| Etext transcriber’s note: Aside from obvious typographical errors,neither the English nor the Spanish (spelling/accent-marks) have beenchanged or modernized. |
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Heath’s Modern Language Series
THE SPANISH AMERICAN
READER
BY
ERNESTO NELSON
FORMER PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LA PLATAAND DIRECTOR GENERAL OF SECONDARY AND NORMALINSTRUCTION IN THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC
WITH FULL NOTES AND VOCABULARY
D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY
D. C. HEATH & COMPANY
———
All rights reserved
AUTHOR’S FOREWORD
As an educational commissioner from the Argentine Republic to the PanamaPacific International Exposition, I was very much gratified to note theconstantly increasing interest on the part of the High Schools andColleges of this country in the study of the Spanish language. At thesame time, realizing from personal investigation that most of those whostudy Spanish are prompted to do so by the present widespread interestin Spanish America as a legitimate and profitable field for Americanenterprise, I could not help wondering whether the reading matter usedin connection with the study of this language should not be enlarged soas to include some discussion of the subjects directly connected withthe work for which these students were preparing themselves.
One of the most amazing things in this country to the visiting LatinAmerican is the almost absolute lack of anything like adequateinformation as to what the Spanish American countries are doing in thepresent, or what they have achieved in the past. This lack ofinformation is particularly noticeable in the high-school texts uponHistory and Geography—not to mention those on the less common subjectsof social and political economy—and is most lamentable of all in thetext-books in Spanish used by the students of that language.
It seemed to me, therefore, that there was great need of and that thetime was ripe for a book which, while affording the student of Spanishabundant exercise in the reading of that tongue, would at the same timegive him some adequate idea of the physical aspects of the variousSouthern republics, their commercial and transportation routes, theiragricultural and industrial products, the opportunities they offer forbusiness and industrial investmen