ALBERTO LISTA Y

ARAGON (1775–1848)  , Spanish poet and educationalist, was born at Seville on the 15th of October 1795 . He began teaching at the age of fifteen, and when little over twenty was made professor of elocution and poetry at Seville university . In 1813 he was exiled, on political grounds, but pardoned in 1817 . He then returned to Spain and, after teaching for three years at Bilbao, started a critical review at Madrid . Shortly afterwards he founded the celebrated college of San Mateo in that city . The liberal character of the San Mateo educational system was not favoured by the government, and in 1823 the college was closed . Lista after some time spent in Bayonne, Paris and London was recalled to Spain in 18333 to edit the official Madrid Gazette . He was one of the founders of the Ateneo, the free university of Madrid, and up till 1840 was director of a college at Cadiz . All the leading spirits of the young generation of Spaniards, statesmen, writers, soldiers and diplomatists came under his influence . He died at Seville on the 5th of October 1848 .