HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



113 



fupcriors, and love of fatigue, were ftrongly inculcated. 

 They were even made to fleep upon a mat ; and were 

 given no more food than the neceffities of life required, 

 nor any other clothing than that which decency demand- 

 ed. When they arrived at a certain age, they were in- 

 ftructed in the ufe of arms, and if their parents belong- 

 ed to the army, they were led to the wars along with 

 them, that they might learn the military art, and to ba- 

 nifh fear from their minds, by habituating themfelves to 

 danger. If their parents were hufbandmen, or artifts, 

 they taught their children their own profeffion. Girls 

 were learned to fpin and weave, and obliged to bathe 

 frequently, that they might be always healthy and clean- 

 ly, and the univerfal maxim was to keep the young of 

 both fexes conftantly employed. 



One of the precepts moft warmly inculcated to youth 

 was, truth in their words ; and whenever a lie was de- 

 tected, the lip of the delinquent was pricked with the 

 thorns of the aloe. They tied the feet of girls who were 

 too fond of walking abroad. The fon, who was difobe- 

 dient or quarrelfome, was beat with nettles, or received 

 punifliment in fome other manner proportioned, accord- 

 ing to their judgment, to the fault he had committed. 



The fyftem of education agreeably to which the Mexi- 

 cans trained up their children, and the conftant attention 

 with which they watched their actions, may be traced in 

 the feven paintings of the collection of Mendoza, includ- 

 ed between the numbers forty-nine and fifty^feven. In 

 thefe are expreffed the quantity and quality of the food, 

 which was allowed them, the employments in which they 

 were occupied, and the punifliments by which their vices 

 were corrected. In the fiftieth painting is reprefented a 

 boy of -four years, who is employed by his parents in 



Vol. II. P fome 



