The Federal Government maintains a well-organized National School of Agriculture, and has purchased and distributed during recent years large quantities of grape-cuttings of the finest varieties, and also graftings and seeds of the finest fruit-trees and plants obtainable in Mexico and in foreign countries. There are also national schools, at the capital, of medicine, law, and engineering; a Conservatory of Music, an Academy of Fine Arts, a National Museum, and a National Library; together with institutions for the blind, deaf and dumb, the insane, for the reformation of young criminals, and such other systematic charities as are common in enlightened communities. Most of these institutions are located in old and spacious ecclesiastical edifices which have been "nationalized"; and the means for their support seem to be always provided, although the Mexican treasury is rarely or never in a flourishing condition. At the same time it is almost certain that all these laudable efforts on the part of the Government to promote education and culture, have thus far worked down and affected to a very slight extent the great mass of the people. But it is, nevertheless, a beginning.
As the stability, however, of any form of government and the maintenance of domestic tranquillity with such a population as exists in Mexico are obviously contingent on the maintenance of a strong,
