No one learned how to reason in
the schools of my youth, nor mastered any theory, nor acquired a
practical knowledge of anything. In other words, we learned nothing.
In medicine, the professors adhered to a system that was the most
foolish imaginable. In the two universities in which I studied, subjects
might be taken only by halves, which would have been ridiculous enough
in any branch, but it was even more preposterous in medicine. Thus, in
pathology, a certain number of intending physicians studied the subject
of infection, while others studied nervous disorders, and yet others the
diseases of the respiratory organs. Nobody studied all three. A plan of
this sort could only have been conceived by Spanish professors, who, it
may be said in general, are the quintessence of vacuity.
"What difference does it make whether the students learn anything or
not?" every Spanish professor asks himself continually.
Unamuno says, apropos of the backwardness of Spaniards in the field of
invention: "Other nations can do the inventing." In other words, let
foreigners build up the sciences, so that we may take advantage of them.
There was one among my professors who considered himself a born teacher
and, moreover, a man of genius, and he was Letamendi.
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