The inconvenience of sending manuscripts to Spain to be examined and approved or disapproved by the Council of the Indies is illustrated by Bishop Villarroel’s experience. He sent the manuscript of _El gobierno eclesiástico pacífico_ to Spain, but the vessel carrying it was wrecked, and only by great good fortune was the manuscript saved. He sent another work in four volumes to Madrid, and solicited permission to publish it. The issuing of the licence was delayed three years, and in the meantime the manuscript was lost. The legal obstacles and the practical difficulties in the way of obtaining permission to print help to explain why many manuscripts, written in America or about America, remained unpublished until after the overthrow of Spanish rule in the Indies. Even after the establishment of presses in America, the great cost of paper furnished an obstacle to their extensive use, and except in Mexico and Lima there were few printing presses until late in the colonial period. While the Inquisition tended to destroy free intellectual activity in the Spanish colonies, the Church in other ways contributed to a certain cultivation along lines approved by itself. It helped to preserve old-world traditions in some departments of life. By the study of the Indian languages, which it encouraged, and the formation and the publication of grammars, it made public and preserved a knowledge of these languages. It, moreover, founded and supported schools, that maintained the light of learning, though a feeble and fluctuating light, within a narrow ecclesiastical horizon. But all efforts in favour of liberal enlightenment were counteracted by governmental measures in opposition to the importation of books, particularly secular books of all kinds. [Sidenote: The range of learning] But the range of learning was limited. Until near the end of the colonial period instruction in the colleges and universities retained its mediæval character. The curriculum of studies embraced little, if anything, besides Latin, philosophy, and theology. Having attained proficiency in Latin the student was admitted to the courses on philosophy under the faculty of arts. After three years with this faculty he passed to the study of theology, which was continued for four, and later for five, years. The first enlargement of this curriculum was effected by the addition of jurisprudence, or Roman law. This change was not made until near the end of the eighteenth century.[7] [Sidenote: Teaching by Jesuits]