Santiago de Chile, 8th October, 1821.[1]
I seize the opportunity of sending you a few lines by his Majesty's ship Owen Glendower, which sails for England from Valparaiso immediately. I enclose you a copy of a letter of this date to Mr. Owen, which will inform you of my concerns here, touching the Bible Society, to this date. In addition to this, I shall now communicate to you some notices regarding our schools here, bringing down my accounts upon that subject from the 1st September (the date of my last letter to Mr. S.) to the present day.
I am happy to say, the favourable reception I met with here, and of which I wrote you on the 6th August, was not a momentary feeling. It has been kept up till now, and I might also say, it has rather increased than diminished. Soon after my arrival in this city, a large room in the University was pointed out to me as the place in which we were to begin our school operations. This hall is capable of containing 200 children, according to our plan, and this is a very good number for a model school. This hall was to have been the University Chapel. The building I here call the University, is not occupied at present in the way its name would indicate, though intended for a place of learning. There is, however, another building appropriated to the objects of a college, and of which I may write you afterwards. My present object is to speak of our schools. Through the delay of the joiners in fitting up this place, it was not completed till the 17th September. On that day our school was opened. From day to day our number increased, till, at the end of a fortnight, our number (200) was completed. Since that time, we have been daily importuned to admit others, which we are unable to do. We are, however, about to commence fitting up another large hall in the University buildings. At the present rate of applications, we shall certainly have more in readiness for that second school, by the time it is prepared, than it will contain. The fitting up of others is also talked of. From the short time our school has been going on, it promises to do well. The children are docile and agreeable. I am now so much familiarized with the appearance and manner of the children in these countries, that I feel myself quite at home among them. There is more resemblance to the English or European face among the children and others here, in Chile, than in Buenos Aires. I have been this moment interrupted by one of my scholars, who has called upon me, and brought me a ham, a present from his mother.
All classes seem to take an interest in our schools. We are daily visited. The First Minister of the Government pays us a visit regularly every afternoon. We have already four masters studying the system, and these will be ready in a month or two to open schools on our plan, either in this city or in the provincial towns. In Conception, Coquimbo, and another town of inferior population, they are preparing for establishing schools upon our system. The principal things we stand in need of for the rapid extension of our schools, are slates and printed lessons. I am expecting 2000 slates by the first vessel from England, and am at present getting some lessons printed in the government printing office. To defray the expense of these, we have opened a subscription, which I hope will do well. I have already got upwards of 270 dollars among my English friends here, and expect more.
Thus, you see, the Lord is with us, and blessed be his name. May he, in his own way and wisdom, make his great name glorious in the eyes of Chile, and of all South America.
[1] Letter to BFSS in James Thomson, Letters on the Moral and Religious State of South America (London: James Nisbet, 1827), pp.11-13.