AMERICA IN COLUMBUS' CENTURY
Since our English colonization of America did not take place until the
seventeenth century--Jamestown, 1607; Plymouth, 1620--it is ordinarily
presumed, in English-speaking countries at least, that there is little
or nothing worth while talking about in American history during
Columbus' Century, ending as it does in 1550. As a matter of fact,
however, though America was discovered only in 1492, there is an
extremely interesting and significant chapter of American history
between 1500 and 1550. This is, of course, all in the Spanish-American
countries. It has unfortunately been the custom to think of the
Spanish colonies as backward in all that relates to education and
culture, but the history of even this half century here in America,
when some magnificent progress was made, the landmarks of which still
remain, is quite enough to show how far from the realities of things
as they were some of our fondly cherished historic impressions are.
There is not a single phase of civilization that did not receive
diligent attention very early in the history of Spanish America, and
the results achieved were such as to represent enduring progress in
the intellectual life. In education, in printing and the distribution
of books, in art and architecture, in the training of the Indians in
the arts and crafts as well as in the principles of self-government,
and even in science, though this department of human accomplishment is
usually not supposed to be seriously taken at this time, there are
many significant early American achievements.
It is only in comparatively recent years that in English-speaking
countries there has come anything like a proper recognition of the
work done by the Spaniards in America in the early days of the history
of this continent. It has been the custom to think that, while the
English colonists came {276} to make a home here, the main purpose of
the Spaniards in America was to exploit the inhabitants and the
country and to do just as little as possible for either, provided only
the members of the Spanish expeditions made money enough to enable
them to live in comfort at home in Spain after a few years of stay
here in America. Mr. Sidney Lee, the distinguished editor of the
English Biographical Dictionary and an authority on Shakespeare and
the Elizabethan period, as well as the sixteenth century generally, in
a series of articles which appeared in _Scribner's_ for 1907 on "The
Call of the West," contradicted most of these notions that are so
prevalent with regard to the contrasted attitude of the English
colonists and the Spanish colonizers during the early history of the
continent. He said, for instance, not hesitating properly to
characterize the principal reason for this historical deception:
[Illustration: STRADAN (JAN VAN DER STRAET), NIELLO,
IVORY COLUMBUS ON HIS FIRST VOYAGE ]
"Especially has theological bias justified neglect or facilitated
misconception of Spain's role in the sixteenth century drama of
American history. Spain's initial adventures in the {277} New World
are often consciously or unconsciously overlooked or underrated in
order that she may figure on the stage of history as the benighted
champion of a false and obsolete faith, which was vanquished under
divine protecting providence by English defenders of the true
religion. Many are the hostile critics who have painted sixteenth
century Spain as the avaricious accumulator of American gold and
silver, to which she had no right, as the monopolist of American
trade, of which she robbed others, as the oppressor and exterminator
of the weak and innocent aborigines of the new continent who
deplored her presence among them. Cruelty in all its hideous forms
is, indeed, commonly set forth as Spain's only instrument of rule in
her sixteenth century empire. On the other hand, the English
adventurer has been credited by the same pens with a touching
humanity, with the purest religious aspirations, with a romantic
courage which was always at the disposal of the oppressed native.
"No such picture is recognized when we apply the touchstone of the
oral traditions, printed books, maps and manuscripts concerning
America which circulated in Shakespeare's England. There a
predilection for romantic adventure is found to sway the Spaniards
in even greater degree than it swayed the Elizabethan. Religious
zeal is seen to inspirit the Spaniards more constantly and
conspicuously than it stimulated his English contemporary. The
motives of each nation are barely distinguishable one from another.
Neither deserves to be credited with any monopoly of virtue or vice.
Above all, the study of contemporary authorities brings into a
dazzling light which illumes every corner of the picture _the
commanding facts of the Spaniard's priority as explorer, as
scientific navigator, as conqueror, as settler."_ (Italics ours.)
In education particularly the Spaniards accomplished much for which
they have been given almost no credit in English-speaking countries
until the last few years. As a matter of fact, as the President of a
great Eastern university said at a public dinner not long since, "We
have only just discovered Spanish America." The lamented Professor
Bourne of Yale, who wrote the third volume of "The American Nation"
[Footnote 24] {278} on Spain in America, was one of the earliest
American students of history to realize how much of injustice had been
done by the ordinarily accepted notions of Spanish-American history
that are common in English-speaking countries. In his chapter on "The
Transmission of European Culture," which is a vindication of
Spanish-American intellectual achievements, Professor Bourne proceeds
to institute comparisons between what was done in Spanish and in
English America in the early centuries for education and intellectual
development, and constantly to the disadvantage of the
English-speaking countries. He said:
[Footnote 24: Harpers, New York.]
"Not all the institutions of learning founded in Mexico in the
_sixteenth century_ can be enumerated here, but it is not too much to
say that in number, range of studies and standards of attainments by
the officers they surpassed anything existing in English America
_until the nineteenth century_. (Italics ours.) Mexican scholars made
distinguished achievements in some branches of _science, particularly
medicine_ and surgery, but pre-eminently linguistics, history and
anthropology. Dictionaries and grammars of the native languages and
histories of the Mexican institutions are an imposing proof of their
scholarly devotion and intellectual activity. Conspicuous are Toribio
de Motolinia's '_Historia de las Indias de Nueva Espana,'_ Duran's
'_Historia de las Indias de Nueva Espana,'_ but most important of all
Sahagun's great work on Mexican life and religion." Most of these
works were written after the close of Columbus' Century, but the
ground had been prepared for them and some of the actual accumulation
of facts for them begun in our period. They followed as a natural
development out of the scholarly interests already displayed in the
first half of the sixteenth century.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of Spanish-American development
of education is the fact that its first landmark is a school for the
education of Indians. Not a few of the Spaniards who came to Mexico in
the first half of the sixteenth century had enjoyed the advantage of a
university education. As their children grew up they felt like sending
them back to Spain for university education, and many were {279} so
sent. The need for the education of the Indians was recognized early,
however, and in 1535 the College of Santa Cruz in Tlaltelolco, the
quarter of the City of Mexico reserved for the Indians, was founded
under the patronage of Bishop Zumarata. Among the faculty were, as
might be expected, graduates not only of Salamanca, the great Spanish
university of the time, but also of the University of Paris, which was
at this period the leading university of the world. It is interesting
to realize that these professors did not consider that they were
fulfilling their whole duty by teaching alone, but also devoted
themselves faithfully to what many have come to look upon apparently
as a modern development of university life, the duty of investigating
and writing. This is the real index of the vitality of a university
and the sincerity of its professors. Among the teachers of Santa Cruz
were such eminent scholars as Bernardino de Sahagun, the founder of
American anthropology, and Juan de Torquemada, himself a graduate of a
Mexican college, whose _"Monarquia Indiana"_ is a great storehouse of
facts concerning Mexico before the coming of the whites, containing
many precious details with regard to Mexican antiquity.
Just as Columbus' Century was closing, arrangements were made for the
organization of two universities in Spanish America--the one in Mexico
City and the other in Lima, Peru. They received their royal charters
the same year, 1551, but besides the granting of their charters a
definite amount of the Spanish revenues was set aside by the Crown as
a government contribution to their support. It seems worth while to
note that such encouragement on the part of the English Government for
an institution of learning in the American colonies a full century, or
even two, later than this would have been quite out of the question.
Whatever the English colonists did for education they had to do for
themselves. There was no aid and not even sympathy with their efforts.
English universities for several centuries refused to recognize
American universities as on a par with them, and rightly, for their
standards were too low, though it is an extremely interesting
commentary on the educational situation in America, and especially on
the usually accepted {280} notions as to the relative significance of
Spanish and English education here, that both the University of Lima
and of Mexico came to be recognized during the sixteenth century as
sister institutions of learning not only by Salamanca and the other
Spanish universities, at this time among the best institutions of
learning in Europe, but also by the other university of Europe, whose
prestige was the highest, that of Paris. There was a certain
interchange of professors among them, though this was not formally
organized, and graduates of Salamanca and Paris taught at both Mexico
and Lima. Students from these American universities were accorded
their American ratings and allowed to proceed with their work on an
equality with European university men, a privilege scarcely accorded
to English-American university students even yet.
The scholars of the Old World were quite well aware that the New
Learning was penetrating into the Western Hemisphere and were proud to
think that the humanities were being cultivated beyond the Western
ocean. Before the end of Columbus' Century, Marcantonio Flaminio, whom
Sandys in his "Harvard Lectures on the Revival of Learning" calls the
purest of the Latin poets of the age, a man who was a great friend of
Vittoria Colonna, in sending to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese a volume
of Latin poems by the scholars of Northern Italy, assures the Cardinal
that France and Spain and Germany and distant Brittany would do honor
to those Latin muses, and that even the New World would share in
admiration for them. As he puts it: "Those on whom the light of dawn
arises when the skies of Italy are wrapped in darkness will devote
their nights and days to the study of the Latin poets of Italy."
"For strange to tell, e'en on that far-off shore
Doth flourish now the love of Latin lore."
The newly created Universities of Mexico and Lima developed during the
half century following Columbus' Century into full-fledged
institutions of learning amply deserving the name university. Lectures
in medicine were delivered in {281} Mexico in 1578, and a full medical
faculty was organized before the close of the century. Our first
school of medicine in English America did not come into existence for
fully two centuries later. More than half a century before this,
however, special care had been exercised by the Spanish authorities to
prevent the exploitation of the Spanish colonists or the Indians by
pretenders to knowledge in medicine. As early as 1527 strict medical
regulations were drawn up by the municipal council of the City of
Mexico, granting the license to practise medicine only to those who
showed the possession of a university degree in medicine. Even earlier
than this arrangements had been made for the regular training of
barber surgeons, so that injuries and wounds of various kinds might be
treated promptly as well as properly, so that even the poorer classes
might have the benefit of some regular training in those whose
ministrations they could afford to pay for. A pure-drug ordinance,
regulating the practice of the apothecaries, was issued as early as
1529. It was practically only in our own time that similar regulations
were adopted in this country.
Standards in university teaching were well maintained. Post-graduate
work was literally post-graduate work, and students might take up the
study of medicine or of law or of divinity only after having made
proper preliminary studies in the undergraduate departments of the
university. The Spanish-American universities received a charter not
only from the Spanish crown, but also from the Pope. The formal title
of the University of Mexico was the Pontifical University of the city.
The Papal charter was sought because it was the only way to secure an
international value for academic degrees, for the Papacy was the
international authority of the time. Papal charters for the
universities, however, were granted only on condition that standards
should be maintained. There are any number of these Papal university
charters extant which emphasize this necessity. On the establishment
of a new university the professors had to be graduates of
well-recognized, authoritative universities, in which the examinations
were held in oath-bound secrecy, in order {282} to assure as far as
possible absolute fairness and the maintenance of standards. The
course of studies and the length of time for them had to be arranged
in accordance with the standards of older universities.
[Illustration: TITLE PAGE OF LETTER OF COLUMBUS (BASEL, 1494)]
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[Illustration: PAGE FROM THE LETTER OF COLUMBUS (BASEL, 1494)]
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The Spanish-American universities had the advantage of being closely
in touch with the European universities, and as a consequence had
taken their traditions direct from them. Papal university charters, as
a rule, required explicitly that there should be three years of
university work before medicine or other graduate work might be taken
up, and then four years of medicine before the degree of doctor would
be granted. Even after this, according to the Italian laws of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the practice of medicine must not
be begun by the graduate until he had spent a year in practice with an
experienced physician. This is the year of hospital work that we are
now trying to introduce into the medical schools as a requirement and
which is taken, but voluntarily, by most of those who are seriously
interested in their professional studies. The preliminary
requirements, that is, such formal academic preparation for the study
of medicine as makes it possible for a young man to take up the
subject and properly benefit by it, have only become obligatory by law
in very recent years here in America, and that to a very limited
degree.
The letter written to the Municipal Council of his native city,
Seville, by Dr. Chanca, who accompanied Columbus on his second
expedition, shows the thoroughly scientific interest and the acute
powers of observation of the Spanish physicians of this time. This is
unquestionably the first written document about the flora, the fauna,
the ethnology and the anthropology of America. Dr. Fernandez de Ybarra
published in the _Journal_ of the American Medical Association,
September 29, 1906, some abstracts from this letter which show that
these expressions are justified by its contents and are not mere
enthusiastic terms for rather commonplace observations. Chanca
described in detail woods of various kinds, fruit, spices, plants such
as cotton, the birds and animals, and above all the customs,
appearance and mode of living of the inhabitants. He gives in detail
their slave-making and cannibalistic tendencies. There was nothing
that escaped Chanca's observation. He found turpentine, tar, nutmegs,
ginger, aloes, though he noted that the aloes were not the same kind
as those in Spain (Barbadoes aloes are still {285} considered
inferior), cinnamon, cloves, mastic and many other things. He notes
the food of the inhabitants, their mode of working, the absence of
iron, yet the well-made implements, the presence of gold in many
places, describes the climate of the country and gives important
details with regard to its meteorology.
Dr. Chanca had been the physician to their majesties, and he gave up
not only this position, but a large and lucrative practice in order to
become the physician of the colonies. It is principally through him
that we have any account of Columbus' second voyage. This second
voyage was, of course, very different from the first and carried a
thousand five hundred persons, among them many of the nobility who had
recently been in the wars with the Moors and who were looking for new
conquests in America. They were restless and hard to manage, negligent
and rash, they tasted many things without due care and succeeded in
poisoning themselves on a number of occasions, they caught the fevers
of the country and only for the presence of Dr. Chanca it is very
probable that most of them would have perished. Columbus, who thought
that he owed him his life, praises him highly in a letter to the
Sovereigns, asking permission to pay him special fees in addition to
the salary and rations which he was allowed as _scrivener_ in the
Indies. His letter and the estimation in which he was held at the time
is the best possible evidence of the standard of attainments of the
Spanish physicians of Columbus' Century.
One of the memorable products of American scholarship during Columbus'
Century, that must not be passed over without mention here, is
Garcilaso de la Vega, the historian of Peru, born in our period,
though he did his work afterwards. He was the son of a daughter of the
Incas, the reigning family in Peru when the Spaniards came, and owed
to his mother the suggestion of writing a history of his ancestors and
their land. He travelled over the country consulting the old
inhabitants, the principal among whom were relatives through his
mother and his father was the Spanish Governor of Cuzco, one of the
few Spanish governors, be it said, who did not die a violent death.
Garcilaso was then in an {286} excellent position to gather all the
details of the story, yet without prejudice against the Spaniards. As
he spent his life after the age of twenty mainly in Europe, his
opportunities for thorough understanding of all the conditions were
complete. His work is of a great historic value, and indeed is the
foundation of all that we know of old Peru. It has been translated
into all the modern languages.
Besides this attention to the higher education and to the education of
the Indians, popular education was cared for sedulously and, above
all, the Indians were instructed in the use of their hands, in the
arts and crafts, and in every way that would make them useful, happy
citizens. The contrast between English America and Spanish America in
this matter is rather striking and has been emphasized by Professor
Bourne in the chapter of his book to which we have already referred.
He said:
"Both the crown and the Church were solicitous for education in the
colonies, and provisions were made for its promotion on a far
greater scale than was possible or even attempted in the English
colonies. The early Franciscan missionaries built a school beside
each Church and in their teaching abundant use was made of signs,
drawings and paintings. The native languages were reduced to
writing, and in a few years Indians were learning to read and write.
Pedro de Gante, a Flemish lay brother and a relative of Charles V,
founded and conducted in the Indian quarter in Mexico a great
school, attended by over a thousand Indian boys, which combined
instruction in elementary and higher branches, the mechanical and
fine arts. _In its workshops the boys were taught to be tailors,
carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers and painters."_ (Italics ours.)
Almost needless to say it is only in quite recent years that we have
awakened to the necessity for such teaching for our Indians and, may
it be added, for the poorer classes of our population generally.
[Illustration: HOSPITAL, MEXICO (FOUNDED BEFORE 1524)]
[Illustration: HOSPITAL, MEXICO (ANOTHER VIEW)]
The printing press early found its home in America, and even during
Columbus' Century quite a number of books were published in the
Spanish-American countries. It is often said that the first book
printed in America was the {287} Massachusetts Bay Psalm Book, issued,
I believe, in 1638, but of course this was long anticipated in Mexico
and in South America. In this, as in many other of the details of
Spanish-American culture. Professor Bourne has given authoritative
information. He said:
"The early promoters of education and missions did not rely upon the
distant European presses for the publication of their manuals. The
printing press was introduced into the New World probably as early
as 1536, and it seems likely that the first book, an elementary
Christian doctrine called 'La Escala Espiritual' (the ladder of the
spirit), was issued in 1537. No copy of it, however, is known to
exist. Seven different printers plied their craft in New Spain in
the sixteenth century. Among the notable issues of these presses,
besides the religious works and church service works, were
dictionaries and grammars of the Mexican languages, Pufa's
'Cedulario' in 1563, a compilation of royal ordinances, Farfan's
'Tractado de Medicina.'"
An enduring and very striking monument of the humanitarian progress
made in Spanish America at this time in medicine is a hospital that
still stands in the City of Mexico. It was built originally by Cortes
and endowed by him, and his descendants still appoint the
superintendent and have much to do with the support of the hospital.
It was erected in 1524, and it might well be thought that at any such
early date as this it would be a very rude structure and the surprise
would be that it is still standing. Miss Nutting and Miss Dock,
however, in their "History of Nursing," have given two pictures of it,
both of which we reproduce here, and which show that it was a
beautiful hospital building and quite worthy of the great beginnings
that were made in other ways in Mexican educational and humanitarian
progress. The pretty courtyard and porticoes were eminently suitable
for the changeable climate of Mexico, and the whole building is a
monument of Spanish culture as well as Spanish charity. [Footnote 25]
[Footnote 25: The surprise inevitable for many at finding that such
a handsome hospital was erected at this time will be tempered by
recalling that this is the period when some of the most beautiful
hospitals in the world were erected. (See the chapter on Social Work
and Workers.) Besides they began very early to erect beautiful
buildings in Mexico City. The University Buildings, the Cathedral
and other public buildings were worthy of the fine traditions of
architecture prevalent in Europe and especially in Spain at this
time.]
{288}
Champlain, the French navigator, having visited the City of Mexico
before the end of the sixteenth century, said of it: "But all the
contentment I felt at the sight of things so agreeable (the beautiful
natural scenery) was but little in comparison with that which I
experienced when I beheld the beautiful City of Mexico, which I did
not suppose had such superb buildings with splendid ample palaces and
fine houses and the streets well laid and where are seen the large and
handsome shops of the merchants full of all sorts of every kind of
merchandise."
Nor must it be thought that Mexico was the only progressive part of
Spanish America so early in our history. Indeed, so much had been
accomplished in the Panama region by the end of Columbus' Century
that, when Sir Francis Drake raided the place some twenty years later,
the bank of the Chagres River was lined with warehouses, there was a
handsome monastery and beautiful church, and there were many houses of
stone decorated with carvings of many kinds, the residences of the
Governor and the royal officials. When the flow of the Chagres was
arrested in order to make the Gatun dam for the Panama Canal, all
vestiges of this disappeared, though the church was practically the
only building of any importance then standing. It showed by the charm
of its architecture and its interesting carvings how high had been the
culture and how good the taste of the builders almost a century before
there was any permanent settlement in English America. The rise of the
waters of the dam did not cover as important records of human progress
as when the great irrigation dam at Assuan submerged the ruins of the
ancient Temple of Philae in Egypt, nor cover up such interesting works
of art, but it did obliterate some of the evidence for a stage of
civilization in America that in English-speaking countries at least
has been wantonly minimized or sadly misunderstood.
There are many remains in Panama that give some idea {289} of how much
the Spaniards did during Columbus' Century and how permanent were many
of their constructions. There is an old bridge from the early part of
the sixteenth century which, though built without a keystone, has its
main arch still standing. There is the famous flat arch which
demonstrates so clearly that this region must have been very little
disturbed by earthquakes ever since, because it seems almost
incredible that a structure should stand with so slight curvature for
any length of time, even in an absolutely undisturbed country, yet
this has been in place for nearly four centuries in Panama. There was
a magnificent paved road across the isthmus, the King's Highway,
remains of which are still to be found in excellent preservation. Some
portions of it were used during the course of the construction of the
Panama Canal and proved very serviceable. When we realize what would
have happened to one of our roads in a century, much less four hundred
years, a good idea of their permanency of construction is reached. The
old tower of St. Jerome, still standing, shows how solidly and yet how
ornately the Spaniards built, and there was evidently a magnificent
set of monumental constructions for religious and civil purposes on
the isthmus almost a century before the pilgrims landed on Plymouth
Rock. The story of these early days in American history has not yet
been told in its entirety, but even the details that are available
show us how well the Spaniards labored for permanency of their
foundations in America.
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