2-969-723 - /Heritage Images

Don Manuel Montt, President of Chili, 1856. '...the first civil President of this rising state...Senor Montt...became conspicuous by his zealous advocacy of a system of popular education, in the maintenance and perfection of which Chili, to her honour be it known, expends a liberal proportion of her annual revenues...as the Minister of the Interior, he discharged important public functions with such great benefit to the nation, that at length his grateful countrymen conferred on him the highest honour in their power to bestow - the Presidency of the Republic. Senor Montt has fully justified the choice. By his administrative capacity he soon effaced the afflicting traits of civil strife; and Chili, tranquil and industrious, with an augmenting population, an extending commerce, and an overflowing exchequer, moves onward in its course of progressive prosperity'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.