Canada enter the Santos harbor. The State of São Paulo had sent out
a statement of the need of agriculturalists. Misunderstanding of
needs and conditions had brought about five hundred poor Canadians to
this “Land of Warmth and Sunshine,” knowing nothing of agriculture,
half-skilled in some trades, or well-skilled in trades useless in
Brazil. The State fed them in barracks for a while, tried them on
interior plantations, returned them to the barracks, tried to obtain
other employment, but mostly to no avail. They sickened. Their feet
festered with jiggers. They could not speak Portuguese. They were
helpless. The British Consul had to send them home by twos, threes,
tens, and scores, on tramp steamers, sailing-vessels--any way that they
could work their passage or that he could secure the money to pay the
passage of the women and children.
A letter from an American in São Paulo, dated July 6th, 1900, says:
“What does our government mean by sending out an Italian Priest
as Consul to Santos? If he were only a priest who had practically
withdrawn from active functions, it would not be so bad; but this one
makes it his first duty to visit the newspapers and declare that he
will not allow the duties of the consulate to interfere with his higher
ecclesiastical functions, and, as proof of this, he left the duties of
the office yesterday and came up to say a 30th day Mass for the soul of
a person connected with the _Diario Popular_, and had it advertised far
and near.”
THE CITY OF SÃO PAULO.
There is one train up from Santos to São Paulo at dawn and one after
business hours. A coffee merchant has extended the courtesy of the
club-car which daily brings and returns the bankers and merchants of
this busy but sickly port. Half the men in this car are Brazilian,
some of pure Portuguese descent, others with strains of African or
Indian blood; the remainder are German, English and American. The
journey takes two hours and a half, so they proceed to play poker,
with a few exceptions, who prefer chess or cribbage, or have a big
“home mail.” They are all too accustomed to these beautiful mountains
to look out of the windows as you do, except to count coffee cars and
estimate to-morrow’s receipts. You see many air-plants lodged among
the trees with spikes of pink blossoms, which look like hyacinths at
a little distance. Close by you would think the hyacinth much prettier
and like its fragrance better. The tropical forest is an impenetrable
thicket. You see the face of it only. A car going up the mountain must
be attached to a cable weighted at the other end by a balancing car
going down the parallel track. In this way passengers and thousands of
carloads of coffee are transported by three successive, long, steep
inclines. At the top you wait until all the cars of your train are
cabled up; the train is joined and starts for São Paulo, over level,
open country.
Judging from the din of porters and carriages at the station, São Paulo
is very much alive. The hotel is in the midst of stores. You are taken
to a suite of two huge rooms and asked a great price. You had said you
wanted one room. Argument ensues. The rooms belong together. You affirm
that you will have but one. There is no access to the farther room but
through yours; would you afflict the hotel? You persist in taking the
one, and at night hear voices in the other and know the owners found
their resting-place by some other door than yours. That was only a
white lie. That’s nothing!
After dinner you rest in an Austrian bentwood chair (the universally
prized furniture, with no upholstery for insects and dampness, nor
joints which come unglued), and read your lesson; for in traveling one
reads all the available literature about the place one is visiting.
It is little in English you have found about the city of São Paulo.
You know it is now the educational center of all Brazil: that it is
more than three hundred years old, with 200,000 people; that it has
furnished two Presidents for the new republic, and many statesmen; that
it has a charming mingling of tropical and temperate climates: that
England, France and Germany have the import business rather than the
United States.
Coming down on the steamer you became deeply interested in all you
heard of it. A nobleman, who shared his Emperor’s banishment ten years
ago when the republic began, was making a brief visit to his old
home. One day he said very sadly to some American people of Brazilian
experience: “What do you think of my country since the republic?” The
gentlemen replied: “It has improved in many ways.” The Count said:
“You are republicans, of course; yet is not my country very different
from yours?” “Yes, _because there has been no education of the common
people, and they have not been accustomed to self-control_.” Then an
outline of what American missionary schools are trying to do for all
grades, “gentle and simple,” in this city, was given, to his great
surprise.[5]
[5] See Appendix.
Here are items you find in your reading:
“Less than thirty years ago it was common for men to lock their wives
and daughters securely in the upper story when they went to business,
or if absent for any length of time to deliver them to a convent for
safekeeping. No respectable woman could go alone on the streets of any
of the large towns.
“The story of Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Cuba is the story of
Brazil and all countries where Rome has held undisturbed sway. In the
seventeen and one-half millions of Roman Catholic Brazilians there is
82 per cent. of illiteracy and an enormous per cent. of illegitimacy
and crime.
“The first missionaries of the Presbyterian Board landed in Brazil
in 1860. Every avenue to knowledge was held by the State Church and
the Jesuits had control. Private schools were subject to priestly
inspection. Protestantism was fiercely opposed by State, Church and
people. Men who dared to preach the Gospel publicly, risked their
lives.”
In 1885, their schools had been opened fifteen years. “Under the
influence of Protestantism, or at any rate coincident with the growth
of Presbyterian schools and churches in Brazil, new and more liberal
educational laws were enacted. Influences were at work in society which
in the near future were to abolish slavery, overthrow monarchy, set up
a government of the people and separate Church from State.”
In 1889 “Mackenzie College” was begun. In 1890 their record stands: “A
boys’ boarding school, a girls’ boarding school, and a day school in
the rua São João, with thirteen rooms for teaching purposes--a normal
department with four rooms, all full to overflowing--an enrolment of
four hundred and forty-seven pupils in all grades from kindergarten to
high school. Eighteen primary schools in different parts of the field
with an efficient corps of native teachers, and a self-supporting
manual training school.”
The report up to date (1900) is: “The enrolment for the year was
546, with a very high average attendance. There were 339 Brazilians,
48 Germans, 38 Italians, 18 Americans, 14 French, 12 English and
17 of other nationalities. Roman Catholics, 427; Protestants, 117;
Israelites, 2. This completes the twenty-ninth year of the school and
the tenth year of the college.” A footnote explains that the numbers
have not grown the last few years because there is not an inch more
room to put a pupil in.
The Rev. Geo. W. Chamberlain was the founder of these schools. At the
beginning boys and girls had not been accustomed to meet each other
with any freedom. Evil was very evil and very universal. A Brazilian
General of high rank, and the last Governor of the province of São
Paulo under Emperor Dom Pedro, General Couto Magelhaes (Magellan,
a descendant of the old explorer), later became Mr. Chamberlain’s
friend, and begged for more American teachers and a larger school for
_co-education_!! as he had now seen it developed. Indeed he said, “The
only hope of Brazil lies in such co-educational schools.” Query. Did
Prof. Agassiz plant the germ of this thought when they went up the
Amazon together?
Next day you take a carriage and try to get a general sense of the
town. You have heard the State of São Paulo called the “New England
of Brazil.” But if you call the city of São Paulo the Boston, the
difference is most apparent. The narrow, crooked streets are similar,
but the buildings are like those in all Spanish and Portuguese towns.
As you go down the poorer streets, one word comes to you at every
turn of your eye, “unclean”--the children, the grown-ups, the houses,
the streets, even the emblem of the Holy Spirit which an appointed
solicitor of his parish church carries while he begs funds for the
celebration of the annual holiday of this member of the Trinity. When
I saw one of these I mistook it at a little distance for a pole with a
cast-off bonnet on top--a cluster of dilapidated artificial flowers and
a bird. Investigation proved the latter a dove!
While many streets are lined with one-story hovels, there are many
broad and quite well-paved thoroughfares, and you see these with
pleasure. Solid walls higher than your head shut most of the pretty
gardens from view, but you get glimpses of comfortable one and
two-story houses, the bright colors soft and pleasing. Now and then
the Portuguese style is supplanted by the French mansard, and you may
guess the owner has been to Paris. Indeed, if he travels far in any
direction, he must go on horseback, or on the Atlantic.
Gas, electric lights, street-car lines, sewers, public buildings, and
parks, all add to the comfort of living in this old metropolis.
You drive through the finest part of town on your way to the Avenida
(Boulevard) and to see the modern reservoir with fine water-works,
and isolating hospital, just built by an ambitious government. On the
slope of the ridge up which you drive, you see for a long distance a
plain, square, substantial three-story, buff brick structure. “What is
that?” “Mackenzie College.” In this city of ornate architecture and
brilliant coloring this solid plainness is nearly droll. But it is
just so much more noticeable. Everybody knows Mackenzie College. The
low, insufficient dormitory, house for little boys, manual training
shop and President’s dwelling dot the campus, not a foot of which can
be spared to be sold if only they can get money to build a dormitory.
Descending to the town again you pass the new Government Normal School
building and go to see the teachers at the São João school. Plain brick
again. Heavy wall around the grounds. What a bee-hive inside! You go
through one full schoolroom after another with Miss Scott. The children
are so well disciplined they scarcely notice you. The faces are pretty
and bright. What surprises you most are the exquisite writing of the
young Brazilian teachers on the black-boards, the order and attention
in every room whether governed by American teachers or Brazilian
who have been trained here, the devotion of the wee new scholars to
Miss Baxter and the perfect cleanliness, system and good food which
Miss Munson secures. Surely Dr. Lane and Miss Scott, who guide this
combination day and girls’ boarding-school, ought to be happy, thankful
and proud, and the men and women in the U. S. whose gifts have made
this school a possibility ought to be grateful also. The children come
from families of the rich and the poor, of title and missionaries, of
many nationalities, and differing religious belief. But the mental and
moral discipline has challenged the attention of the Government to
such an extent that it has been building several remarkable buildings
for schools, and teachers trained in this “American School” have been
invited to assist in developing the work in them. Many are the tales
you will be told, while you stay, of a Boston school-ma’am who was
lent by the American school to inaugurate the first years of work in
the new Government Normal School. The question of Bible and religion
in the Government schools is the same in São Paulo and Chicago, but
the other religious opportunities and influences are not the same. If
any education of our Protestant type is given to Brazilian youth (not
sectarian, but Protestant) it cannot be left to Brazilian fostering.
Infidelity, spiritualism, and materialism abound.
When Sunday comes you can choose between three Protestant services,
two Presbyterian and one Methodist, all in Portuguese, or the Church
of England service in English. Perhaps you prefer to go early to mass.
There is ample opportunity for that, and then the day would be a free
holiday, so says the majority in the city.
[Illustration: GOVERNMENT NORMAL SCHOOL, SÃO PAULO.]
You may go to the Catholic cemetery on high ground, commanding a fine
view of the city. In the thick wall surrounding it are receiving cells
for coffins, which can be rented for varying lengths of time. It is a
reproduction of such a place in Spain, the West Indies or New Orleans,
including the durable wreaths of flowers made of metal, of bisque or of
beads, often also photographs under glass. Women never go to a funeral.
The hearses and coffins are of brilliant colors, purple, or scarlet, or
yellow, and gold.
You must watch the people come and go at the hotel and amuse yourself
again with their trunks. Here is a complete set of French ones--real
Louis Vuittons made for every sort of contents, even one for the huge
tin wash-pan which will be used for my lady’s clothes. How long since
you had seen a real old-time “hair-trunk,” i. e., a trunk covered with
calf-skin with its hair on! Here they are, studded with brass nails,
initials and all! But the tin trunks were the drollest, till you
finally bought one yourself and found how well it kept out dampness.
The tin ones are all sizes and all colors--decorated. Yours is a nice
bright blue, with red roses painted in a stiff bunch on top.
You are rapidly learning the value of sunshine in damp climates. You
hang out your clothing and shoes at least once a week in the hot sun
until the particles of mold are entirely dry, so they will not be
pasty, then brush them thoroughly. Your gloves you buy, without metal
buttons, which discolor, only a few at a time, and keep them with lumps
of dry ammonia in a tight glass jar or tin biscuit box. You do not trim
your dresses with steel. That would rust. When you buy a new hat-pin it
has a gilt or brass, not a steel, pin. You keep an eye to your needles
and scissors.
A few insects will give you something to talk about when you reach
home, but they are not much more troublesome than home-pests.
The flea (_pulga_) takes the place of mosquitoes. He does not keep you
awake with singing, and if you compel careful cleaning of your rooms
and do not cherish vagabond dogs you will not find him a serious
trial after the first fortnight or so. I do not know whether it was a
truth spoken in jest or how to characterize the assertion of an old
resident who said that his own home fleas never bit him. It was only in
other people’s houses that he suffered. One does at least seem to grow
bite-proof.
A borachuda bite is more rare but more interesting. He looks like a
feeble baby fly. He bites your hand in the shadow, on the sly, and the
spot indurates besides inflaming, and lasts longer than the other sorts
of bite, but is not serious.
The barata is like a huge cockroach. He loves leather, shoes,
traveling bags, passe-partouts, book-bindings. Starch and glue are
also acceptable articles of diet to him. With strict housekeeping he
is banished. You see how convenient a tin trunk will be if you really
travel in all sorts of places, to protect a few of your valuables, now
and then.
Now you know the worst there is to know, unless it may be the early
puzzles of an American housekeeper here. First as to ice. You can
get some if you will, but most people do not. It is considered most
unwholesome to drink ice-water. I cannot myself see the superiority of
an evaporating water-jar of porous terra cotta, for it has a slender
neck and could only be rinsed, never washed and absolutely cleansed,
I should think. I admit the chill of the ice-water may be bad in
yellow-fever regions. Most people and most shops have no refrigerators.
Meat is eaten the day it is killed, and is called _carne verde_, green
meat. This is the tempting label on butchers’ carts. I remember going
to dine with a lady who was a fine housekeeper. The turkey was as
tender as one from Rhode Island or Philadelphia. I asked the secret.
She said that before it was killed that morning she had fed it whisky
until it staggered.
Every house of pretension has its “dispense,” or locked closet, from
which the housekeeper every morning counts out or weighs out exactly
what is to be used by the cook for the meals of the day. The cook
usually goes to market, being able to beat down the prices to the
proper point with better grace than the presiding genius of the house.
Besides he or she can bring home the purchases in a basket, and there
is no further doubt as to whether the article purchased is the one
delivered. The great markets are worth a visit. You will go at least to
the chief one, in the heart of town, in a great, light market-building
which would be a credit anywhere.
You visit an English bride who came with her new husband on your
steamer, and is to live in São Paulo. Her wedding presents have
been delayed in the custom house, and are but just received after
paying duties the equal of $400, in American money! It was only the
usual collection of gifts to the average bride, but the duties are
excessive on silverware and on any bric-à-brac or furniture having
gilt mountings. Fabrics and even rugs are dutiable by weight. You have
lifted an Oriental rug. She had one. She also had, unfortunately,
a whole “bolt of American muslin”--too close-woven and heavy for
Brazilian customs. She is trying to decide whether her _sala_ shall be
altogether British or partly Brazilian in arrangement. An afternoon
tea-table will seem like home to her. She settles upon bentwood
furniture, cane-seated of course, and arranges sofa and chairs with
elastic reference to Brazilian custom. The sofa occupies a prominent
place, two mate armchairs face each other at right angles to the sofa,
making three sides of a conversational square, nicely accommodating
four persons. The genuine Brazilian would go on adding to the two
chairs at least two more on either side of the sofa. His guest would
take the chair farthest from the sofa while waiting for the host, and
a seat on the sofa at the end of the aisle of chairs would be the high
honor which could be extended by the host when he comes in.
She has an oil-stove, too, which is an occasional comfort in the cool
evening or on a rainy day when even an umbrella will not dry.
Her handsome mahogany furniture is a comparative trial here, for the
Brazilians have a cheaper hard wood of the same color from which many
ordinary articles are made, and some other would have been far more
elegant, black walnut for instance!
You are by this time entirely accustomed to the universal toothpick,
smoothly made of orangewood, really a perfection of a toothpick; for
every Brazilian has used one at intervals throughout every meal on the
steamer and at hotels since you left Lisbon; also to the universal
cigarette, welcome in dining-room and salon. You also find that they
hold American dentists in high esteem, and there are several good ones
in Petropolis, Rio and São Paulo.
Walking down the street men lift their hats as they pass each Romish
church. Every sort of package is carried on porters’ heads, and the
colored porters often fall into a rhythmical walk or trot as peculiar
to them as the flourish of a black waiter in a restaurant in America.
A pleasant invitation comes to you to attend the English cricket
match, a gay affair, with plenty to eat--and drink.
I remember while I was in São Paulo one cool July day talking over
the news of the last package of New York _Heralds_ (the paper, or its
Paris edition, taken largely by American exiles in Brazil), with an
Anglo-Brazilian friend. We had been discussing the unwholesomeness of
ice. I showed her the subscription list to the “_Herald_ Ice Fund for
the Poor of New York City!” She could only think it $10,000 misplaced!
So true is it that one needs really to live in a given climate or place
to really appreciate its requirements.
Frequently, evenings, there is a blaze of fireworks for saints you do
not know. One day you are invited to go with a party to the “Penha,”
one of the Madonna festivals, perhaps the greatest one here. It is
celebrated a little distance from town, with scores of roulette wheels,
and the people save their earnings for some time to gamble there to
their hearts’ content.
When I was in São Paulo a General Conference of Methodist missionaries
convened. The men had come from long distances, several of them remote
from railroad or seaboard. I went to their farewell meeting. It was
held in a plain, whitewashed room. We were seated on long benches.
There was little modern style about the garments or evidence of high
living in the cheeks or eyes. Bishop Granbery presided with gentle
dignity. Dr. Morrison made the address. He began by quoting the text,
“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust
doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal, but lay up
for yourselves treasures in heaven.” Looking about with a quiet,
half-sarcastic smile, he said: “Brethren, I do not think any one will
accuse any one here of laying up treasures on earth. Let us talk about
treasures in heaven. Any of you who has found a poor, ignorant, debased
soul here, and has patiently put his own life beside that life, and
taught and developed and strengthened that life by God’s help so that
it is purer, holier, more Christlike, will find some treasure laid up
in heaven. It will be the difference between that soul as he found it
and what it becomes.” I have had many occasions to recall that bit of
sermon in my knowledge of American missionaries and their helpful work
in Brazil, and so, I believe, will you.
It will always be a pleasure to remember the hospitality of both
merchants and missionaries. Before leaving São Paulo, you must
accept the offer of Dr. Lane, President of Mackenzie College, to go
through not only his own preparatory classes and college, where you
will find the first working laboratory for chemistry in a Brazilian
school and the first manual training school, as well as plenty of
classic Portuguese, Latin, and other things, but go through the
Government schools as well, where he is always an honored guest. Then
go to Cantareira with Prof. Orville A. Derby, the eminent Government
geologist, and the young professors of the college. It is an easy day’s
excursion to the source of the water supply for the city. A train of
open cars takes you through old gardens of roses, and out to the
mountain streams, enclosed by first-rate engineering, and filtered and
reservoired amid gardens and masonry most attractive. You can study a
coffee-tree (or bush) of your own height, with shiny green leaves and
bright red cherries, the pits of which are two coffee-beans lying with
their flat sides together, and recall the enthusiastic description of a
man who has just returned from a trip to a great coffee plantation in
the interior.