A LESSON OP THE PAST

New Zealand Tablet, 25 August 1910, Page 1369

A LESSON OP THE PAST

It is more than a hundred and fifty years since an unwise policy brutally destroyed the flourishing Jesuit Reductions of Paraguay (says the Boston Pilot). The faiqe of their peaceful founding as well as of their civilising influence upon the savages has in our day impelled the rulers of Argentina to imitate the system. In 1900 the Government of that country made over to the Franciscans 200,000 acres of uncultivated land, on condition that they settle upon it 250 Indian families and educate them in Christian and civilised ways. Each family was to receive from the beginning 250 acres in full right of ownership, and the remainder of the grant was to be divided among the colonists after they had been trained into habits >of civilised life. To defray the initial expenses of the project the Argentinian Government voted an allowance of 20,000 dollars. . ■ Opening with ten families, the Reduction now numbers 156 families within its limits. White laborers and traders are rigidly excluded and the sale of alcoholic liquors is forbidden. Until they shall have mastered the elementary notions of land-tillage and of barter and sale of products the Indians are employed by the missionaries and carefully instructed by them. In 1909 128 families are lepoited settled on their own farms and tilling their own lands with satisfactory' results. . . . < Agricultural implements are furnished by the mission. The mission, as a rule, buys the grain that is harvested, maintains a little steamer on the river to keep up communication with the near-by city, superintends the building of commodious roads and bridges and provides workshops and mills driven by steam. The skilled labor required in all these enterprises is drawn exclusively from the Indian community. In two schools the children receive a good elementary education, the girls being specially trained in domestic branches and housekeeping. , 1 . During the rainy season there is a night school for the adults. Religious instruction is imparted every day to the men, women, and children in separate classes. Beyond ' this no special influence is used to win over the adults who are still pagans, but all the children are baptised and

wp- w ■ brought up Christians, and there is every reason to hope that the entire Reduction will speedily be Christianised. This interesting experiment may well be termed a lesson out of the past. Situated hear Formosa, a city on the Paraguay River, in northern Argentina, the San Francisco del Laishi Reduction. is a proof that one modern State at least has fullest confidence in the civilising powers of the old Church. /And the gratifying results that have already followed the experiment offer evidence that . the religious Orders have not lost their importance or usefulness in our day. , , " ; -