epoch, liberty, independence new words then must have made their fibres tremble deliciously, powerfully excited their imaginations, and sent the blood rushing wildly through their hearts. That year, what anxiety, what happiness, what enthusiasm! There is a story of a king, who trembled like an aspen at the sight of a naked dagger, the effect of his mother's emotions when she carried him under her bosom, and in whose arms a man was stabbed. I was born in 1811, the ninth month after the 25th of May, and my father had thrown himself into the revolution, and my mother was agitated every day by the momentary news of the progress of the insurrection. Before I could speak plainly, they began to familiarize my eyes and my tongue with the alphabet, such was the eagerness with which the colonials who already felt themselves to be citizens fell to educating their children, as may be seen by the decrees of the gubernatorial junta and the other governments of that epoch.
"Full of this holy spirit, the government of San Juan, sent, in 1816, for some men from Buenos Ayres, worthy by their education and moral character to be teachers in Prussia, and on the opening of the school of La Patria, I passed immediately into the troop of four hundred children of all ages and conditions, who were eager to receive the only solid instruction which has been given amongst us in primary schools. The memory of Don Ignacio, and Don José Jenaro Rodriguez, still awaits the reparation due to their immense, their holy services; and I must not die until my country has fulfilled that sacred duty. The sentiment of equality was developed in our hearts by the epithet of Señor, which we were obliged to give each other without regard to condition or race; and by the morality of manners, stimulated by the example of the master; the oral lessons, and the punishments which were only severe
