of the church, and their sentiment against the profanation of holy ground. Formerly Brazil constituted an ecclesiastical province under the metropolitan jurisdiction of an archbishop residing at Bahia, with 11 suffragan bishops, 12 vicars-general and about 2000 curates. In 1892 the diocese of Rio de Janeiro was made an archbishopric, and four new dioceses were created. Three more have been added since, making twenty dioceses in all. In 1905 the archbishop of Rio de Janeiro was made a cardinal. The church has eleven seminaries for the education of priests, and maintains a large number of private schools, especially for girls, which are patronized by the better classes. The church likewise exercises a far-reaching influence over the people through the beneficent work of its lay orders, and through the hospitals and asylums under its control in every part of the country. A Misericordia hospital is to be found in almost every town of importance, and recolhimentos for orphan girls in all the large cities. In no country have these charities received more generous support than in Brazil. The Protestant contingent consists of a number of small congregations scattered throughout the country, a few Portuguese Protestants from the Azores, a part of the German colonists settled in the central and southern states, and a large percentage of the North Europeans and Americans temporarily resident in Brazil. The Positivists are few in number, but their congregations are made up of educated and influential people.
Art, Science and Literature.—The Brazilian people have the natural taste for art, music and literature so common among the Latin nations of the Old World. The emperor Dom Pedro II. did much to encourage these pursuits, and many promising young men received their education in Europe at his personal expense. Still earlier in the century (1815) the regent Dom John VI. brought out a number of French artists to educate his subjects in the fine arts, and the Escola Real de Sciencias, Artes e Officios was founded in the following year. From this beginning resulted the Academia de Bellas Artes of a later date, to which was added a conservatory of music in 1841. The institution is now called the Escola Nacional de Bellas Artes. Free instruction in the fine arts has been given in this school. The higher results of artistic training, however, are less marked than a widespread dilettantism. The Brazilian composer Carlos Gomes (1839–1896) is the best known of those who have adopted music as a profession, his opera Il Guarani having been produced at most of the European capitals. The most prominent among Brazilian painters is Pedro Americo, and in sculpture Rodolpho Bernardelli has done good work. In science Brazil has accomplished very little, although many eminent foreign naturalists have spent years of study within her borders. João Barbosa Rodrigues has done some good work in botany, especially in the study of the palms of the Amazon, and João Baptista de Lacerda has made important biological investigations at the national museum of Rio de Janeiro. There are several scientific societies and institutions in the country, but they rarely undertake original work. The most active are the geographical societies, but very little has been done in the direction of scientific exploration. Some interesting results have been obtained from the boundary surveys, from Dr E. Cruls’s exploration of a section of the Goyaz plateau in 1892 in search of a site for the future capital of the republic, and from some of the river and railway surveys. In 1875 a geological commission was organized under the direction of Professor Charles Frederick Hartt, but it was disbanded two years later. In 1906 Congress resolved to undertake a national geological survey under the direction of Mr Orville A. Derby, one of Professor Hartt’s assistants. The coal resources of the southern states were investigated in 1904, under the auspices of the national government, by Dr J. C. White, of the U.S. Geological Survey, who found strata of fairly good coal at depths of 100 to 200 ft. extending from Rio Grande do Sul north to São Paulo. The more important contributions to our present knowledge of Brazil, however, have been obtained through the labours of foreign naturalists. Beginning with the German mineralogist W. L. von Eschwege, who spent nineteen years in Brazil (1809–1828), the list includes A. de Saint-Hilaire (1816–1820 and 1830), J. B. von Spix and C. F. von Martins (1817–1820), Prince Max zu Neuwied (1815–1817), P. W. Lund (1827–1830, and 1830 to 1880, the year of his death), George Gardner (1836–1841), A. R. Wallace (1848–1852), H. W. Bates (1848–1859), Hermann Burmeister (1850–1852), Louis Agassiz (1865–1866), Charles Frederick Hartt (1865–1866, 1872 and 1875–1878) and Karl von den Steinen (1884–1885 and 1887–1888). These explorations cover every branch of natural science and resulted in publications of inestimable scientific value. There should also be mentioned the monumental work of C. F. P. von Martius on the Flora Braziliensis, and the explorations of Agassiz and Lund. Among other scientists of a later date who have published important works on Brazil are the American geologists O. A. Derby and J. C. Branner, the Swiss naturalist E. A. Goeldi, the German botanist J. Huber, the German ethnologist H. von Ihring, and the German geographer Fried. Katzer. The Instituto Historico e Geographico Brazileiro, though devoted chiefly to historical research, has rendered noteworthy service in its encouragement of geographical exploration and by its publication of various scientific memoirs. The Museu Nacional at Rio de Janeiro, which has occupied the imperial palace of São Christovão since the overthrow of the monarchy, contains large collections of much scientific value, but defective organization and apathetic direction have rendered them of comparatively slight service. The Observatorio Nacional at Rio de Janeiro is another prominent public institution. The botanical gardens of Brazil are developing into permanent exhibitions of the flora of the regions in which they are located. That of Rio de Janeiro is widely celebrated for its avenues of royal palms, but it has also rendered an important service to the country in the dissemination of exotic plants.
Brazilian literature has been seriously prejudiced by partisan politics and dilettantism. The colonial period was one of strict repression, the intellectual life of the people being jealously supervised by the church to protect itself against heresy, and their progress being restricted by the Portuguese crown to protect its monopoly of the natural resources of the country. The arrival of Dom John VI. in 1808 broke down some of these restrictions, and the first year of his residence in Rio de Janeiro saw the establishment of the first printing press in Brazil and the publication of an official gazette. There was no freedom of the press, however, until 1821, when the abolition of the censorship and the constitutional struggle in Portugal gave rise to a political discussion that marked the opening of a new era in the development of the nation, and aroused an intellectual activity that has been highly productive in journalistic and polemical writings. In no country, perhaps, has the press exercised a more direct and powerful influence upon government than in Brazil, and in no other country can there be found so high a percentage of journalists in official life. Some of the political writers have played an important part in moulding public opinion on certain questions, as in the case of A. C. Tavares Bastos, whose Cartas do Solitario were highly instrumental in causing the Amazon to be thrown open to the world’s commerce and also in preparing the way for the abolition of slavery; and in that of Joaquim Saldanha Marinho, whose discussions in 1874–1876 of the relations between church and state prepared the way for their separation. The personal element is conspicuous in the Brazilian journalism, and for a considerable period of its history libellous attacks on persons, signed by professional sponsors, popularly called testas de ferro (iron heads), were admitted at so much a line in the best newspapers.
The singular adaptability of the Portuguese language to poetical expression, coupled with the imaginative temperament of the people, has led to an unusual production and appreciation of poetry. The percentage of educated men who have written little volumes of lyrics is surprisingly large, and this may be accounted for by the old Portuguese custom of reciting poetry with musical accompaniment. The most popular of the Brazilian poets are Thomaz Antonio Gonzaga, Antonio Gonçalves Dias and Bernardo Guimarães. Among the dramatists and novelists
