Indeed, it is with regard to science in various forms that one finds the most surprising contributions from these old-time scholars. While the English in America were paying practically no attention to science, the Spaniards were deeply interested in it. Dr. Chança, a physician who had been for several years physician-in-ordinary to the King and Queen and was looked upon as one of the leaders of his profession in Spain, joined Columbus' second expedition in order to make scientific notes. The little volume that he issued as the report of this scientific excursion is a valuable contribution to the science of the time and furnishes precious information with regard to Indian medicine, Indian customs, their knowledge of botany and of metals, certain phases of zoology, and the like, that show how wide was the interest in science of this Spanish physician of over four hundred years ago. {305} After reading paragraphs such as Professor Bourne has written with regard to education in Spanish America, how amusing it is to reflect that one of the principal arguments against the Catholic Church has been that she keeps nations backward and unprogressive and uneducated--and the South American countries have been held up derisively and conclusively as horrible examples of this. Even we Catholics have been prone to take on an apologetic mood with regard to them. The teaching of history in English-speaking countries has been so untrue to the realities that we have accepted the impression that the Spanish-American countries were far behind in all the ways that were claimed. Now we find that instead of presenting grounds for apology they are triumphant examples of how soon and how energetically the Church gets to work at the great problems of education wherever she gains a position of authority or even a foothold of influence. Instead of needing to be ashamed of them, as we have perhaps ignorantly been, there is a reason to be deservedly proud of them. Their education far outstripped our own in all the centuries down to the nineteenth, and the culture of the Spanish-Americans, quite a different thing from education, is deeper than ours even at the present time. It is hard for North America to permit herself to be persuaded of this, but there is no doubt of its absolute truth. It is only since the days of steam that the {306} English-speaking races in America have come to possess a certain material progress above that of the Spanish-American countries. Bourne says: