tance to awaken the interest of our young people in their
American neighbors by including in the schemes of popular
education proper courses of study upon the geography, his-
tory, institutions and varied character of the peoples with
whom destiny has linked us for future cooperation. Many
textbooks for the use of students of Spanish are coming from
our publishing houses; numerous courses in Spanish and
Portuguese literature have been introduced; several maga-
zines devoted to inter-American affairs are being published,
the most important of which are given in the reading refer-
ences at the end of this chapter.

The Latin American people, on their part, are studying
English as never before and books and periodicals concern-
ing North American affairs are having a wide circulation.
A number of the leading daily newspapers recently perfected
arrangements with North American Press agencies which
will keep their readers in constant touch with North Ameri-
can life. The head of the Modern Languages Department
of the University of Chile reports that he had six pupils
studying English when he took charge of the Department
seven years ago, and he now has about three hundred.

THE EXCHANGE OF GOOD LITERATURE

It makes no difference what else we may do to introduce
North American ideals to Latin America, we shall never
accomplish all that we should until we have given them our
literature. Latin Americans are particularly susceptible to
the influence of books, as are all Latins. They place great
authority on the written word. Heretofore they have known
very little about our literature and, strange to say, works like
those of Emerson, James and others of our philosophers
that have become quite popular in certain circles in Latin
America, are either read in French or have been translated
from French or German editions into the Spanish. There
are few things of more importance than a systematic effort
to introduce American literature into these countries. If
we can get them to read the lives of some of our great men
like Washington and Lincoln and some books like Van
Dyke's "American Ideals," Howe's "The American City,"

etc., great good would be accomplished. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Committee on Cooperation in Latin America are beginning to work on this program.

Our publishers and other business men who are interested in the permeation of Latin America with North American ideals, could do nothing more worth while than push this business. It would pay commercially, not only for the books themselves that were sold, but it would also create a generally good impression that would bring about a demand for all kinds of American goods. Now is the very best time to begin such a campaign. In the old colonial days Spain furnished the literature for the colonies. But when independence was secured from the mother country, her intellectual influence was largely lost. France came to be the ideal of these new countries. Her publishing ideals became the model for all of those countries and so it was that her books began to hold sway in the beginning of the last century. This lasted practically up to the present time. There has been, however, a gradual reaction against French literature by a great many of the best Latin Americans because of the indecent French novels and the obscene Parisian literature that have led many to outlaw all French literature.

During recent years Spain has taken note of this and has made à great effort to recuperate her lost trade in books.

But the bookmakers that have made the greatest strides in Latin America during the last twenty years are the Germans. They have studied very carefully the market, found out the kind of books that the people like and the kind of edition that appeals to them, and have given them this. They have translated a great many of the French and English and American authors into Spanish. As I said before, some of these translations of American authors have been made from the French rather than from the original English, showing how far we have been detached from Latin American literature and how difficult it has been for them to come in touch with us. The War of course cut off Germany from her book trade with Latin America and it will be a long time before she will be able to recover it. The present time, therefore, is most propitious, both from the commercial and the cultural

standpoints, for us to circulate our American literature among our southern friends.

On the other hand, as has been shown in an earlier chapter, Latin America has produced and is producing a literature that is by every token worthy of our reading and consideration. The increasing study in the United States of Spanish and Portuguese should make a market for these books in their original languages. Meantime it is an encouraging sign that scholarly and appreciative translations of some of the best of them are beginning to appear on our book market. How can we ever expect to understand our neighbors until we can read and weigh the literature on which their intellectual life is nourished?

SPIRITUAL AMBASSADORS

One of the real reasons for the mutual misunderstandings between North and Latin America is that we have been afraid to discuss frankly the various phases of life bound up in our religious experiences and inheritances. Whenever such a thing is remotely hinted at in Pan American circles one is likely to be told that it is entirely improper to mention such divisive questions. But how can men be real friends and never talk of their belief in God? From Mexico to Chile I have recently presented the following idea to leading citizens: "We have had a fine period of Pan American getting together recently. Pan American conferences, exchange visits and other courtesies have greatly encouraged friendship. But you and I know that these have generally been quite on the surface. Has not the time come for us to discuss frankly the religious phases of our life? Protestant Christianity cannot be separated from the life of the United States. It has been and is the fundamental influence, the guiding motive in the life of most of our public men as well as those in private life. Roman Catholicism has certainly had a great influence in your country. To understand one another must we not stop fencing off the religious problem, and face frankly the question whether or not we can find those common truths in one another's religion that will bind us together and help solve our problems?"

Almost every man to whom I have thus spoken expressed his agreement with this view. If we can in sympathy and love and frankness contribute something to this discussion it will be worth the mistakes and misunderstandings and criticism that erring human judgment is certain to bring.

We need a number of spiritual ambassadors going up and down this America of ours, cultivating understanding and friendship by interpreting to all the people the great truth that God has made of one blood all the nations and has called each and everyone to make its own particular contribution to the work of the world.

We have had such ambassadors in the past. Dr. Horace Lane went from the United States to Brazil to establish himself in business. But he fell so deeply in love with the Brazilians that he gave himself to helping them educate their youth. As the founder and president of Mackenzie College, he did more to endear North Americans to Brazilians than any governmental agent ever sent to that country. His funeral was the largest ever held in the city of São Paulo. As one travels through Brazil to-day he finds the name of Mackenzie College to be the key that everywhere unlocks the doors. The graduates of the school are found occupying the highest positions in official and commercial life.

What Dr. Lane was to São Paulo, H. C. Tucker, another North American, is to Rio de Janeiro. Going to Brazil thirtyfive years ago as the agent of the American Bible Society, he has so identified himself with the community that it may be said that he occupies a unique position of influence both with Brazilians and foreigners. He has so largely won the confidence of the municipality that it follows his ideas in putting in municipal playgrounds, in developing public clinics and hospitals, and in introducing modern means of sanitation and social betterment into the city's life. It was at his suggestion that the government decided to apply modern methods to the elimination of yellow fever from Rio de Janeiro.

John M. Silliman, a classmate of President Wilson at Princeton, was another of these ambassadors. For twenty or more years he lived as a "gentleman farmer" at Saltillo, Mexico. His up-to-date agricultural and dairying methods were used more to help his Mexican neighbors to improve

their crops than to add to his own possessions. He was first in every movement for community betterment. He was equally popular among Mexicans and Americans. On Sundays, if there was no minister to speak to the little American congregation, he would hurry from his large men's bible class at the Mexican church to read one of Beecher's sermons to the Americans. And he found not only his American friends there but a good sprinkling of Mexicans wishing to try out their English and be near the big man they loved. It was no wonder that President Wilson in the difficult days of the Mexican Revolution found that Silliman was both his most reliable guide and the most acceptable American representative before the Constitutionalist movement. His death, brought about by pneumonia contracted in the work of bettering relationships between his native and his adopted lands, was mourned by friends all over Mexico.

How much it would mean if both the governmental world and the business world should keep in mind this idea of spiritual ambassadors as they select their representatives to these countries! This does not mean that they must be "preachers," or necessarily loud in their religious professions, but ministers, real evangelists of good will, whether business men, government agents or representatives of philanthropic or missionary organizations. They would take very seriously the work of interpreting the best of North American life to the Latin Americans, and would bring back to their own people a realization of the lovable traits as well as the serious needs of our fellow Americans.

In spite of all the misunderstandings of the past, great men both in the North and in the South have believed from the very beginning of the independent life of the American nations that, as Maia said to Jefferson, "Nature in making us inhabitants of the same continent has in some way united us in the bonds of a common patriotism.' The persistence of the idea of American unity in the hearts and minds of great Americans through all these years is one of the outstanding phenomena of the history of the western hemisphere. Many have been the forces sent against it. Many have been the selfish influences both North and South that have intrigued for its destruction. But American unity