[Footnote 9: The writer does not give the statistics of those who go abroad to study; the number is, of course, very considerable, especially of those who go to Paris.——[TRANS.]] The three orders of instruction ought to work together to form a national spirit and a moral unity; but the Government should not forget that primary instruction is the basis, and that it is the only kind of instruction that can be bestowed upon each generation in its entirety, and that the children of each generation should be taught at an early age not only the ideas necessary to the life of the individual, but also, by means of the elements of national history, ethics, and applied science, the knowledge and love of their native country. The Argentine Republic as yet counts few men to whom the exigencies of life leave leisure to consecrate themselves entirely to letters or the sciences. It has some distinguished writers, but they usually find a recompense for their talent in the public press; for in Buenos Ayres more than 200 journals are published. Men write as hurriedly as they act. It is to be hoped that before long, with the increase of wealth, there will arise men of science, who will find no lack of material in the country, and men of letters, historians, novelists, sociologists, etc., who will also never lack for matter in this busy, humming hive. Such men are necessary, because their life-work goes far to make up the intellectual capital of a nation, and even to form nationality itself. * * * * * In my introduction to M. Latzina’s book, I glanced at the whole continent of South America, and I remarked that civilisation had scarcely penetrated the interior of this vast continent; that the density of its population was extremely low; that the economic, intellectual and political life of the continent was concentrated, if I may so use the word, upon its periphery; that is to say, upon the shores which are in touch, through navigation, with the rest of the world; that the Argentine Republic formed the southern portion of this belt connecting Uruguay and Chili; that this belt is wider where the penetration of the interior is easier and the climate more favourable. This belt has also been widened in Southern Brazil by the construction of railroads. It is still wider in the Argentine, because the network of railways is more widely distributed, the soil is of even quality and cultivable, and the climate temperate and favourable to expansion. For the purposes of this present Introduction, let us imagine a vaster area——the whole earth, or, at least, the three inhabited zones of the earth.