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previous: Chapter 20 This webpage reproduces a chapter of History of Chile by Luis Galdames translated and edited by Isaac Joslin Cox Russell & Russell New York 1964 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! next: Biographies: A

 p412  Chapter XXI
Contemporary Social Development

Population and Wealth

In the last twenty years of the nineteenth century, two events chiefly influenced Chilean society: the War of the Pacific and the Revolution of 1891. The war extended the frontiers of the country into the deserts of the north between 18° and 24° of latitude, and placed under Chile's sovereignty the exploitation of the abundant natural wealth of the zone: nitrate, guano, copper, sulphur, and other products. The revolution drew out the civic spirit, stressed democratic forms in the government, and brought with it a parliamentary regime as unmethodical as it was costly. Under this regime, class differentiation was emphasized and the proletariat began its struggle for the betterment of living conditions. Foreign events and above all the special attention to the wage-earning classes, which resulted from the World War of 1914‑1918, gave greater impetus to that struggle; and it has not ceased up to the present time. Such a politico-social attitude has produced disturbances and other consequences in the actual economy of the country, an economy characterized by a constant increase in productive sources.

The population, nevertheless, has increased only very slowly. The Census of 1907 computed it at 3,231,496 inhabitants; that of 1920 stated that it had reached 3,731,573 that year; and that of 1930 (which is the last) brought the level up to 4,287,445. Statistical calculations for 1938 indicate the figure of 4,700,000. The annual percentage of increase is one of the lowest in America. Approximately half of this population is distributed among towns of more than one thousand inhabitants, and half in the small villages and in the country. But if one were to consider as forming urban population only those who live in cities of more than five thousand inhabitants, its total will not average about 43 per cent. In any case, it is an actual fact that the urban population has increased in proportion to the rural since the middle of the preceding century and this is even more the case in the present century.1

 p413  If the well-being of the population were to be measured by the income which it produces for the State, it would be considered highly satisfactory. In 1910 the national exchequer disposed of five hundred and forty million pesos of six pennies. In 1940 it will dispose of more than two billion pesos in current money, not counting payments on the foreign debt. The treasury obtains its greatest receipts from indirect taxes, among which for a long time was that of customs on imported articles and on the exportation of nitrate and other mineral products. Added to that tax are those which are levied upon the manufacture and sale of alcohol, upon sealed paper and postage stamps, those connected with banking and insurance firms, and those providing for the construction of roads, paving, and other improvements. Also in recent years there have been introduced special taxes, whose proceeds are ample, on commercial sales (2.5 per cent) and industrial production (5 per cent).

Direct imposts bring in heavy receipts. The tax upon inheritances and gifts, which is one of them, means very little compared with the income tax, which is the principal one. This latter is proportional and progressive on the annual returns of real estate, on business of any kind in all spheres of activity, on salaries and pensions that exceed a certain sum, and, without any exception, on the practice of lucrative professions. It is at the same time fiscal and municipal; the State and the municipalities receive their quota of the tax — and it has come to replace with great advantage to the treasury the former property tax.

Prosperity which shows itself in the increase of fiscal receipts is a positive fact, proof of which is made evident in all orders of national activity. Without taking into account internal commerce — by land and sea — which amounts to a great deal, or commerce in transit, likewise great, one needs only to consider the development of foreign commerce in order to prove it. Reducing figures to legal money of six pence gold it is noted that in 1890 foreign trade amounted to 406,000,000 pesos, an exceptional figure. In the following years it kept fluctuating between 2,400,000 and 3,200,000. But from 1931 on there was a restriction of foreign markets and with it a drop during the next few years to less than a billion, a figure at which importation and exportation are still maintained.

The products of greatest importance in the export trade have been fertilizing substances, principally nitrate; metallic bullion,  p414 above all, copper; cereals, especially wheat; and some animal products, mainly wool. The articles in the import trade that have required the greatest expenditures are textiles, manufactured articles, iron, coal, and machinery of all kinds. Among the most important foreign markets in Europe are England, Germany, France, Italy, and Holland; in America, the United States, Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, and Bolivia; in Asia, China, Japan, and India; in Oceania, Australia.2

This mercantile growth is an expression of the industry of the entire body politic in national production. Agriculture, cattle raising, lumbering, fishing, mining, the many industries derived from these commodities or necessary to their exploitation — have felt the influence of a powerful current of labor that has made a great display of energy, especially in the last thirty years.

The considerable losses and disturbances caused in private business by the revolution of 1891, also the alarms of external war during the agitated debate with Argentina for a long time restrained the initiative and activities of labor. But scarcely were the wounds of the revolution healed and those fears allayed than activity was renewed, with the force of uncontrolled expansion. Money flowed into Chile from all quarters, and hundreds of very different kinds of enterprises sprang up suddenly in the form of joint stock corporations (sociedades anónimas); that is, associations of capital to compete with each other for gain from one end of the country to the other. The gold washings of Magallanes, the stock farms of Chilean Patagonia, colonization in vacant state lands, lumbering in the southern forests of the central valley, metals, nitrate, guano, and iodine in the northern zone were the principal objects of these enterprises. Industrial activity overflowed also into the territory of Bolivia, where it introduced Chilean energy, as in its own land. Although all this feverish enterprise resulted in a major catastrophe in 1907, it left behind, in every case, much of its initiative, which in these later years has become more active and fruitful.

The government has interested itself in this movement and has desired to emphasize it and give it state protection. First it has exercised in its favor an indirect protection by expending part of the public income on the opening of new roads, on the construction of bridges and new railroads, on the extension of telegraph lines,  p415 on the improvement of harbors, on the increasing of maritime communications, on the creation of new police service, and on other public services. Its action in such matters, however, has not given all the advantage that might be hoped for, if one considers the increased expense that it imposes on the treasury.

For many years the railroads, particularly, have been more impaired than any other service, but lately their improvement has been rapid. The Trans-Andine Railway of central Chile, which united Buenos Aires and Santiago, is finished. The great project of the "Longitudinal Railroad" from Tacna to Puerto Montt, connecting the partial lines that crossed the territory, has also been almost completed since the time when its construction was begun under a law of the republic (1908).3

In spite of these forces, the traffic capacity of the roads in operation has not increased in proportion to the quantity of cargo it has been necessary to move; for this reason the national treasury has lost profits, producers have limited their business, and individuals have frequently had to pay advanced prices caused by the scarcity of products of general consumption in the large centers of population. However this may be, the country is crossed already by more than ten thousand kilometers of steel rails. The auto bus and commercial aviation complete the lines of communication.

But if the government protection to these economic interests has not had all the effects desired, it has afforded, on the other hand, direct encouragement through the establishment of a systematic protective policy. Various laws, the greater part of which have originated in congress, have gradually been passed in favor of agriculture, among them the surcharge of the customs tariffs which tax the introduction of some of its products and industries, and the irrigation, with governmental coöperation, of a good part of the territory. Customs duties on animals imported into the territory favor cattle raising. For many industrial products manufactured in Chile — sugar, shoes, matches, and other articles — the same economic policy has been planned, reacting in an effective way against the old "free trade" system or competition, which the governments of the conservative and liberal regimes have almost uniformly put into practice with regard to articles of necessary consumption. The result has been from the very beginning an obvious benefit for the protected industries. Thus the government has succeeded in giving stability and energy to national manufacturing, a source of production whose future in almost all its activities now  p416 seems assured. The expositions that their promoters have for some time been holding show concretely its rapid and certain progress.4

The system of paper money has for a long period been firmly established as a complement to protectionism. The bank note, forced into circulation as legal tender, has always been considered as a last resort in a passing crisis. In 1895 the country had already survived nearly twenty years of paper money. The credit of the State was affected by it; on the faith or confidence given to it rested the acceptance of such values as are called "fiduciary."

On that date, the government of Jorge Montt thought the moment had come to substitute money of real value for paper money and finally issued the law of metallic conversion on a basis of eighteen pence per peso, in place of the forty-eight that it had formerly been valued at. The State was directed to exchange bills for "solid pesos" of silver and "condors" and "escudos" of gold, and at the same time a limit was placed on the quantity of bills that the banks of emission could issue to the public. But in less than three years the unforeseen happened. The alarms of war with Argentina, the abuse that had formerly been made of banking credit, and the excess of imports determined the lowering of international exchange to fourteen pence. The paper issued by the banks depreciated. Metallic coinage acquired a premium and began to be exported as merchandise — which it was because of its real value — or to be hoarded by its large holders, who hoped thereby to obtain a better premium. The banks, on their part, restricted credits; there was fear of bankruptcy; their clientele did not pay. The depositors hurried to withdraw their deposits. The banking crisis was then announced with the prospect of an "economic crisis."​5 There was general restlessness.

Thus the situation at the middle of 1898 constituted a real "run on the banks," until their vaults were almost exhausted. The government came to their aid and issued the law of moratorium, by virtue of which the adjustment of all payments was suspended for a month. When the moratorium was ended there appeared a new issue of paper money, of enforced circulation, and with the guarantee of the State. From that date the conversions announced were indefinitely postponed and further emissions have been issued. After each one, international exchange fell; paper money was worth less; property, leases, merchandise — all rose in unaccustomed proportions;  p417 and proprietors, agriculturists, industrialists, with abundant banking credit and with profits and secure markets, have kept increasing their gains in greater proportion.

In that way paper money was the principal cause of the increasing cost of living. Its proportion in circulation has expanded sixfold in thirty years (1895‑1925). All those who live on fixed incomes, including employees, and all those who live on day wages, including labor in general, have felt the effects of this situation. They have demanded — now of their employers if they were private employees, now of the government, if they were public employees — an increase in their salaries in order to be able to meet the costs imposed on them by the new order of things. All have obtained it. The laborers, in turn, demanded an increase in their wages. Some employers accorded it to them voluntarily; more did not. Against these the laborers have with great frequency employed the urgent method of strikes, which have assumed, on occasions, bloody characteristics through the clash of workmen with police, particularly in Santiago, in Antofagasta, in Valparaiso, in Arauco, and in Tarapacá. But in this manner they have recently succeeded in obtaining the desired increase.

The order of things sketched above was considerably modified in 1926 with the opening of the Central Bank of Chile, the only institution authorized by the State to issue paper money with a sufficient guarantee in gold. The convertible gold bill "at sight and to bearer" in that way brought about the stabilization of the value of money at the figure of six pence per peso; and the fluctuations of exchange, carrying with them instability in prices and increasing cost of living, ceased for a time.

But this conversion was put into practice only half way, so accustomed was the country to the monetary regime of paper. And as we stated before, in 1932 it returned to inconvertibility.º New bank notes were issued and the value of the peso dropped to one and one-half pence.

In spite of the vicissitudes indicated, the economic situation of the country has shown assured stability. The earthquake of August, 1906, whose damages were reckoned in hundreds of millions of pesos, did not affect it, at least immediately, in such a profound way as was feared. Along with an increase in the cost of living, caused by a new depreciation in coinage, came a rise in laborers' wages, due to the demand for hands for the reconstruction of Valparaiso and other cities destroyed by the catastrophe. Years later, in 1920, more than forty thousand laborers were thrown out of  p418 work because operations were paralyzed in the nitrate plants. The government had to open feeding places for them and spend on them many millions of pesos. A year after, however, the unemployed population was absorbed by other productive activities.6

In 1928 an earthquake destroyed Talca, just as that of 1906 had destroyed Valparaiso. The economic consequences were similar and in the next year were aggravated with the crisis in agriculture and mining. This produced in the following years a new condition of unemployment among day laborers and artisans which affected two hundred thousand individuals. Only in 1935 was the country able to absorb almost all its idle population, thanks to the reëstablishment and increase in productive activities.

From the animosities following the numerous conflicts between capital and labor, there has arisen in Chile the "labor question," which is the same as the one called here, and still more frequently in the European countries, the "social question." In Chile this question has seldom taken on revolutionary characteristics. It has not been anything more than the confused, almost unconscious, aspiration, natural in all men, to better their material and moral condition by increasing their incomes, gaining instruction, and procuring comfort and well-being. The diffusion of education now tends to define this aspiration more exactly and cause the State to give preferential attention to it.

Nevertheless, there was a time when it was thought that the question might take on the characteristics of a violent and aggressive social struggle. This was in October, 1905, when, after a meeting to ask for the abolition of the tax on Argentine cattle, bloody strikes broke out in Santiago and for two consecutive days kept the imprisoned populace in the most lively alarm and the workmen on a general strike. Since these events strikes have not been rare, but have not taken such a serious turn, although some, like that at Iquique in 1907, and later those at Lota, have given rise to bloody measures of repression. On the other hand, there have been developed workmen's protective associations, among which the "Labor Federation of Chile" with its multiple "federal councils," and the "Union of Workmen of the World" (the IWW) and the Confederation of Laborers of Chile (CTCH) have played  p419 a most important rôle. The union movement has grown rapidly in the last few years and has spread from the working classes to the guilds of private and public employees for the special purpose of mutual aid.​7 The syndicates, which legislation in behalf of private and public employees has created, have unified and strengthened the action of the laboring classes for bettering their living conditions.

On the other hand the intimate relation between population and wealth has been frequently observed in Chile. Greater abundance in production has brought with it a greater proportion of marriages and births. Population in general has increased, although slowly, together with public and private wealth. Formerly the emigration of workers and of Chilean peons to neighboring countries in search of well-paid jobs was a common practice. In an earlier period, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina profited from the energy of these workmen much more than they do now. Nearly an entire region of the last named republic, the territory of Neuquén, was populated by emigrants from Chile. Thus the Chilean population increased less than it should. But for some years things have been changing. That emigration has stopped and now it is the neighboring countries and Europe that discharge their excess population into Chile.

Immigration and colonization, always scant, have brought into the country in recent years a small number of immigrants and European colonists, principally Swiss, Germans, Italians, and Spaniards. Some have been sent by colonizing agents whom the government of Chile maintains in Europe; others have come under contract to industrialists for their labor, and others of their own free will, attracted by the high daily wage. The immigrant has settled down like any other laborer. The colonist has not; he has received his plot in the unsettled lands of the State, either directly from it or through a concessionaire, individual or collective, that under certain conditions has become possessed of a portion of public land. Besides foreign colonies, national colonies have also been established, composed of individual Chileans, to whom the State grants plots of land to cultivate and to live on with their families. Indian colonies have also been formed, composed of Araucanians indigenous to a certain region — the last descendants of an ancient race which has frequently had to suffer from the plundering of reckless speculators.

But the material progress of Chile has not only been shown in the increase of its wealth and its population; it has also become  p420 apparent in the development of its cities; Santiago is now a capital of more than six hundred thousand inhabitants; it is well lighted and clean, with rapid transit lines. Its drainage, with a complete network of sewers, has been finished and is being extended to the outlying suburbs. It has spread out in all directions, and its buildings have gained rapidly in solidity and splendor. The abundant fiscal income has permitted the construction of magnificent public buildings, and the accumulation of a number of palaces which have transformed the appearance of the city. Valparaiso was travelling on the same prosperous road when destroyed by the earthquake, afterwards it rallied in a short time and was rebuilt cleaner and better than before, with public parks and new broad avenues, making it an attractive modern city. Like these two central cities, Concepción, Temuco, Valdivia, and Osorno, in the south, have in turn developed an extraordinary vitality; and in the north Antofagasta and Iquique, despite fluctuations in mineral wealth, for which they serve as centers, have been beautified and have prospered to the point of having a life of their own and being considered among the most important cities of Chile.

Culture and Education

Intellectual progress has for the last thirty years run parallel to economic progress. None of the elements that make up the culture of the country has gone backward. All have extended their influence steadily and consistently. The press has enlarged its services and its spheres of action. Each special activity, each political, scientific, or religious school of thought has come to have its organ of expression and a public that supports it. Daily papers and reviews of widely different character have multiplied. The book trade with Europe and America has expanded enormously. The master works of science and literature of the most cultured countries of the world can be read in Chile today at relatively little expense. Thus, reading has become customary among people of some education as a habit fostered more and more by their intellectual desires.

This does not mean that the benefits of education have penetrated equally the different social strata; the countryman and the laborer, because of the little leisure their tasks leave them; the business man and the politician, because of their belief that they have nothing to learn; the casual wanderer and the ordinary clipper of coupons, because of their systematic disdain of study, have not yet succeeded in adapting themselves to the new form of culture. This condition simply shows that there is an increasing intellectual  p421 group in the country, which, after developing itself by means of European culture and the observation of the very society in which it lives, supports the daily, the review, and the book in order to have a medium through which to express its ideas.

The intellectual nucleus has been slowly forming by means of the continually more active development of public education, above all in the primary branches. Statistics have shown that in 1920 there were about 3,500 schools of primary grade in the republic which gave instruction to about 300,000 children of both sexes. Since then the number of schools as well as the attendance has increased until the latter exceeds 450,000 children in 1937. The great majority of those schools are supported by the State. But at the same time that many are subsidized by it, others are municipal or else belong to parishes and religious communities. The governments have paid special attention to them. In spite of this, the service has been imperfect in its administrative organization and in pedagogical efficiency and is still very far from satisfying the increasing needs of a growing population. The number of pupils in school is not even half of the population of school age who should be receiving education. Night schools and Sunday classes for adults help to extend the benefits of primary education to the mass of the people.

In 1920, after a long, tiresome struggle in the government, in congress, and in the press, the law of compulsory primary instruction was passed for all children over seven years of age, and this was to take effect in February, 1921. The application of the law has had to take place slowly, however, and it still will require many years to establish effectively the compulsory school attendance for all children included under it, for the lack of the most necessary elements, including buildings, furniture, material for teaching in short, money — and a personnel prepared in sufficient numbers for such a vast work. But, however that may be, the quality and development of this national service has undergone far-reaching changes in a relatively short time.

If the school of today were compared to what it was even in the middle of the past century, so great a progress would be noted that almost no point of contact could be found between them. The colonial method of "reading by spelling", the brutal punishments of "glove" and "ferrule," the dark, unventilated rooms, the almost total lack of books, benches, blackboards, pictures, and maps, the ignorance and the servile position of the teachers — all this has been ended, never to return. In some provincial villages, however, far from the more populous centers, the old type of school has survived, although modified by the very atmosphere created by  p422 general culture. In the sphere of primary education, the most serious problem now is that of the needy child who will have to be fed and clothed in order to enforce his attendance at school.

But what has obviously been raised to a much higher level than formerly is the personnel of primary instruction. From the normal schools for men and women have gone out, year after year, a multitude of teachers, destined for service, with a regular technical and practical preparation; the greater part of the primary schools of the State are under their direction. Private organizations, among which the oldest is the "Society for Primary Instruction," coöperate effectively in the enlargement and perfection of this service, with their own schools established without regard to cost and serving as models of their kind.8

Secondary education has been developed along with primary instruction. More than ninety government lycées (liceos fiscales) for boys and girls distributed throughout the republic receive at least fifty thousand pupils. They have as their task the scientific instruction and moral education of youth and accomplish their ends by following a very different course from the old school. On the basis of the gradual and progressive system of concentration, in accordance with the intellectual development of the pupil, they have tried to banish forever mechanical teaching by rote, replacing it with an objective, experimental study of the principal branches of knowledge, made as practical as possible.

As there are normal schools for preparing the personnel of primary teaching, so there is the Pedagogical Institute (Instituto pedagógico) for preparing the personnel of secondary instruction. During a full half century (it was established in 1889), it has already graduated many hundreds of men and women teachers. In this way teaching has become a stable profession. The teaching body engaged in Germany to serve in that institution has effectively fulfilled its mission. The reform of the lycées, then, has been carried out in accordance with German methods. From the Institute of Physical and Technical Education created in 1906 have come the professors of the branches which its name indicates.

On the other hand private initiative has encouraged the growth of numerous private colleges, either subsidized by the State or wholly independent. The Catholic Church, also, with the object of extending its creed by means of the education of the new generations, has established several private colleges distinct from the  p423 seminaries of each diocese. These, together with the colleges of the religious orders that have been functioning for a long time in the country, contribute powerfully to general knowledge. Even more, a private institution, the "League of Poor Students" (Liga de estudiantes pobres) which has had many years of existence, coöperates to the same end, procuring funds for promising students who would lack the means for study without such assistance.

But all this vast work of education, intended especially to prepare cultivated people for society, of a new branch of education; namely, technical and practical instruction, tending especially to develop workers prepared to earn a living in the fields of industry and commerce. For a long time there was only one school of arts and crafts in the country. During recent years the government determined to found others, and subsidized several private institutions of the king. Progress in this direction is still slight, but there has been some advance.​9 It means much that there is recognition of the urgent need of giving the Chilean foremen and the Chilean workers such technical preparation as will put them in a position to compete advantageously with the foreign foremen and workers.

Furthermore, a field for woman has been opened, where she can apply her talents freely, honestly, and profitably. For this purpose professional schools for girls have recently multiplied. Their development has been such that a normal course has had to be founded, designed to prepare teachers for these schools. The schools for agriculture, mining, and drawing as applied to industry have attained a similar development.

Commercial institutes (business schools) have also been created. Their number is sufficient and their work is guaranteed and given standing through the employment of their graduates by mercantile organizations. In this way some of the young men who would have sought a field for study and means of livelihood in the liberal professions have changed their course; they have gone directly into the occupations that create wealth for individual and collective profit.

On this account one might think that there has been a reduction in the university courses which prepare for liberal professions, but it has not been so. Higher education has continued to receive in its halls even more students in law, engineering, and medicine than before, in spite of the fact that there is evidently a diminishing  p424 expectation of profit in these "careers." In the higher, as in the secondary, education courses have been revised and improved. Thus the schools of medicine and of engineering have won an excellent reputation, while the school of law, more conservative in reforming its teaching system, has also begun to employ new methods of instruction and has broadened its scope to include economic and social studies. In 1928 there was created the Faculty of Agricultural Theory and Veterinary Science; in the following year, the Faculty of Fine Arts; and, in 1934, the Faculty of Industrial Commerce and Economy. With these the field of the University of Chile was considerably enlarged. About the same year (1934) the Faculty of Philosophy and Education (formerly called Philosophy and Humanities) created a Superior Institute with general or nonprofessional studies in sciences and letters, in addition to the Pedagogical Institute which was already in existence. Private institutions of higher learning have contributed to the growth and perfection of this grade of teaching. They are the Catholic University, which dates from 1888; the University of Concepción, created in 1915; and the Santa María Foundation, a sort of technical university which has been functioning in Valparaiso for six years.10

In general, the greatest efforts of intelligent men of the country have been devoted to the extension and improvement of public education. There are many, in recent years, who have excelled in the service. Among the primary instructors, one of the most reputable figures was Abelardo Núñez, who died in 1910. With constant devotion to primary studies he combined the reputation of having been one of the most influential directors of the review in this field with that of having composed the first "readers," in which several generations have learned at one and the same time how to read, together with the rudiments of science. Another public servant, no less fit for this kind of teaching, is Claudio Matte, who has earned the gratitude of his fellow citizens with his advice and his tireless efforts in behalf of schools. Neither can the name of Dario Salas be ignored, a schoolmaster himself, afterward raised to the highest offices in the field of education, who, with his book, El problema nacional, gave a decided impetus to the passing of the law for compulsory primary education.

An outstanding figure in secondary and higher education is the professor and rector of the state university, Valentín Letelier, whose splendid works, Filosofía de la educación, La evolución de  p425 la historia, Génesis del derecho (Genesis of the Law) and Génesis del estado (Genesis of the State)​11 are numbered among the few publications of sociological literature in Chile. He died in 1919 at sixty-seven years of age, when much was still hoped for from his untiring labor. Other competent teachers of this century are Joaquín Cabezas, creator and supporter of the Institute of Physical and Technical Education; and Enrique Molina, to whose initiative and constancy we owe the University of Concepción.

In 1902 a general educational assembly was held in Santiago, in which the most experienced professors discussed all matters of this kind. The national secondary educational assembly held in Santiago in 1912 had a like theoretical importance, although it was not of much immediate benefit. A whole vast plan of reform arose from these two assemblies, and, in accordance with it, improvements have been gradually made in these fields.

Another characteristic sign of the development of national instruction is the revision of all textbooks. Educational literature has been enriched in recent years by many new books, written by members of the Chilean teaching profession, in accordance with the most modern tendencies of education. In the higher branches of instruction there has been so little material of this nature that textbooks have constituted almost all the scientific literature of the country. Among the foreigners who performed the most scientific work in Chile during the last third of the past century, Rudolfo Amando Philippi merits special mention. He was an erudite German who died in 1904 when past ninety years of age, after a residence of more than half a century in the country. During this time he was professor, director of the National Museum, explorer of deserts, and, above all, a naturalist whose works form a very rich collection of original observations.

Letters and Art

In the present century, Chilean literature acquired characteristics of its own that set it apart from that of the rest of the continent. This prevailing tendency is continually strengthened by the study and observation of the country's past and present condition, and all the manifestations of national life.

History continues to be the field most cultivated. The three founders of national historical literature during the time of the  p426 republic — Amunátegui, Vicuña Mackenna, and Barros Arana — have died. Barros Arana's life extended into the present century, for he died in 1907 at seventy-seven years of age. When he finished his great Historia jeneral de Chile he did not rest, although he was already seventy-five years old, but wrote and published his final work, Un decenio [Decade] de la historia de Chile (1841‑1851). This book, together with the Historia de la administración del General Prieto, 1831‑1841, by Ramón Sotomayor Valdés, cited above, and the Historia jeneral of Barros Arana himself, complete the methodical presentation of the development of the country up to the middle of the nineteenth century,​12 although principally from a political, biographical, and military point of view.

Investigation in the above aspects, although scarcely begun, has advanced some thirty years more with the works of Alberto Edwards, El gobierno de don Manuel Montt (The Government of Manuel Montt); Agustín Edwards, Cuatro presidentes de Chile (Four Chilean Presidents); and Gonzalo Bulnes, Historia de la guerra del Pacífico (History of the War of the Pacific). But at the same time investigation delved more deeply into earlier times with the publication of special histories and collection of historical documents. Among the men who figure as the chief authors of such works are Domingo Amunátegui Solar, who, with his books on El instituto nacional, La sociedad chilena del siglo xviii. Los mayorazgos y títulos de Castilla (The Society of the Eighteenth Century. The Entailed Estates and Titles of Castile), and Las encomiendas de indíjenas en Chile (Native Encomiendas in Chile), besides several other works, has made important contributions to the history of educational and social institutions;​13 Alejandro Fuenzalida Grandón, who with three other books of great interest — Lastarria i su tiempo (Lastarria and his Time), Historia del desarrollo intelectual de Chile (History of the Intellectual Development of Chile), and La evolución social de Chile​14 — has pushed forward in the same direction as Amunátegui Solar; Tomás Thayer Ojeda, with his works on the conquerors and the first cities of Chile; Tomás Guevara, who died in 1935, whose regional histories —  p427 Provincia de Curicó (The Province of Curicó), and Civilización de la Araucania (The Civilization of Araucania), and his studies on the Psicología del pueblo araucano (Psychology of the Araucanian People)​15 — have also greatly increased the knowledge of the nation's past; Crescente Errázuriz, who has not rested in his task of furthering knowledge of the period of the conquest in the light of the latest documents available, and who, in a series of volumes, has reflected the history of the times of Pedro de Valdivia, Francisco Villagra, and other conquerors; Gonzalo Bulnes, who with his Historia de la guerra del Pacífico​16 has completed his labor as historiographer of the crises through which Chile passed in its relations with Peru; and Agusto Orrego Luco, distinguished physician and writer, who in a work published after his death in 1933 has given a picture of the "old country" which is not lacking in originality.17

The publication of historical documents was started more than half a century ago with a "Colección de historiadores de Chile" ("Collection of the Historians of Chile"). The principal part in this task has been taken by Luis Montt, author of several bibliographical works, who died in 1909, and José Toribio Medina, who likewise died in 1930, who to that collection has added another — Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de Chile (Collection of Unpublished Documents for the History of Chile). Both publications have reached a hundred volumes and refer entirely to the colonial period.​18 Furthermore, Medina is the author of a hundred other bibliographies which make him one of the most prolific investigators on record.

On the other hand, at government cost or by private initiative, there have also been published the "Colección de historiadores i de documentos [inéditos] relativos a la independencia de Chile (Collection of Historians and of Unpublished Documents relative to the Independence of Chile") begun by Enrique Matte Vial, who died in 1922, and another collection of Sesiones de los cuerpos legislativos, 1810‑1846 (Sessions of the Legislative Bodies). These two collections,​19 however, like the two above, have reached another  p428 hundred volumes; and their principal subject consists in furnishing to future historians the sources for investigation.

Light literature has in its turn attained an appreciable development. From Paris, until his death there in 1920, Alberto Blest Gana continued to write novels. His last productions were Durante la reconquista (During the Reconquest), Los trasplantados (The Transplanted), and El loco estero (The "Madcap").​20 A goodly number of young literary men are still attempting to make a name for themselves in this field; the future will have something to say about them. The same is true in poetry. Three of the most notable poets of the present generation are gone: Ricardo Fernández Montalva, Pedro Antonio González, and Carlos Pezoa Véliz. The first, a man of deep feeling, with a strong sense of rhythm, has left a body of poetry very much enjoyed by those of like temperament. González, in spite of the small amount of his work, has exercised an influence that should endure. He was the poet of human ideals, who sang of the conquests of science and the great struggles of the spirit. Pezoa Véliz, lost in the prime of young manhood, left a quantity of original and delicate verses. The three lived unfortunate lives, always at the mercy of their own temperaments. Today Samuel Lillo, Victor Domingo Silva, Pedro Prado, Gabriela Mistral, and Pablo Neruda hold the sceptre of Chilean poetry with distinct merits and tendencies.21

Artistic culture has made progress even more worthy of attention. The annual expositions in the Salon of Fine Arts are more largely attended each year, and the criticism of works exhibited there has recorded a high degree of excellence. So numerous have been the young artists of these last years and so great their rivalry that since 1906 one group of them, considering the salon too restricted and the jury charged with admissions and the conferring of prizes, futile, has established free salons for the exhibition of their works.22

The painters mentioned above, Lira and Correa, have given place to a brilliant multitude of landscape painters, realists, colorists, impressionists, portrait painters, futurists, cubists — all  p429 young men, industrious and ambitious for glory.​23 Several of them have gone to Europe to finish their studies, either pensioned by the government, or through private aid, or at their own expense.

Plaza and Arias, masters of Chilean sculpture, produced in this period their last and most notable works. Plaza carved in Paris his admirable "Quimera," which has given him a world-wide reputation. Arias carved there also his "Descensión," representing the death of Christ, which has given him a place among the best sculptors. To these names are now added those of many young artists who are on the way to fame.24

The Church and Religious Evolution

The Chilean Church has prospered in these latter days both in the splendor of its service and the learning of its priests. Its relations with the State have been maintained in perfect harmony, and with the help of the latter it has multiplied its buildings and extended its social influence. Directed by the prelate, Mariano Casanova, until 1908, the date of his death, and afterward by Juan Ignacio González Eyzaguirre and Crescente Errázuriz, three cultivated and earnest men of its priesthood, it has not had to suffer the violent collisions with the civil authority that at times so embittered the spirit of the philanthropic and warlike archbishop, Rafael Valentín Valdivieso. Separation from the State in conformity with the Constitution of 1925, far from damaging its position, has given it a place of much greater security under the present direction of Monseñor Horacio Campillo.

A marked religious evolution, however, is to be noted throughout the country. It is not that the people are leaving the Church; at least three fourths of the national population continue to be as sincerely Catholic as during former times. Nor does it experience hostility from those who are not Catholic: the Protestants in the republic are almost entirely foreigners, English, North Americans, or Germans, and respectful toward all beliefs; the freethinkers do not constitute a group organized against the Church; they are simply private persons who feel themselves free from the necessity of complying with the precepts of any religion whatsoever. The evolution noted presents other manifestations — religious tolerance and religious indifference.

 p430  Today it is not a mark of honor in a believer to hate all other faiths except his own, or the men who support or embody such faiths. In judging an individual, one does not ask what religion he practices or what he believes. It is also obvious that most people do not now pay attention to, or practice with the former diligence, the commands prescribing abstinence, fast, and confession at certain periods of the year. Those persons who of old were afflicted by the devil have completely disappeared and the penitentes and even the cucuruchos (paper cones) are disappearing. The solemn sacrifice of the mass, processions, and other celebrations of the Church show a slim attendance of men. Even the political influence of the clergy has diminished. The type of electoral priest, aggressive and troublesome, who is remembered from the time of the theological contests, has become rare, and this has redounded to the benefit of religion itself. It is respected the more as it mixes less in the quarrels of men. The republic has thus attained religious peace and an absolute liberty of worship that is founded in the customs of society and the very soul of the people. The separation of Church and State, once so bitterly opposed, aroused in 1925 no protests or recriminations among religious authorities or believers; neither has the spread of Protestant beliefs stirred up resistance. Among them, the Evangelical Church has achieved comparative prosperity.

Ecclesiastical dignitaries have shown themselves prepared for this situation and have developed a religious propaganda as persistent as it is energetic, in order to restore to the Church its one-time social predominance. When it has been possible, they have increased the celebrations and exercises of worship. They have preached everywhere against religious indifference. They have excommunicated more than one newspaper that encouraged it. They have not missed any opportunity to stimulate the piety and faith of the people.

In 1895 Archbishop Casanova celebrated a diocesan synod in which the internal regime of the national church was completely reorganized. It had been more than a century since Bishop Alday had called together the preceding synod, and already the rules established at that time were not in keeping with the modern needs of the Catholic system of the country. Ten years later there was also held a solemn eucharistic congress, in which religious dogmas were established with greater firmness and splendor. Assemblies of this kind have been called together more recently, and because of them the public celebrations of thanksgiving have achieved large proportions.

 p431  Because of the earthquake of 1906, acts of piety were repeated which, on similar occasions, the national church had offered to the faithful, occasions as numerous as the seismic catastrophes in the country. In a pastoral that Monsignor Casanova directed to all Chilean Catholics, he declared that this terrible phenomenon had been a manifestation of the wrath of God for their sins; and, reviewing one by one the evils from which Chilean society suffered, he declared that it also meant a threat of greater punishment to follow, if they persisted in continuing in such a deplorable course. The prelate pointed out, among these evils, the insatiable thirst for wealth, the excess of luxury, the indifference toward the destitute, and, above all, the State education which did not inculcate religious sentiment in the child. Forgetfulness of God and the idolatry of money, he said, were the two gangrenes which were eating into society at the beginning of the twentieth century.

These utterances are the exact reflection of two dominating and well-defined purposes, which for a long time have been giving vitality to the Catholic Church: that of attracting the working classes, offering them protection in the name of the Christian socialism which Pope Leo XIII proclaimed to the world in one of his most famous encyclicals;​25 and that of attracting the young men who are able to study by means of religious education. To attain the first object, it has developed associations of the proletariat, directed by their priests, and has created other new associations dedicated to different saints. To attain the second object, it has founded the Catholic University and numerous seminaries and schools, which it supports. Almost all congregations in Chile devote themselves to teaching, and thus coöperate to those ends with admirable success. These are, then, the two most effective forms of propaganda. The Church has likewise reorganized its internal system in recent years. It has increased the number of bishoprics to eleven and has set up precise rules to be observed by the faithful in the different regions of the country. With the aid of its own press, with the moral and material coöperation of its principal members, with the indoctrination of numerous brotherhoods of men and women through the constant preaching of its priests, it has succeeded in acquiring over conscience a great power. This power is  p432 freely tolerated. It may not be superior to what it enjoyed prior to its separation from the State, but at least it seems more efficient.

In the arduous campaign against what it is customary to call the "spirit of the age," that is to say, religious indifference, the Chilean clergy has shown vigorous intellectual force. Brilliant orators are found among them, such as Ramón Angel Jara; theologians, like Rafael Fernández Concha, among whose works the Filosofia del derecho (Philosophy of Law) and the treatise Del hombre (On Man) merit special attention; writers, such as Rodolfo Vergara Antúñez, whose texts on literature are especially esteemed as well as many others of his books; historians, such as the prelate himself, Crescente Errázuriz; and, finally, poets such as Esteban Muñoz Donoso, author of La Colombia, which, although not very smooth metrically, and perhaps too fantastic, is the only epic poem written by a Chilean during the republic. Among the present clergy vigorous personalities likewise stand out, such as the presbyter Carlos Casanueva, to whose rector­ship the Catholic University owes so much.

Health and Social Welfare

In the midst of its great economic and intellectual progress, Chile has also shown signs of backwardness. Although enjoying a healthy climate, extraordinarily mild in the regions most inhabited, its people seem to be decimated by numerous endemic and epidemic diseases, which enormously weaken Chilean productive forces. Smallpox tuberculosis, and typhus, which attack all classes of people, and scarlet fever and whooping cough, which especially attack children, have been sadly frequent. In the last epidemic of smallpox that attacked the country, it is estimated that five to ten thousand persons died annually. Furthermore, the bubonic plague sometimes causes ravages in the northern regions, where the climate favors its development. In recent years, typhus fever has been the most stubborn and most widespread epidemic. It is encouraged by the filth and malnutrition resulting from the widespread unemployment of the proletariat.26

But there is no need for the mortality record among the mass of the population in these epidemic scourges to be so high. Infant mortality, above all, is somewhat heartbreaking in the Chilean home,  p433 particularly in the homes of the poor. The large family of the nation loses today, just as it did formerly, the greater part of its children at an early age. More than to any other cause, the evil is chargeable to the very bad hygienic condition of the people. Their dwellings, damp, restricted, unhealthy; their incurable uncleanliness; their great ignorance of the most elemental rules for preserving health; their unconquerable alcoholism, which ruins their descendants — these are the determining causes of the high mortality.

Foreigners who have travelled for some time through the important cities of Chile cannot but feel depressed in the presence of the deplorable situation of the laboring classes. One of them has graphically characterized it by calling it "the worst side of Chile." Among other observations relative to it, this foreigner states:

However exaggerated much of this criticism may be and however much it may also be applied in an equal degree to other countries of higher civilization, it is certain that it ought to teach Chileans not to regard with their usual apathy the affliction of so many of their fellow creatures; especially if one considers that to their efforts the republic owes much of its prosperity and glory. Naturally it is not true that the public agencies of Chile have manifested such indifference to the welfare of the people. The sanitary organization has been completely made over during the past twenty  p434 years, and its services have constantly been extended in a more satisfactory and efficient manner. For some time the Ministry of Health, Social Welfare, and Assistance has been at the head of those services.​28 The principal office of these boards is located in Santiago and each district has its respective departmental sections. The Superior Council is the technical institution that studies and advises the government as to sanitary methods. The boards are the administrative institutions that dispense the funds devoted to public charity and supervise the establishments devoted to the same ends. There is also a permanent service of vaccination to prevent smallpox by means of inoculation with animal virus. The cities also have in charge several services of the same kind, but their most effective work is seen in the support of dispensaries for administering medical aid to the sick who lack funds.

In 1918 the sanitary code was passed, by which was created the general sanitation office under the immediate supervision of which come all the other institutions, and which gives permanence and legal enforcement to all hygienic regulations. Later, in 1925, the Ministry of Hygiene and Social Supervision, later called the "Ministry of Social Welfare," has undertaken a most active work, that of making the workingman's dwelling sanitary as shown by the recent "decree law on dwellings";​29 and a no less active propaganda for fighting epidemic and endemic diseases which reach serious proportions in the country. The Mortgage Loans Bank,​30 too, which is a state institution, has erected in Santiago and in other cities entire districts of hygienic dwellings for workers and employees. The hogsty of the infamous tenement (conventillo)​31 has almost disappeared in the important cities.

Public beneficence is also served by numerous hospitals and asylums, which the State maintains with general and special funds, composed of "charitable legacies" and other revenues; by various houses for foundlings and two insane asylums, one in Santiago and the other in Concepción. More than two hundred thousand persons enter these institutions every year — an entire population of poor unfortunate people with which society must burden itself, not only  p435 because charity is a Christian duty, but principally because it is a social duty to assist the destitute.

Much has been said of the obligation of the State to secure cheap and hygienic houses for the workingman. Little, however, has been accomplished along this line. Only in recent years has congress voted appreciable sums for constructing workingmen's houses. Much has also been said about the necessity of legislation on behalf of labor, in order to relieve the manual laborer from excessive toil and secure indemnity for him in case of accident, to regulate the occupations of women and the employment of children, to establish compulsory weekly rest periods, and to insure the working man against unemployment and invalidism, and in case of death. In all these fields something has been accomplished.

If the law of "Sunday rest" is not yet always complied with, it is generally respected; the law relating to "labor accidents" is applied under ordinary conditions; and the hygiene of industrial establishments is now an object of effective administration. Under the influence of the military movements of 1924 and 1925, the labor code, the insurance of workers and employees, and other laws have resulted in more effective government protection to individuals of the social labor groups. This legislation has come to be the most complete and perfect of any on the continent. It has included all the resolutions of the Labor Office at Geneva under control of the League of Nations, and, even if it has not been applied or carried out with the rigor which would be desirable, it is certain that it promotes greater social justice in keeping with the rising culture of the proletarian masses.32

Public Welfare banks for the employees of all classes — general, municipal, and private — established since 1925 have contributed especially to the well-being of the middle classes. Among the effective benefits which they offer are the acquisition of property, health and retirement pensions, even the pawnshop for the family needs. On the other hand the shareholding movement, in the form of Consumers Coöperatives, at the same time has extended and tends to lighten the cost of living for the same classes. Moreover deposits in the individual banks have considerably increased.

Delinquency and Judicial Procedure

Age-old misery and ignorance have rested upon the country. To these have been due the deplorable sanitary condition of the  p436 national population which recently has tended to remedy itself and the abandonment in which, thanks to individualistic egoism, the laboring population was maintained up to recent times.

Nor is their moral laxity owing to any other cause.​33 The increase of delinquency, especially of bloody crimes such as assassinations, wounds, and injuries of all kinds, has been shown by the statistics on criminology to be one of the standing evils of Chile. Crimes against property, whether robberies, thefts, or frauds, also add greatly to the general delinquency. But two facts especially stand out in this antisocial life — alcoholism is the principal factor causing crime, and crimes against property are committed in great part by children under sixteen years of age. It is this that is called "delinquent precocity," and its proportion is greater in Chile than in most other civilized countries.

The State has had to organize rigidly the defense of society; that is, penal repression. It has been obliged to increase periodically the urban and rural police force, organized recently into a national body of carabineros, and criminal judges have had continually to exercise greater severity. Even the penalty of lashing, which humiliates without correcting the individual, and which has fallen into disuse, has been reëstablished. Numerous penal institutions must be maintained in order to imprison delinquents, including schools of correction for children; houses of correction for women, and jails, prisons, and penitentiaries for adults, according to the term of punishment. For some time there was a penal colony on the larger island of Juan Fernández, a colony that was soon suppressed, where there were many married criminals who could there carry on normal work and home life. More than one hundred thousand individuals, accused or condemned for different crimes, pass annually through these institutions. Such is the delinquent population of the country.

The State has to assume the charge of providing shelter and food for this population. In these institutions the criminals perform the kind of work they already know, or they are taught a trade. According to law, they must indemnify the State for their sustenance by the product of their labor, pay their victims the damages caused by the crime, and form a reserve fund for their  p437 return to freedom. As a matter of fact the State has done nothing as yet to indemnify itself or the victims. Criminals generally earn very small wages, because the workshops in which they labor are run by private contractors who exploit them. As most of the prisoners do not know how to read or write, the State also provides schools for them, and even affords them a special religious service; but it has been observed that more than half of those who complete sentences in such institutions return again to a life of crime, and again are sent back to the cell. They are not reformed and relapse again into crime as often as eight or ten times. The stigma attached to criminals hinders them from procuring good remunerative employment and, finding themselves alone and repelled by all society, they can only return to their former life.34

Next to the increase of delinquency, one must note the excessive increase in judicial legislation, another form of moral degradation.º New courts, new judges, new officers have had to be created to take care of the daily increasing needs of litigants. The passion for gain and gambling, characterized by the enormous revival of games of chance among all social classes, has undoubtedly contributed to this development. But, at the same time, the administration of justice has gained in rapidity and seriousness. The last organic codes, those of civil procedure and of penal procedure prepared many years ago and passed during the government of Germán Riesco, due in large measure to his initiative, have marked effective progress in the judicial practices of the country. With them national legislation is completed, and the ancient legislation of the colony, which still ruled procedure, after nearly a century of independence, has been reformed. Public morality has not gained so much by this change as has correct procedure in the enforcement of all laws.

The Chilean People and Their Evolution

From what we have just set forth, one can see that the morality and the health of the great masses of the people do not correspond to the prosperous state of other phases of national life. Men have not been wanting who, basing their opinion on this fact, have declared  p438 that Chilean nationality is decadent. But this decadence does not exist. Here are four centuries of history to belie that idea. Before talking about the decadence of Chile, its social evolution should be mentioned, and then its progress will be evident. Four hundred years have barely passed since the first Spaniards stepped upon Chilean soil and engrafted European civilization upon native barbarism. They founded its cities, explored its territory, cultivated its fields, and exploited its mines. They did even more — they constituted a new society. The native race, although despoiled and maltreated, was the basis of this society. On that race was grafted the Spanish, and there resulted a third race, with common vices and virtues. In this way the native element did not disappear; it kept on living and will always live in the blood and spirit of the nation; it forms the people.

When the struggle for independence began, this people had hardly risen a degree above its primitive barbarism. More than a hundred years have passed since then; and can one say that the race is the same as when, still barbarian, it eagerly and fiercely threaded the forests of Arauco? the same as when every natural phenomenon was viewed as an omen of disaster? the same as when, in the encomienda and the mita, it bled under the whip of its masters? The power, tenacity, and bravery that it inherited from the native and from the Castilian adventurer has been seen developing everywhere. This has been the race that formed the soldiery in the wars of emancipation and then during the periods of civil agitation filled the ranks of those fighting for liberty. This has been the race that, three times, carried the flag of the republic across seas and deserts as far as the territory of Peru and its hands are the hands which have built cities, confined the rivers in canals, laid rails for the locomotive, and hoisted the sails and fired the guns of Chilean vessels.

The fusion of both races, it is true, has not been completely accomplished; but it is advancing rapidly, favored by the democratic atmosphere of political institutions, by the development of public education, and by the very expansion of national wealth. The facility of land and sea communications, the industrial growth of the country, which dates from a recent period, and the greater daily expansion of the urban centers have also been factors of primary importance in giving representation and unity to this abundant Hispanic-native admixture, which now works freely, attends schools, is organized into society, hears about public institutions, and is the driving force in all the stir of civic life.

 p439  Its vices and defects form part of the inheritance from its ancestors. If it cannot yet strip itself of that heritage, it is because it is carried in the blood and because the intellectual and economic evolution of the republic does not reach it in the same degree that it reaches the leading classes. But these same classes, now comprehending their obligations toward the mass of the population, daily tend to establish greater solidarity with it; and, whether as governing elements or as forces of private initiative, many of their members devote part of their time to the advancement of that evolution.

Whoever, then, observes the development of this people and compares what it was with what it is, cannot say that it has decayed; and whoever keeps in mind the great qualities of vigor and energy that it has always displayed will not fear whatever fate the future has to offer it. At most one will be able only to regret that it may suffer critical moments from exhaustion or from debauchery.

---

The Author's Notes:

1 The population on September 30, 1937, was estimated at 4,583,003 in Estadistica chilena (September, 1937), p529. Owing to the relatively high death rate, the annual increase in population is comparatively small. The death rate, however, seems to be slowly decreasing.

2 For Chile's foreign trade during the first nine months of 1937, see ibid. (September, 1937), p494.

3 See p367.

4 See Wilhelm Mann, Chile luchando por nuevas formas de vida, II, 102‑105.

5 See Martner, Estudio de política comercial chilena, II, 532‑535.

6 Fluctuation in employment marked the years 1925, 1926. Conditions improved thereafter until 1930, after which date the situation became steadily worse until 1933. Since then there has been marked improvement due to the rise of local industries and the resort to gold washings. See Thomson, op. cit., pp286, 287. An interesting proposal, with respect to Chile's economic and social condition, is presented by Carlos Keller R., Un país al garete (Santiago, 1932).

7 See "Chile," Encyclopaedia Britannica (14th edition), V, 489‑490.

8 See Rippy, Martin, and Cox, Argentina, Brazil, and since Independence, pp399‑401. See also Mann, op. cit., II, 265‑274; and New International Year Book, 1937, p148.

9 See Mann, op. cit., II, 289, 300; also Charles E. Chapman, "The Chilean Educational System with Especial Attention to the Position of the University," in Hisp. Amer. Hist. Rev., III (August, 1920), 395‑402. — J. A. R.

10 For an article on the Instituto Santa María, see Chile, Vol. V, No. 28 (July, 1928), p251.

11 Letelier's Filosofía was published in Santiago in 1892; his Evolución, in 1900; his Génesis del derecho, in Santiago in 1919; and his Génesis del estado, in Buenos Aires in 1917.

12 Barros Arana finished his Historia jeneral (16 vols.) in 1902. A revised edition appeared in 1930. His Decenio was published in Santiago in 1905‑1906. The second edition of Sotomayor Valdés, Historia de Chile bajo el gobierno del General D. Joaquín Prieto (4 vols.) was published in Santiago (1900‑1903).

13 El instituto nacional was published in Santiago in 1891; the Mayorazgos (3 vols.) in Santiago, 1901‑1904; and the Encomiendas, in Santiago in 1909.

14 The Lastarria was published in Santiago in 1893; the Historia del desarrollo intelectual de Chile came out in Santiago in 1903; and the evolución social, in Santiago, in 1906.

15 Tomás Guevara's Civilización (7 vols. in 8) was published in Santiago in 1898‑1913; his Psicología, in Santiago, in 908.

16 Bulnes died in 1936.

17 Orrego Luco's name does not appear in the available bibliographies.

18 The "Colección de historiadores de Chile" dates from 1861.

19 "Colección de historiadores de documentos relativos a la independencia de Chile," 1900; Sesiones de los cuerpos legislativos, 1811‑1845 (28 vols. Santiago, 1886‑1906).

20 His Durante la reconquista appeared in Paris, 1897, Santiago, 1933; Los trasplantados, Paris, 1911? and El loco estero in Paris in 1909.

21 Consult Sturgis E. Leavitt, "Chilean Literature, a Bibliography of Literary Criticism, Biography, and Literary Controversy," in Hisp. Amer. Hist. Rev., V (1922), Feb.‑Aug., 116‑143, 274‑297, 531‑534.

22 Hoy for June 9, 1933, reports the semi-annual exhibition of the National Society of Fine Arts as being very successful.

23 The names of recent painters are listed with some criticism of their work by Mann, op. cit., II, 180‑192.

24 For a brief reference to contemporary sculpture in Chile, see ibid., pp192‑196.

25 The encyclical "Rerum Novarum," on May 18, 1891, set forth Christian principles dealing with relations between capital and labor. The bull and others growing out of it are mentioned in the Catholic Encyclopedia, IX, 172.

26 Hoy, in its issue for December 25, 1931, reports 130,000 workers out of employment. In the following March the number was given as over 60,000, and in April, 1933, as 54,000. The same periodical during the years 1933‑1937 frequently refers to the prevalence of typhus in the country. See also Thomson, op. cit., p287.

27 See Edward A. Ross, South of Panama (New York, 1915), pp94‑113, and other foreign commentators.

28 Under Law No. 5802 matters of public health are under the control of the National Council of Public Health, presided over by the minister of that department. See El mercurio, February 21, 1936.

29 Ibid., August 1, 1935, mentions a proposed expenditure by the government of a half-million pesos for inexpensive houses. See also Mann, op. cit., I, 190‑193.

30 See p291.

31 See n. 29, supra.

32 Moisés Poblete Troncoso, who for several years has served on the staff of the International Labor Office at Geneva, has important articles on labor legislation in Latin America in International Labor Review, XXX (Geneva, July, 1932), 58‑80; ibid., XXXII (November, 1935), 637‑664. See also Legislación social obrera chilena (Santiago, 1924), and his Labor Organization in Chile (Washington, 1928); and Thomson, op. cit., pp285, 286.

33 Hoy for July 14, 1933, emphasizes alcoholism as being responsible for the increase in mortality and crime among the Chilean population.

34 Ibid., on September 29, 1933, states that the inmates of prisons are forced to live in frightful conditions. El mercurio, on July 17, 23, 1935, states that thirty million pesos are to be used in prison construction, a half million of which is for a penal colony. The same paper, on March 21, 1936, reports the prisons of the country as being in a deplorable state, and on April 8 of that year mentions that prison conditions are similar to those of twenty years before. See also Mann, op. cit., I, 261‑278.

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