This period marks the beginning of the real history of the Argentine nation. Under the enlightened statesmanship of Bartolomé Mitré and Sarmiento, the two chief figures in Argentina’s rapid development from this point, the great influx of British and German capital began. Immigration was encouraged for the working of the fields; a solid foundation was given to educational development; railroads were constructed, and the machinery of government made adequate to the vigorous strides of the solidified nation. In the short space of time that has passed since 1881, over two billions of dollars of British and German gold have been invested; some eighteen thousand miles of well-equipped railways have been constructed, almost wholly by English capital; immigration has doubled the population of the country so that now half its present inhabitants are foreign-born—during the last ten years alone two millions have come in—and a thorough system of education has been perfected, embracing, among all sorts of primary, military, and industrial institutions, three great universities, one of which, at Buenos Aires, graduated over five thousand young men last year and, with the University of Córdoba (founded in 1613), ranks with Harvard and Yale. In 1910 they celebrated the centennial anniversary of their independence with a superb industrial exposition that was a revelation even to themselves, and festivities that are said to have cost $20,000,000. The city of Buenos Aires has not the picturesque environment that adds so much to the natural beauty of the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Mexico, nor the harbor capacity of New York; nor are its culture and civic personality, perhaps, as deep-rooted as in Boston; it makes little pretension to the aristocracy of blood boasted by the still essentially Spanish Lima; nor has it yet attained such distinction as a national center of art, literature, and music as has the Brazilian capital. It may be best compared with Chicago, for it is conspicuously modern, its present development having been begun and achieved within the last quarter of a century, although the city itself is nearly four hundred years old, and is the industrial complement of an agricultural and pastoral activity even greater than that of our Middle West. Indeed, its banks and clearing houses are said to transact quite as much business as those of Chicago.