Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, the internationally known Chilean poetess who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1945, was born at Vicuña in the province of Coquimbo on April 6, 1889, the daughter of Gerónimo Godoy, a school teacher and minor poet, and Petronila Alcayaga. When Lucila was only three years of age her father abandoned her mother; yet she apparently remembered him with deep filial affection and did not forget the following verses he had written for her:

It was not until the 1870’s, in the waning years of the Empire, that São Paulo’s rise to unquestioned pre-eminence in Brazil caused it to question seriously the existing framework of government. But in the span of nearly four centuries between 1500 and 1870, there were instances of friction between São Paulo and the central government which provided at least a tradition of Paulista dissatisfaction with its allegedly subordinate position in the Brazilian nation. Most of the early rebellious tendencies of São Paulo were no different from those of the other regions of Brazil, thus not warranting particular attention. Prior to 1870, however, there were two occasions involving Paulista actions against the central government which merit consideration for special reasons. They were peculiar to São Paulo, differentiating it from the other regions, and they were of significance in foreshadowing the later pattern of Paulista tendencies toward secession.

From the very start, the School of San Francisco had close to one thousand students. Some were the children of the Spanish conquerors, but most were sons of Indian nobles. They received elementary instruction in religion and in the rudiments of learning. Later on came Latin and music. Vocational classes for adults, organized after a few years, turned out excellent artists and craftsmen, sculptors and stonecutters, painters and engravers, carpenters, tailors, shoemakers. A children’s hospital was operated in connection with the school.

The Expansion of the United States into Spanish areas following the Spanish-American War was a test of the vigor of American society in winning over groups that were essentially alien to it. With the annexation of territories such as Puerto Rico, the American way of life was, for the first time, operating on a culturally alien soil and was thus given the opportunity to show its capacity of being exported and adopted by a people who, as a group, were part of another cultural tradition. Puerto Rico has been for the last fifty years a small stage on which a culture drama was being played. American principles were introduced there together with American attitudes. Some patterns were imposed by American military and civilian authorities—often prompted by Puerto Ricans; others were imitated by the Puerto Ricans themselves. What was the climate of opinion that permitted this transfer, what were the methods employed to achieve it, and to what extent was it successful? These are the questions that come to the mind of the historian who studies Puerto Rico today.

Orbis Seraphicus is the title of the impressive Franciscan cosmography projected by Fr. Domenico De Gubernatis da Sospello (d. 1690) for a total of some thirty-five volumes in folio divided into four sections. The programmatic plan of the work, which was submitted to the General Chapter of the Franciscan Order held at Rome in 1688, is known to us as published by the author himself. It has the formidable heading: Idea Orbis Seraphici de tribus Ordinibus a Seraphico Patriarcha S. Francisco institutis, deque illorum progressibus et honoribus per quattuor mundi partes Europam, Asiam, Africam, et Americam, in obsequium Jesu Christi et Ecclesiae Sanctae Romanae, pro defensione atque propagatione fidei catholicae reportatis, a Fr. Dominico De Gubernatis concepta et concinnata; Romae Typographia Comerae Apostolicae, 1688. Copies of the plan are rare, and thus the writer took advantage of the occasion to reproduce it in the prolegomena of the Orbis Seraphicus itself, when it was published at Quaracchi in 1945.

The Field of Latin-American Studies suffered a great loss when, on February 26, 1951, death terminated the scholarly career of Professor Charles W. Hackett of the University of Texas. For thirty-three years he contributed both as a teacher and a scholar to the development of sound scholarship in his chosen field of Latin-American history. His cheerful encouragement, his intelligent leadership, his deep understanding and sympathy and his high standards in research will be missed by his students, his friends and his associates in Texas, the United States and Latin America.