Alejo Peyret - Academic and Literary Career

Academic and Literary Career

Peyret published Bearnese Stories in Concepción del Uruguay in 1870. The work was translated into French and Occitan in Paris in 1890. He did as much as he could to preserve the language of his native region and his Bearnese Stories won the praise of Pierre-Jean de Béranger.

On July 13, 1874 he was nominated by Dr. Vicente Fidel López, president of the University of Buenos Aires, to occupy the vacant chief professorship of the French department, in the Faculty of Humanities and Philosophy; dean Andrés Lamas expressed his agreement and communicated with Peyret. On April 13, 1876, Peyret sent his resignation from Concepción del Uruguay. On March 31, 1876 he was named professor of world history for all six grades of the National College of Uruguay, and was subsequently appointed - in 1879 - to teach a special course on the history of free universities. He continued at the college until August 17, 1883, when he resigned in order to relocate to Buenos Aires.

The George Washington Lodge agreed in 1877 - at Peyret's proposal - to form a commission headed by Peyret to study "the situation afflicting numerous students who cannot pursue their studies due to lack of resources". This led to the establishment of the educational society La Fraternidad, which sought to protect and provide housing for students of the College of Uruguay. On August 23, 1880, he was named president of the provisional directive commission of the French Mutual Aid Society of Concepción del Uruguay and in 1882 was named its honorary president. The Office of Territories and Colonies commissioned him in 1881 to make a study of the possibilities of the territory of Misiones, a study which inspired him to write thirty letters published in the daily La Tribuna Nacional under the title Letters on Misiones.

A decree signed by president Julio Argentino Roca on August 18, 1883 authorized Peyret, having relocated to Buenos Aires, to teach the history of the free universities at the National College of Buenos Aires. He served this role until February 11, 1887. He wrote Contemporary History, a textbook which would be used in normal schools and national colleges. In 1885 his book The Origins of Christianity was serialized in the Buenos Aires University Review, and the following year his work The American Thinker was published. At the same time he published History of Religions, which comprised a history and philosophical critique of prehistoric and historical religions and of Christianity. Another work on the subject was The Evolution of Christianity.