The Franciscan Order was the first large agency to concern itself with the Christianization and civilization of North America. Its personnel sought to change the culture patterns, the institutions, and the ideology of the native aboriginal social order not merely by erecting chapels and churches but also by an educational policy that was vitally interested in improving the quality of individual living and implementing the ideals of a Christian democratic society.

The period 1939–1945 saw an unprecedented expansion of Latin American studies in the United States. This was partly due to the wartime activities of such government agencies as the Department of State and the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, and to the rising interest in the area approach to academic studies. This development would not have been possible, however, without the continuous concern of the foundations, which had helped to organize scholars in the field on a national basis, had stimulated research in relatively neglected fields, and had provided funds for the compilation and publication of certain basic bibliographical tools. Nor would this expansion have been more than a wartime boom had not the scholars and universities of the country been attracted to Hispanic studies since George Ticknor and William H. Prescott first disclosed their importance over a century ago, and to the Latin American field more particularly since 1900. The expansion was based upon solid elements.

Fray Francisco Palóu, O.F.M. immortalized himself and his hero when he wrote and published his Relación Histórica de la Vida y Apostólicas Tareas del Venerable Padre Fray Junípero Serra. The intimacy between author and hero through the years 1740 and 1784, began in the latter’s classroom at Palma, Mallorca, and ended at his deathbed in Carmel, California. The friendly association of Serra and Palóu continued undiminished in the pursuit of scholarship, the Franciscan way of life, travel and pioneering, the founding and administration of missions, in correspondence and mútual counsel. The younger man survived. Being author as well as missionary, he followed the impulse to write and to record for posterity the classic story of the founding of a famous mission field and to delineate the heroic deeds of its dominating personality. The Vida was the flowering of a fine, fraternal friendship.

With the publication of the complete works of Gregório de Matos, seventeenth century Brazilian satirical poet, or almost complete works (his poems which were too obscene for publication remain in manuscript), by the Brazilian Academy of Letters, it is now possible to evaluate his production to see if the critics who call him the founder of Brazilian literature, the precursor of literary emancipation and mental independence, and the first to give the cry of Brazilian independence, were overestimating the contribution of this “Mouth of Hell” as he was dubbed by his contemporaries.

Although, at the beginning of the year 1911, there was practically no aviation activity in Mexico, the development was so fast that by 1913 the airplane had demonstrated its usefulness in war and had even been used to bomb naval vessels. To those who would see, the events taking place in and over Mexico clearly foreshadowed the future importance of this weapon. While flying was not new in 1911, for many generations had worked on the problem, still it was only a couple of years before that Bleriot’s flight across the English Channel had convinced the world that flying was indeed a reality.