recorded in the registers of its chapters. They exceed at this time a hundred thousand piastres; and it would be difficult to find in the city of Lima a public work to which it has not contributed with cheerfulness and promptitude. It is impossible to read without satisfaction the sacrifice of life, goods, and persons, made by the doctors, masters, and students, in 1709, when the English, having invaded the port of Guayaquil, excited a general panic throughout the kingdom. They enrolled themselves, without any exception of classes or conditions, for the king's service, and formed themselves into companies. Dr. Martin de los Reyes took the command of the company of the ecclesiastics who composed the chapter; that of the seculars was commanded by Dr. Bartolome Romero; and that of the students by Dr. Tomas Salazar. The rector, Don Isidora Olmedo, to evince his attachment and fidelity to his sovereign, took the command in chief.
It has been observed by an illustrious Spaniard[1], that "one of the best ascertained reasons of the decay of universities, is the antiquity of their foundation; because the plan of studies established at the commencement, not having afterward undergone any reform, it follows that they must still retain the dross and impurities of the remote ages, and cannot be freed from them without the intellectual lights afforded by time, and by the discoveries of the eminent subjects of every part of the literary world."
On consulting the archives of the celebrated academies of Europe, we shall soon be made sensible of the solidity of these
- ↑ Count Campomanes, governor of the supreme council of Castille, in his reply on the subject of the plan of studies of the university of Salamanca.
