Note 142 — SECTION III. HISTORICAL NOTES.[111]

Charges of national ignorance are favourites with the ignorant, and unhappily not only with them: the analphabetic state of Spain is pressed into active service by the English home littérateur, especially of the Evangelical or Low Church school. It sounds strange to one who has often met upon the outer bridle-paths men mounted on their mules, and diligently reading books and newspapers. And the superior civilisation of the Latin race is hardly to be measured by the three “R’s,” or by similar mechanical appliances.