equally assiduous in his endeavors to arouse them from the apathy inherent, as it were, in a Spanish and at the same time priest-ridden community; but even Cordova, the "city of priests," anchored in conservatism by the very character of its extraordinary university culture, looks to him now as the only salvation for the nation.
Although a man of decided military ability, as has been proved at various times when patriotism has called him into the field, Colonel Sarmiento is eminently a man of peace, and during a long exile of twenty years, as well as in his subsequent brilliant career as Chief of the Department of Schools, Senator, Minister of State, and Governor of his native province, in his diplomatic missions to Chili, Peru, and the United States, has had but one watchword: "The Education of the People." To his countrymen he is the very ideal type of the Schoolmaster, which he has ever considered his proudest title.
By persistently keeping this idea uppermost, and opposing it to all the adverse tendencies of a community that could make money enough without it, and constantly predicting the disasters that would from time to time overwhelm it if this element of freedom were not cherished as the very ark of its liberties, he made an impression which in the hour of peril ripened quickly into a conviction, and to use an oft-repeated expression
