76 6eoatapbtcal Iftotes on 



sleeping on the bare ground, preferring always the open air ; getting 

 up before daylight and starting on their journey at daybreak imme- 

 diately after their early meal, speaking no Spanish and travelling 

 about forty miles a day. When they reached the city of Oaxaca, they 

 would remain there one or two days, and go back to their homes with- 

 out taking part in any dissipation. They prefer to live in the high, 

 cool localities, and they have their patch of ground to raise corn and 

 a few vegetables in the hot lowlands, sometimes thirty miles away from 

 their homes, and carry their crops on their backs for all that distance. 

 They make very good soldiers, and military leaders have used them to 

 great advantage during our revolutions. 



Professor Starr's theory that we are all on this Continent assuming 

 the type of the Indian, is, in a measure, true. It is nothing new, for it 

 was already indicated by an English physician travelling in the British 

 colonies before the United States were thought of. 



The great task of the Mexican Government is to educate our 

 Indians and make them active citizens, consumers, and producers, 

 elevating their condition. Before we think of spending money to en- 

 courage European immigration to Mexico, we ought to promote the 

 education of our Indians, which I consider the principal public need 

 of the country. 



Increase of Mexican Population. In the beginning of the century 

 Baron Humboldt, who visited Mexico and studied very carefully the 

 conditions of the country, thought that the Indian race, which was 

 then very numerous, would continue to increase and would be the pre- 

 ponderant race of Mexico, as far as numbers were concerned, as it 

 showed a large proportion in a census made in 1810 by Don Fernando 

 Navarro y Noriega, and which appears in Baron Humboldt's Political 

 Essay of New Spain. According to that census the population of 

 Mexico was then divided as follows : 



European and American Spaniards 1,097,928 



Indians 3,676,281 



Mixed races or castes i,33 8 >76 



Secular ecclesiastics 4,229 



Regular ecclesiastics 3,* 12 



Nuns 2,098 



Total 6,122,354 



Including among the Europeans the ecclesiastics and nuns, the 

 population was, according to that census : 



Europeans 1,107,367 or 18 per cent. 



Indians 3,676,281 " 60 " " 



Mixed races 1,338,706 " 22 



Total 6,122,354 " 100 " " 



