5. EDUCATION AND RELIGION. The central government has been hitherto prevented by the constitutional restrictions already men tioned from making education compulsory in the states; but some of the latter have them selves taken this step, and wherever the gov ernment can offer it at all and make it free, education is free. Distributed unevenly throughout the states are more than 13,000 schools. Brazil has no university. The ex cellent schools of law, medicine and engineering in several of the large cities do not supply this deficiency. But all advocates of the establish ment of a national university have encountered the opposition of leaders who represent the States' Rights doctrine. The founding and maintenance of a great national university, such as the country needs and would appre ciate, are steps toward centralization which State politicians are wholly unprepared to take. The Union, however, occasionally ex tends pecuniary assistance to states, munici palities or individuals by way of co-operation in the maintenance of industrial schools, or colleges of agriculture. Sao Paulo leads among the states in educational progress: its Faculty of Law and Polytechnic College are both praise worthy; and the range of scientific courses carried on at its museum is striking. However, this state does little for secondary education. It 'contains three public secondary schools, one in the capital, one at Campinas and one at Ribeiraon Preto; but the pupils are few in number. There is a host of private schools, many of which are kept by religious orders. The private schools are for the most part boarding-schools,' many of them situated in the country. "The education given in such schools is very unequal and usually second rate. Not only in Sao Paulo but throughout Brazil the question of secondary education is to-day one of extreme gravity. It is to primary education that the state of Sao Paulo devotes its resources. The budget appropriation is liberal, amounting to $2,000,000, and some of the schools have the appearance of palaces.' Mackenzie College at Sao Paulo has an ex cellent standing among, foreign institutions which supplement by their work the state and national systems of instruction; and there are many foreign schools in the republic. The great educational value of free libraries has not been overlooked: there are many small collections of books; and the National Library in Rio de Janeiro, containing several hundred thousand items—perhaps nearly half of a million manuscripts and printed works — is the most interesting large collection that the writer has visited in any part of Latin America. Finally, as a field for educational endeavors, Brazil has elements of exceptional promise. "The Brazilians, who never forget that they were for a time, during the French invasion of Portugal, their own mother country, and head of the whole Portuguese people, cherish their national literary traditions with more warmth than do the Spaniards of the New World, and produce quite as much in the way of poetry and belles-lettres as do the writers of Portugal.
They have a quick susceptibility to ideas, like that of Frenchmen or Russians.* Such is the tribute in Bryce's 'South America' ; but it is promptly qualified as follows: °One can hardly be surprised that learning and the abstract side of natural science are undervalued in a country which has no university, nothing more than faculties for teaching the practical sub jects of law, medicine, engineering and agri culture.' Educational steps taken in recent years are (1) The decree of 5 April 1911, which con ferred upon a Federal Board of Education authority to establish_ primary schools in the various states; (2) The inauguration, on 4 July 1913, of a superior school of agriculture and veterinary medicine at Rio de Janeiro; and (3) The decree' of 15 April 1914, which created a class of practical schools of agriculture and which was followed by other decrees establish ing preparatory schools of agriculture and ex periment stations. Thus legal provision has been made for a system of agricultural educa tion under the control of the central govern ment. In 10 different, widely separated localities, this pacific invasion of the states by a movement unquestionably beneficial, though also unquestionably in contravention of strict constructionist theories (see GOVERNMENT) has already taken place.
Religion in Brazil has been subordinated during so long a period that to-day the Church exerts little influence upon the thought and conduct of laymen. Colonel Roosevelt writes ((Through the Brazilian Wilderness') that tithe Positivists are a really strong body in Brazil, as they are in France'; and again: °Brazil possesses the same complete liberty in matters religious, spiritual, and intellectual as we do.' But of course laymen in Brazil had never, in the manner of the Puritans, adopted an inde pendent (Congregational) form of church government. The latter were free to exercise their own chosen form of worship; the former, when the connection between church and state was abolished and absolute equality declared among all forms of religion, quite naturally were freed from the restraints and the inspira tion of religion to a very much greater ex tent. The Church has retained its buildings, properties and income; religious orders share fully in the general toleration; the Brazilian men as a rule are still nominally — and Bra zilian women as a rule are devoutly— Catho lics. High officials of the Catholic Church are : The cardinal, at Rio de Janeiro, archbishops at Bahia, Rio, Sao Paulo, Para and Mariana, and 25 suffragan bishops. Consult Report of the Commissioner of Education (Department of Interior, Bureau of Education, Vol. I, Wash ington 1915) and works by Bryce, Clemen ceau, Denis and others in which are chapters dealing with present educational conditions. See bibliography under HISTORY.