Furthermore, it is necessary to remember that education was very limited
in the Spanish colonies; that in some of them printing had not been
introduced, and that its introduction was discouraged by the public
authority; and that public opinion, which even at this time is so poorly
developed, was very frequently poorly informed in colonial times, or
did not exist, unless we call public opinion a mass of prejudices,
superstitions and erroneous habits of thinking fostered by interests,
either personal or of the government.

This was the condition of the Spanish American countries at the beginning
of the nineteenth century, full of agitation and conflicting ideas, when
new plans of life for the people were being elaborated and put into
practice as experiments on which many men founded great hopes and which
many others feared as forerunners of a general social disintegration.




CHAPTER II


_Bolivar's Early Life. Venezuela's First Attempt to Obtain Self-Government_

(1783-1810)

Simon Bolivar was born in the city of Caracas on the twenty-fourth day of
July, 1783; his father was don Juan Vicente Bolivar, and his mother, dona
Maria de la Concepcion Palacios y Blanco. His father died when Simon was
still very young, and his mother took excellent care of his education. His
teacher, afterwards his intimate friend, was don Simon Rodriguez, a man of