THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 77_ 



One of two wellbred young Americans, discus- 

 sing a certain incident in my presence, concluded the 

 recital with a comprehensive wave of the hand and 

 the ejaculation — "Well, you know what the educated 

 Mexican girl is!" 



Pity 'tis, 'tis true! 



The peon, not unlike the negro, who has benefited 

 to anv marked extent, or who has "been made over" 

 by the superficial and overcrowded instruction 

 thrust upon him by the public school, is "different," 

 i. e. is not a representative specimen. All through 

 the pedagogic world the idle struggle to force the 

 round ball into the square hole persists, although 

 the trenchant criticisms, prompted bv the early fail- 

 ures in training camps for American officers and 

 which failures were in large measure laid to our 

 public school system, have aroused that noble dis- 

 content which makes for the onlv progress worth 

 while. Illiteracy, it is discovered, is far from being 

 confined to aliens and still have we to learn, or dis- 

 cover, that instruction is not education — distinctly 

 not — and that it is just here that the Home must 

 supplement the School. How often does it? So far 

 as the peon is concerned, it stands to reason that he 

 must learn to read and write our language, but to 

 educate him "away from" (as has been aptly re- 

 marked) his natural bent is surely a blunder. The 

 Mexican public school child discards the useful lore 

 of his parents handed down through the ages, their 

 skill in ways he wots not of, their capacity for 

 lovaltv and affection, their courtesy aforementioned, 

 and with a head not conspicuous for brilliancy woe- 



