QUIROGA: a MEXICAN MTJlSriCIPIO — BRAND 



217 



and carpenters. Because some of the teachers 

 have ranked in influence only after the priests, 

 we have compiled the list which follows: 



TeacheT-principals of the official boys' school 



1877-92 Cornelio Medina. 



1893-1900- . Felipe N. Chdvez. 



1901 Pascual Carranza. 



1902-3 Norberto S. Rocha. 



1904-6 Vicente Le6n de la Vega. 



1907-9 Manuel E. Guerrero. 



1910-11 Victoriano Ruiz H. 



1912-13 G. Sudrez. 



1914 Antonio Pizarro. 



1915 Ignacio de L. Pureco. 



1916-17 Jos6 Trdnsito Acufla. 



1918 No school. 



1919-21 Salvador Carrasco. 



Principals of the boys' school 



1922-26 Efrto Gontis. 



1927-28 Eliseo P6rez. 



1929-32 Miguel Silva Dfaz. 



1933-34 Antero M. Diaz. 



Principals of the coeducational school 



1935 Carmen L6pez Barrera; Martin Alejandre. 



1936 J. Jesus Garcia Tapia. 



1937 Andrfe Barrera L6pez. 



1938-45 Andr(5s Natividad Rfos. 



Although religious schools (that is, schools 

 taught by members of religious organizations) 

 have been outlawed in Mexico for many years, 

 the private schools that exist now in Quiroga are 

 direct descendants of the earlier frankly Catholic 

 private schools. The principal private school 

 (Escuela Particular "Vasco de Quu-oga") occupies 

 part of an edifice in the Portal Allende, and is 

 operated by six ladies who seem to be nuns in 

 every respect excepting public garb. However, 

 the Federal and State constitutions are not flaimted 

 nearly so openly here as in some of the Indian 

 communities of the Sierra Tarasca, where parochial 

 schools have more pupils than the public schools. 



LITERACY 



The effectiveness of the schools in Quiroga is 

 difficult to assess. One of the obvious criteria is 

 percentage of literacy. Statements of literacy 

 and illiteracy, when expressed in percentages, are 

 not altogether reliable since the standards and 

 ages involved vary from census to census. Com- 

 monly in the United States the percentage of 

 literacy means the percentage of the population 



10 years of age and older who can both read and 

 write. Often in Mexico it is assumed that any 

 person who has completed the first grade of pri- 

 mary school is literate, and also frequently persons 

 who can read but who cannot write are included 

 among the literates. Furthermore, the lower age 

 limit involved is not always the same in the 

 various census returns. This is partly because of 

 uncertainty concerning the exact age of various 

 individuals, and partly because of the laxness of 

 the census taker who is often a local person with 

 inadequate instruction concerning the techniques 

 and purposes of the census. In the population 

 censuses of 1900 and 1910 illiteracy was computed 

 for the population 12 years of age and older; 

 beginning with the census of 1921 the inter- 

 nationally accepted limit of 10 years has been 

 used. However, in connection with the campaign 

 against illiteracy (Campana contra el Analfabe- 

 tismo) which was initiated by law in August of 

 1944 and placed in execution in March of 1945, an 

 attempt was made to reach all illiterate persons 

 between the ages of 6 and 40. Apparently the 

 census of illiterates made in the Quiroga area by 

 the teachers and mimicipal authorities in 1945 

 was not consistent in its limits: in some sectors 

 all illiterates above the age of 6 were listed, in 

 others the lower limit was taken as the age of 10, 

 and in some sectors only illiterates up to 40 were 

 included. In our own census of 1945 we relied 

 entirely upon oiu" informants for the number of 

 individuals in each family who could not read and 

 wi-ite but whose age would imply the theoretical 

 possibihty. Presumably the illiterates in our 

 census represent persons above the age of 9, but 

 midoubtedly errors have entered into our returns. 

 In table 31 statistics of various types give some 

 indication of the schooling and literacy in the 

 Quiroga area. It is apparent that numerous 

 errors are present in the two above-mentioned 

 censuses and in the distribution of population 

 by ages. In the Villa de Quiroga we asked only 

 for illiterates, so we have no figure on the literates. 

 Theoretically the sum of the literates and the 

 illiterates (2,107) should exceed the number of 

 people 10 years of age and older in 1945 (2,902), 

 but it does not even approach the figure for 

 1940 (2,720). Since the number of illiterates in 

 the official census for 1945 is approximately the 

 same as in our census (aided by one interpola- 

 tion), although there is considerable difference 



