school. A practical school of artillery is attached, and naval construction is taught in some of the higher national schools ; but students are also sent to the best European navy yards. There are two faculties of medicine, one at Rio de Janeiro, and another at Bahia, each having a curriculum of six years, and conferring degrees. The faculties of law are seated at Sao Paulo and Recife iu Pernambuco. An institute of commercial instruction is presided over by a Government commissioner in Rio. Other remarkable institutions are those for the education of the blind in Rio, and a deaf and dumb institute. An academy of fine arts is established, with schools, in Rio, as well as a conservatorium of music. A national museum of natural history was created in Rio in 1817, and is the raost important of South America. Others of like character have been founded in Para, in Ouro Preto, and in Ceara. The national public library in Rio is the most important establishment of its kind, having more than 100,000 volumes on all subjects. Extensive libraries are also attached to all the colleges and academies ; and popular libraries have
been created in each "of the provincial capitals.The press is represented by six daily newspapers in the capital, of which the Diario do Rio is the oldest, having been founded in 1817. The provincial towns together have nearly 200 newspapers.
The most important of the scientific societies of the empire is the Historical, Geographical, and Ethnographical Institute of Brazil, founded in 1838. There are besides this twenty larger scientific associations in Rio and the provincial capitals. With all these appliances, however, owing to the immense territory over which the population is scattered, the spread of instruction is exceedingly difficult, and the grossest ignorancs yet abounds in the interior of almost every province.
It is obvious, from the insufficient establishments for general education, that the intellectual development of individuals must have been for a long period achieved in a great measure by unaided exertions. Now things are better, but in the more thinly inhabited districts devotion to such pursuits must not be expected in men exclusively occupied in procuring subsistence and securing self-defence. Even where the population is more dense, a lazy feeling of animal comfort represses the exertions of the majority. It is among the more aspiring class, who aim at the learned professions or state employment, and who are consequently obliged to cultivate their minds, that we must look for that attachment to intellectual pursuits which is rarely acquired except from habit. In the theological seminaries, established at the seat of each bishop, little more was inculcated than a knowledge of the classics, an outworn scholastic system of logic, and a knowledge of the routine duties of a priest. The schools of medicine in Rio Janeiro and in Bahia, from the attention bestowed upon practical surgery and anatomy, have done more to awaken the mind. The situations under Government requiring a certain proficiency in practical mathematics and natural history have also diffused a knowledge of and a taste for these pursuits. The number of foreign engineers and naturalists encouraged to settle in Brazil has rendered the natives in some measure acquainted with all that has been of late achieved in Europe in the mathematical and experimental sciences.
In parliament and by the press the most delicate political questions have been discussed with success, and the progress of the Government and of legislation evinces a certain administrative foresight and prudence rarely dis played by other new states.
The Brazilians who frequent the university of Coimbra in Portugal often distinguish themselves among their fellow-students ; and notwithstanding the difficulties they have to contend against, not unfrequently rise to the highest offices of the state.
The most remarkable writers in the Portuguese language on political economy and commercial law were Couttinho, bishop of Pernambuco, and Silva Lisboa, afterwards Vis count de Cayron, a senator of the empire, both Brazilians. Among historians the Brazilian Rocha Pita is distinguished, and Moraes the lexicographer of the Portuguese language belonged to Pernambuco. Portugal is poor in dramatic literature, but one of her most distinguished comic poets was the Brazilian Silva, who afterwards fell a victim to the inquisition of Lisbon. In epic poetry, on the other hand, Portuguese literature is rich. Brazil claims the authorship of two of its most beautiful poems of this class, the Caramuru of Durao, and the Uruguay of Gama. The best of the minor poets is Gonzaga, whose collection of lyrics is well known under the title of Marilia de Dirceo. Little inferior to him is Souza Caldas, whose translation of the Psalms denotes a talent of the first order. Claudio, Avarenga, Gregorio de Mattos, Euzebio de Mattos, Gusmao, in former times; and more recently, Odorico, M.endes, Borges de Barros, Domingos Magalhaes, Marquis of Paranagua, A. de Macedo, PortoAlegre, Barbosa, and others are well worthy of notice as lyric poets.
Religious eloquence was formerly much cultivated in Brazil, and Vieira is one of the most original and eloquent preachers known. In more recent times Antonio Carlos and Montalverne deserve particular notice. In the natural sciences Frei Leandro, Arruda, Camara, and Jose" Bonifacio de Andrada are known for their works and discoveries.
In sacred music Jose" Mauricio, a mulatto, left compositions of merit that were executed in the chapel of D. John VI.
The Brazilians have a natural taste for music, and an Italian theatre, maintained with but little interruption in Rio de Janeiro, has assisted in improving and refining this taste. The old-fashioned Brazilian instrument, which was a particular kind of guitar, has almost disappeared from the large cities, but is still frequently employed in the provinces to accompany the modinkas (romances) which are peculiar to Brazil, and which have a particular style.
The school of the fine arts of Rio de Janeiro has produced some good but no remarkable painters. Of late, however, the most promising artists have been annually sent to Italy at the public expense to prosecute their studies in that country.
The Brazilians are in general hospitable, generous, and charitable, endowed with great pride and vanity, and susceptibility of character, and are easily led away by flattery. The unlimited power they exercise over the African slaves, and the colonial system from which they have but a short time been freed, the imperfect religious education, the facility with which they can live in abundance at small cost, while the climate enables them to dispense with many things necessary in other countries, the enervating effects of the hot atmosphere, all combine to stimulate the qualities and vices which we must expect in this people.
There is in the Brazilian national character, with great mildness and generosity, a certain tendency to vindictiveness. Homicides for the sake of vengeance alone are proportionally as numerous in Brazil as in certain countries of Europe ; while the crimes against property are much fewer. The greatest number of homicides, however, takes place in the most backward provinces of the centre and north.
and although there are enlightened men among the clergy, a great number of the priests are ill educated, and the
institution of celibacy keeps the members of the principal