La luz no se extingue

In a report in 2003, Fernando Hinestrosa was asked: What outstanding debts do you have with the University? He responded: "The story of the Externado." On that occasion he was also asked about his vision of the future of the Externado de Colombia University and in this regard he indicated: «Faithful to the spirit of his birth and always. Independent, haughty, libertarian, democratic, supportive, academically demanding, ethically uncompromising. Trainer of full, autonomous citizens, with faith in a civilized and egalitarian homeland. Present, respected inside and outside the country, at the forefront in quality, innovation, in the discovery and stimulation of vocations of teachers and researchers, in the perception of the country's needs in terms of professional training and the discovery of correct answers. He did it with zeal, without flinching, without asking permission, with the support of Fernando Hinestrosa. The last radical knight. Report by Miguel Méndez Ca macho, Bogotá, Universidad Externado de Colombia. 2003. p. 59. of an unbreakable temper, forged in reason and education, like the one that crystallized in the first Externado, when for everything one had to bow and genuflect to the ecclesiastical and civil powers before which he did not bow.

Pinzón Warlosten's quixotada is real: How to found an educational establishment, a "free institute" as it was characterized, at a time when all adversity thwarted this type of initiative? Why did he gamble for an educational establishment in which "fundamental principles, scientific criteria and practical applications" constituted its attributes? And this at a time when education in the country was returning to Thomistic, the natural law, to the faith derived from Catholic dogma, of course, in clear connection with the politics of conservatism. Why and how to defend liberal ideas at times when they were violently proscribed? Precisely such was the option of the founder and the radical liberals who joined his project, teachers and students as well as families who trusted the Externado, discouraged by the political fanaticism that war after war increased the sterile bloodshed.