These strangers, of course, introduced many progressive ideas and new
habits and luxuries into the land. In non-political matters a
cosmopolitan result was soon evident. At the same time, these foreigners
failed to exercise any but a most indirect influence on the internal
policy of the nation. This was undoubtedly perfectly correct, but in the
face of the curious political situation which prevailed at this period
we have the remarkable spectacle of rapid and definite progress in
commercial, industrial, and private life, while at the same time the
official methods of the public authorities were degenerating with a
rapidity that soon brought the circumstances of government almost to a
point of actual savagery.
In the first instance, men of weight and intellect, such as Rivadavia,
Pueyrredon, and their numerous colleagues, had strained every nerve to
place this new nation of theirs on a par with those of Europe in matters
of intelligence and scientific progress. They had opened colleges,
Universities, hospitals, scientific institutions, libraries, and,
indeed, had endeavoured to provide the community with every instrument
which could further its general progress. Every species of science was
encouraged, even to the introduction of the then novel process of
vaccination.
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