock their wives and daughters securely in the upper story when they went to business, or if absent for any length of time to deliver them to a convent for safekeeping. No respectable woman could go alone on the streets of any of the large towns. “The story of Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Cuba is the story of Brazil and all countries where Rome has held undisturbed sway. In the seventeen and one-half millions of Roman Catholic Brazilians there is 82 per cent. of illiteracy and an enormous per cent. of illegitimacy and crime. “The first missionaries of the Presbyterian Board landed in Brazil in 1860. Every avenue to knowledge was held by the State Church and the Jesuits had control. Private schools were subject to priestly inspection. Protestantism was fiercely opposed by State, Church and people. Men who dared to preach the Gospel publicly, risked their lives.” In 1885, their schools had been opened fifteen years. “Under the influence of Protestantism, or at any rate coincident with the growth of Presbyterian schools and churches in Brazil, new and more liberal educational laws were enacted. Influences were at work in society which in the near future were to abolish slavery, overthrow monarchy, set up a government of the people and separate Church from State.” In 1889 “Mackenzie College” was begun. In 1890 their record stands: “A boys’ boarding school, a girls’ boarding school, and a day school in the rua São João, with thirteen rooms for teaching purposes--a normal department with four rooms, all full to overflowing--an enrolment of four hundred and forty-seven pupils in all grades from kindergarten to high school. Eighteen primary schools in different parts of the field with an efficient corps of native teachers, and a self-supporting manual training school.”