All parts of Spain furnished the ancestors of the Peruvians--Basque, Catalonian, Andalusian, Galician, and Castillian names being encountered among them, and in viceregal days there were many titles of nobility, which fell into disuse on the advent of the Republic. Nevertheless, it is an amiable weakness of the Peruvians--as it is of many other Latin American folk--to love titles, as we see by the so frequent use of the doctorate degree. In a Peruvian Cabinet, it would be rare to discover a minister who is not addressed as "Doctor"--of laws or science--for the degree is often taken in Latin America largely as conferring some social distinction, and not necessarily with the purpose of practising this or that profession. Yet in justice to the Peruvians it must be said that they are clever professional men, whether at law, medicine or other, whilst practical science has its outlet also in the engineering profession, a considerable number of whose exponents make a study of the country's agricultural and mineral potentialities.
A pleasing feature of the Peruvians is their cordial welcome of foreigners, their desire to assimilate the things of the outside world, and strong notions of progress. It is not, however, to be supposed that their houses are readily open to the foreign visitor. Like all Latin Americans they are exclusive; and the traveller must be a _caballero_, a person of refinement, if he is to enter their family circle.
The main defect of the country and its governing classes is the neglect of the vast Indian and lower-class population, for this upper and enlightened class is but a small proportion of the population. The oligarchical tendencies which we find so strongly marked in Chile, in Mexico, and, indeed, in every Latin American State, are strong in Peru. These countries can never truly progress until they take their domestic responsibilities more seriously, thereby improving the economic and social status of the great bulk of poor folk whom Providence has delivered to their charge. On the contrary, they are more and more exposed to uprising and anarchy, such as that so terribly exemplified in Mexico, and farther afield in Russia. If they would preserve their culture they must extend it. It is true that these responsibilities concerning the Cholos and Indians have of recent years been more widely recognized, but much remains to be done in the field of practice. Elsewhere I venture to discuss, in the closing chapters of this book, what would appear to be the lines upon which the solution of this vital question of Spanish America should proceed.