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310 "The inspiration to consecrate myself to the education of the people, came to me here in my youth. My labor of thirty years, that of serving the countries where I resided with schools, turns now to its point of departure, to the very simple idea of the importance of primary school education over all other education, to insure the happiness of nations. If I had been born in Buenos Ayres, or Cordova, or in Santiago de Chili, the primary education of this part of the country would not have arrived at this point when all are striving for that end. I should have been preoccupied with the brilliant university, and should have aspired to its honors. But I was born and educated amidst the people of a province where there was no other education than that of the public school, and the 'Escuela de la Patria' was one of the first order, without a rival in any private one, conducted by a man so respected by the people and the government, that at that time the schoolmaster was looked upon as one of the first magistrates of the province. Observe, then, by what singular circumstances the school, as an institution, was destined to acquire in my mind that supreme importance which I have never ceased to give it; and how, at the close of my travels, I found in the United States that the school occupied the same place as in San Juan, and brought forth like results. The truth is, that the first ideas in the child's mind keep the same relative position always, and however slightly they meet with confirmation, grow and develop, and determine the career in life. If I should express all my thoughts, I should say that the School of La Patria, in San Juan, associated in my mind with the recollections of the only form of education with which I was acquainted, went forth with me from this province, and accompanied me in all my wanderings. In Chili it took the form of normal schools; in Europe I connected it with the study of legislation; in the United States with