is no military man who has served in regular armies outside the Republic.[1] Is it credible that such an inferior position is naturally that of a city of the interior? No, the past proves the contrary. Twenty years ago San Juan was one of the most civilized towns of the interior; and what must be the decline and prostration of a South American city which has to look back twenty years for its time of prosperity!
In 1831 two hundred heads of families, youths, educated men, advocates, soldiers, and other of its citizens, emigrated to Chili, Copiapo, Coquimbo, Valparaiso; and other parts of that Republic are still full of these noble victims of proscription, among whom are capitalists, intelligent miners, merchants, farmers, lawyers, and physicians. As at the Babylonian dispersion, none of them have yet been able to return to see the promised land. A second set of emigrants left the city in 1840, never to return.
San Juan had been, before these days, rich enough in distinguished men to give to the celebrated Congress of Tucuman a President of the capacity and rank of Dr. Laprida, who was afterwards assassinated by the Aldaos; a prior to the Recoleta Dominica of Chili, in the person of the distinguished sage and patriot Oro,
- ↑ From 1845, when this book was written, to the present date, a salutary reaction occurred in the province of San Juan. It now contains one male and one female academy, and the Honorable House of Representatives has just proclaimed primary education for both sexes a public institution of the province. More than twenty youths are studying in Buenos Ayres, Cordova, and Chili, for the professions of law or medicine. Music and drawing have become quite frequent accomplishments for both sexes, and the artisans and other grades of society dress by reference in civilized costume, which is a sign of a satisfactory direction of the public mind to the improvement of its condition.
