Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/197

Rh of cloth. To this gift he added another, of six fat hens, four pounds of cold viands, and a pair of gloves. These disbursements, united with the expences attendant on the public exhibition of a bull fight, in the great square, on the day of admission, and the sumptuous entertainment given to all who were present, were found, on an average estimate made in 1743, to amount to the extravagant sum of ten thousand piastres for each degree. To remedy this inconvenience, it was then settled that the graduate should pay into the chest of the institution the sum of two thousand piastres, to be divided equally among the do6lors; and should provide a slight refreshment for those who were present at his examination. He was, besides, to bestow small fees on the rector, head master, register, and other persons holding literary employments in the college. The gross amount of the charges has been since reduced to one thousand and sixty-six piastres.

To obtain the degree of doctor, that of bachelor is, in the first instance, indispensably requisite. For this purpose, the student must be provided with a certificate of his having attended five courses in the faculty to which he aspires, together with another certificate of his having taken the private lessons, without which his studies would have been incomplete. The expences of this degree are moderate, amounting to twenty-five piastres only. Conformably to the spirit and tenor of the laws of the kingdom, whenever ten degrees of bachelor have been conferred, a similar degree is to be bestowed on a poor scholar, as a stimulus to application, and a recompense for the successful prosecution of his studies; but this favour has been liberally dispensed by the academy, which, with a view to the prosperity and cultivation of the sciences, has not mited.