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314 nine years that I was his pupil, according as his views improved, but he never deprived himself of the resource of corporal chastisement, in cases where he deemed it necessary.

"A thousand qualities distinguished this man from the generality of teachers, and established his superiority. Most of his teaching was oral, especially in grammar and arithmetic, and was reasoned out and duly exemplified.

"D. Ignacio has gone to his grave, but his spirit is enshrined in the hearts of a people who preserve the traditions of popular education. His pupils have diffused it, and San Juan and Buenos Ayres, by their improvements in education, testify to the service of the Rodriguez family of blessed memory.

"I have digressed into these details, although by so doing I have detained you too long, in order to rouse you to a great and noble effort. San Juan was the first Argentine province, as I have shown you, which after the revolution of independence elevated primary education to the highest grade of perfection possible at that epoch. From San Juan went forth the impulse which in these later days has stimulated two republics. San Juan owes it to herself to reestablish the fame of her ancient school, and permit me to say, that it is the duty of my country and my compatriots to aid me in the full development of a system of common school education which shall put the seal upon the work of thirty years of my life."

"In regard to my education," he continues, "it may be said that fate intervened to dog my steps. I next went to the seminary of Loreto in Cordova, but was obliged to return without entering, for the revolution of Carita left me without a Latin teacher. In 1825, I began to study mathematics and surveying under M. Barreau, engineer of that province. Together we drew up the plan of the