Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17.djvu/260

252 we welcome with profound gratitude the present address of Dr. Bigelow. Coming from such a source, containing such unanswerable arguments, expressed in so lucid and striking a form, the effect must be excellent. We have dwelt upon a single point of the address, because it seemed to us the most important and valuable part of it. But there is in it much besides, that is both instructive and interesting; and we recommend the pamphlet as one to be carefully read, and by no means to be confounded with the commoner style of public addresses.

life of our lamented President, by the distinguished Argentine, now Minister to Washington, is a very interesting circumstance, aside from the merit of the work, which is very great. It is an amazing fact that so few Eastern Americans read and speak Spanish, when one portion of our country borders upon a Republic that speaks that language only, and when we are so nearly allied in feeling and free principles of government to South America, twenty-three of whose Republics are now represented in the diplomatic body at Washington. The most remarkable of these gentlemen is Colonel D. F. Sarmiento, who has done more to elevate the Republic he represents than any other individual; for he has devoted many years of his active and patriotic life to introducing North American, and indeed we may say Massachusetts, systems of education into South America,—first into Chili, where he was an exile for twenty years, during the reign of the tyrants who brought such suffering upon the Argentine Republic, and since that time into the Argentine Republic itself, where he was at one time Governor of the province of San Juan, at another, Minister of Instruction in the province and city of Buenos Ayres, also Senator in their Congress. He took up the cause of his country when quite a boy, and has devoted himself to it, either in the field or as an educator, ever since. His eye has always been open to behold the workings of the free institutions that he desired to see established in it, and he has been probably the most powerful instrument in inducing his government to adopt the Constitution and laws of the United States, so that it is truly a sister Republic, and as such appeals irresistibly to our sympathy.

The Life of Mr. Lincoln, which he has now written for his own countrymen, has of course been gathered chiefly from biographies already written; but the interest of the work consists in the adaptation of it to the South American needs. To set forth the dignity of labor, the supremacy of the moral sentiments, the duty of education for the whole people, has been his aim; and he has enjoyed, and made others enjoy, the fact that two men of the people, par excellence, who had no adventitious aids of wealthy friends, or even of educated friends, did, by force of character and native powers of mind, come to be the free choice of this great people for President and Vice-President at a time when a new epoch opened in its history: for even before the war broke out, the "irrepressible conflict" was felt to be upon us, and we needed the best of helmsmen, and the wisest,—in that sense of the word wisdom which includes goodness as well as intelligence. We hope to see the Introduction to this work translated in full. The book closes with a translation of Mr. Lincoln's favorite poem, "Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" by young Bartholomew Mitre, one of Señor Sarmiento's legation, a son of the President of the Argentine Republic.

A few months since, Señor Sarmiento issued a pamphlet, giving an account of the splendid resources of the Republic, in answer to inquiries made by those who wished to emigrate thither. He also wrote, many years ago, a very interesting work, called "Civilization and Barbarism," giving an account of the reigns of some of those tyrants who so long arrested the great career of the Republic. That work is to be translated and published, and will give a new feeling of interest in the history of South America's struggles for freedom. If it had been one united country, like the United States, instead of being cut up into so many governments, it would have been easier for foreigners (if, indeed, North Americans should be called foreigners in South America) to follow it in its various changes; but, except where some great man, like Bolivar, made himself conspicuous, it was difficult, without much investigation of details, to keep the track of their proceedings, or to tell which side was specifically right,—for a revolution, to be very interesting, must have