The Andrés Bello Prize for Iberian American thought, as stipulated in its tenets, is intended to exalt and stimulate the work of intellectuals in the region, on topics that tend to foster the integration of our peoples and to highlight their characteristic cultural diversity.It is proposed that the presented works convey values that help build a decent world and a region of greater social justice.It purports, in addition, that to attain this end one must emphasize, as has been declared by the ministers of education of the signatory nations, the inalienable right to education that in many of these nations is a constitutional mandate.The present publication, awarded first prize in the category of essay by the international jury consisting of the Ecuadorian historian