lEfcucatfon* 103 



assisted by wealthier students and contributing often out of their own 

 slender means to keep the school alive ; but, in 1857, a better era 

 commenced, and not since then, with rare exceptions, have there been 

 any interruptions in financial aid from the various governments. All 

 the other institutions of learning suffered the same fate and were ex- 

 posed to similar ups and downs. 



School of Engineering. Our mining college is the best in Spanish 

 America, and it was established when engineering was hardly taught, 

 and endowed by a portion of the taxes levied by the Spanish Govern- 

 ment on mines. Its edifice is one of the best built by the Spaniards 

 in their colonies, and still stands as a great monument, embellishing 

 the City of Mexico. 



The above given facts will show how early did Mexico open 

 great schools for the higher education, and how solicitous was the 

 Spanish government to maintain them. But, three centuries of devo- 

 tion to learning, antedating the war for independence, planted there 

 firmly a love of knowledge which is now exhibited in the great 

 government schools, in a city full of students, in innumerable pri- 

 vate schools, in the well-filled public primary institutions, in night 

 schools for adults, and in the thirty-five bookstores of that city. 



Mexican Technical Schools in the Present Time. The edifice of 

 the first University in America, founded by the Spanish crown in 

 1551, is to-day occupied by the National Conservatory of Music. 

 The National Academy of Art, ancient Academy of San Carlos, 

 stands where Fray Pedro de Gante founded, in 1524, the first school 

 of the New World a school for Indians. The Normal School for 

 males, with its six hundred pupils and its first-class German equip- 

 ment, occupies the old convent of Santa Teresa, (1678). The Normal 

 School for females has fourteen hundred pupils, an expensive building 

 of 1648. The fine old Jesuit College of San Ildefonso, erected in 1749 

 at a cost of $400,000 is now filled with a thousand pupils of the 

 National Preparatory School. The National College of Medicine is 

 housed in the old home of the Inquisition (1732), an edifice whose four 

 hanging arches at each corner of the lower corridor are famous. The 

 building was taken for its present purpose in this century, the Holy 

 Office dying in America with the Independence, but the medical col- 

 lege was established by royal decree of 1768. It has now several 

 hundred pupils. San Lorenzo (1598) is now the manual training- 

 school where poor boys are gratuitously taught lithography, engrav- 

 ing, printing, carpentry, and many other trades. The similar institution 

 for girls is of course modern, dating only from 1874. The National 

 Library, with its 200,000 volumes, dwells in the splendid sequestered 

 Church of San Agustin. The National Museum occupies part of the 

 million-dollar building erected in 1731 for the royal mint. And so on 



