Page:Historia Verdadera del Mexico profundo.djvu/85

The institutions.

There were three basic institutions; the Telpochcalli^[1] or "House of youth", for the basic instruction of children and young people; the Cuicacalli^[2] or the "House of song", where they learned "Flower and song" (understood as wisdom and beauty<^[3]) to express their immeasurable spiritual force through art. Finally the Calmécac, or "The House of measure", center of higher learning, where the priests, administrators and leaders were formed.

Education began at home and the child was the center of attention and affection of the entire family. Babies were provided all the tender care that the family could give, but when the child turned seven years old was sent to the Telpochcalli and entered a system of strict discipline, strict order and scrupulous hierarchy. Girls and boys were treated equally as far as discipline. The educational system was the “Spartan” type and prepared them for the "internal war" (Classical period).

Children and young people of both genders, were taught not only science, as mathematics, astronomy, biology, or arts like singing, music and dance; In addition to learning to speak correctly; "read" and paint their codices, teachers taught them
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1. Telpochcalli (in Nahuatl 'House of the young men’), were centers where young people were educated, from age 15, to serve their community and for war. Unlike the nobles attending the Calmecac, sons of commoners, known generically as macehualtin, attended the telpochcalli. These schools for young people were located in each neighborhood or calpulli.
2. Aztec dance means that prehispanic dance activity that was practiced in the former City Tenochtitlan, belonging to the culture Azteca or, more correctly, Mexihca. Among other possible causes, this dance takes its name from Aztec, for being this Mesoamerican civilization, the last peak and dominance at the time of contact with the Spanish invaders. Another possible reason is that it was the culture mexihca which, through its institutions such as the Telpochcalli, the Cuicacalli and the Calmecac, pushing and consolidated this dancers art, among other arts, in the society of his time.
3. The flower is the par excellence expression of the beauty in all peoples. Beauty comes from harmony and the harmony of "the measure". Macuilxóchitl is then the harmonic perfection of the four directions of the existence and the center that unifies them and balances. In the Anahuac wisdom was transmitted through poetry. The metaphor was the tool to talk about the unspeakable. So "singing", symbolically named what western culture knew as philosophy.