CHAPTER XXVI.
EDUCATION, SCIENCE, ARTS, AND LITERATURE.
1521-1887.
Instruction of the Indians and Mestizos — Schools and Colleges — Measures for Developing Education — Professional Instruction — Scientific Attainment — Creole Unsteadiness — Observatories — Fine and Mechanical Arts — Museum — First Press — Early Books and Periodicals — Libraries and Literary Societies — Prose Writing — Newspapers — Historians — Oratory — Poetry — Mexican Peculiarities — Reflections on the Present and Future Position of Mexico.
Education in New Spain during colonial times was confined with few exceptions to a certain class of white people. Those who came from the mother country were rather backward, except when members of professions, and the wealthy Creoles stood as a rule far above them. The church and bar were the main allurements to those who desired an active career. Medicine was also taught at the university, and finally at a special college, but obtained little favor. Philosophy was learned only as preparatory to theology, with a persistent adherence to scholasticism. Mathematics received slight attention, and the sciences, political and physical, were discouraged until toward the end of colonial times. No language save Latin received any attention. As for the masses, learning was regarded as not only useless, but prejudicial. Viceroy Branciforte thought only the cathechism should be taught in America.
The best evidence of the low grade of public education was that school-masters were required to pass
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