Speech delivered by His Excellency the President of the Republic, Doctor José Pardo

Abstract

In this inaugural speech, President José Pardo reflects on the state of the nation after ten years of peace, proclaiming that the period of warlike upheavals is closed to make way for a stage of fruitful and methodical intellectual work. Pardo express that it is an imperative duty of rulers to stimulate national culture with the same zeal as economic interests, seeking a balance that avoids both the dominance of utopian rhetorics as well as that of positivists elocutions, which sacrifice traditions. In this cultural endeavor, the president gives a preferential place to the study of the country's History, considering it a branch of knowledge that most contributes to the formation of the national character. He points out that the vast field of history encompasses traditions, deeds, glories, and disasters, which contain the secret of the country's future. Finally, he declares the Historical Institute of Peru officially open, in the trust that the appointed personnel will make the institution into a "star of first magnitude" for Peruvian intellectuality.