Among the Hispanic-American States, Venezuela has not been notable for achievement in the field of education measured in terms of popular literacy. Venezuelans are, indeed, the first to recognize and to deplore a lack of such achievement. The writer is convinced, however, that no country of Hispanic-America can present a more interesting or exceptional list of educators, whether philosophers and critics, educational statesmen and administrators, or class-room teachers are proposed. Such outstanding figures as Simón Rodríguez, the radical reformer of the revolutionary era, sometimes called the “Rousseau of Hispanic-America”, or Andrés Bello, philosopher and teacher, or the Liberator himself, who might well be called the Jefferson of Hispanic-America in the field of educational statesmanship, are generally recognized.

To the English-speaking world the conquest of Mexico was the achievement of Hernán Cortés, thanks largely to the entertaining account by William Hickling Prescott. The brilliance of the Cortesian exploits, plus Prescott’s popularity, have combined to cause this historical distortion by overshadowing the fact that there were many conquests of Mexico, just as there were, and are, “many Mexicos.” Hernán Cortés merely began the subjugation of Mexico by his victory over the Nahua Confederacy. Some later conquests were more difficult, more expensive in lives and mgney, and far more time-consuming than that of Cortés, but they lack their Prescotts.

The Oliveira Lima collection of 40,000 volumes at The Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C, known as the Lima Library and directed by an expert in Brazilian history, Dr. Manoel Cardozo, considers as one of its most cherished treasures an autograph letter written by John Maurice, Count of Nassau, to his panegyrist, Barlaeus. It is written in the Dutch language in what is supposed to be Latin script, but the use of several gothic characters betrays the author’s German origin.

No one who is entitled to speak with authority has ever questioned the well-known story that relates how in his hour of affliction, on landing at Palos, Christopher Columbus was befriended by the Franciscans of the friary of Santa María de la Rábida; how a Franciscan encouraged him to present his maritime project at the Spanish court; how, when all hope of royal support vanished, the Franciscan guardian of La Rábida intervened and thus made possible the voyage that resulted in the discovery of America. While this much of the story has always been accepted as properly established, students of American history have long been in disagreement and partly also in ignorance concerning certain details that bear importantly on the friendship that existed between the Genoese navigator and the sons of Saint Francis.

The Fourth General Assembly of the Pan American Institute of Geography and History met in Caracas at the invitation of the Venezuelan Government on August 2 5 to September 1, 1946. Caracas is an interesting city for a meeting and the Venezuelan Government was a gracious host. The arrangements had been in charge of an organizing committee, headed by Dr. Cristóbal Mendoza as chairman and Sr. José Nucete Sardi as general secretary. The Liceo Andrés Bello, a modern and well appointed industrial school, afforded most commodious quarters for the meetings.

Among the branches of Romance philology Hispanic philology is at the present time the most flourishing one. This is due in great measure to the fact that the seeds sown by the great master Ramón Menéndez Pidal are bringing forth remarkable fruit in Spain, Portugal and the United States. The newest feature in the picture is that Argentina, with the Instituto de Filología de Buenos Aires under the leadership of Amado Alonso, has become a center of Hispanic studies for the entire world. This seems to be one of the changes in scholarship which hint that in the future, the New World will take over, whereas Europe has to struggle desperately to hold her own. The change will appear the more considerable in the light of the endeavor since the early nineteenth century on the part of Latin America to do something in this field, although for the most part amateurish.