V?f517Y v»*lcwJr i. v . '^ Ul Iv- i'^Ii. iH oZXt? ;f IaoxIgo, rudson Steelm&n, 1 f\r\n Mexico INvc34 "I give theft Books Yfvr^^^fiWuS^gcf.a College irviMiCoht^i) Acquired by Exchange 19*7 ttbe TUnlversltis of Cbicago FOUNDED BY JOHN, D. ROCKEFELLER CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN IN THE CITY OF MEXICO ¦/&. : (ILLUSTRATED) A DISSERTATION^ SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE . GRADUATE DIVINITY SCHOOL IN CANDipACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (DEPARTMENT OF ECCLESIASTICAL SOCIOLOGY) BY ALBERT JUDSON STEELMAN CHAPLAIN OF THE ILUNOIS STATE PENITENTIARY AND PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL CHAPLAINS- ASSOCIATION PUBLISHED BY E. M. STEELMAN JOL1ET, ILLINOIS » 1907 o CO t>CO < 1-1Qiz! IDOwKH Pk O Zbe "mnfveraitB of Chicago FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN IN THE CITY OF MEXICO (ILLUSTRATED) A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE DIVINITY SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (DEPARTMENT OF ECCLESIASTICAL SOCIOLOGY) BY ALBERT JUDSON STEELMAN CHAPLAIN OF THE ILLINOIS STATE PENITENTIARY AND PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL CHAPLAINS' ASSOCIATION PUBLISHED BY E. M. STEELMAN JOLIET, ILLINOIS 1907 COPYRIGHT 1907 BY ELLA M. STEELMAN Meyico Nvc34- n ^ 50Js HTM BREWSTER PRESS, f ffiqgtlJTgTgwL t JOl IET, ILLINOIS «ralefnUg Sfbtrateft Mr. mb Mrs. William SL drrot mho ljau* lannrrtl manj grara among Ihe poor in nations rttos of tJj* fflexaan etennbltr Fore- Word. For the diminution of crime and the increase of happiness it is necessary to gather up the waifs and strays, and make a home for all the children of misery. Before Christ came, old servants and deformed children were exposed to die. In mighty Rome the bodies of the dead and dy ing floated down the Tiber past the palaces of the great and the temples of the gods. In Christian lands the gentle hand of Charity is stretched out to rescue the poor, sick and abandoned, the defective and the delinquent. Happy is the people that is ready to care for the worst off, giving sight to the blind, hearing and speech to the deaf-mute, hands and feet to the maimed, instruction to the ignorant, medi cine to the sick, straightening to the deformed, virtue to the vicious, homes to the homeless and, finally, restoring them all to Society as safe and worthy members thereof. This is the high ideal which Charities for Children propose to themselves in the City of Mexico. CONTENTS. I. The Beginning of Spanish Mission Schools — Learning the Aztec language. The Religious Orders. High er Schools of learning. The education of girls. Charitable institutions encouraged. The Convent Schools. Attractions of the Cloister. "La Conception" and other notable schools for girls. Their Social Value 1 II. > A Charity School of the Old Type — The College of Vizcainas founded in 1731 for homeless girls and women. Cost of building. Struggle to secure lay manage ment. Dedication and description of the splendid edifice. Ad mission to the School and internal management. The "Cot tage Plan." Cost of living. Celebrated embroideries. A public school established within its walls. Teachers' duties and salaries. Courses of study. Care of poor children out side. Rewards of merit 8 III. A Charity School of the Old Type — Continued. The College of the Vizcainas in a period of disaster. The Peninsular Wars. Loss of Endowment. Cry of Mexican Independence. Selling the silver lamps of the College. Po litical tribute money. A dismal picture of illiteracy. Scott's army as guests. The French Intervention. The Reform Laws. The end of Church Rule 15 IV. A Charity School of the Old Type — Continued. Governmental control of the College of the Vizcainas. A new name — "College of Peace." A new program of instruction. A wide range of handwork.' New friends. New resources. Enrollment. General condition of the College. The design and wisdom of the founders., 20 Vlll. CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN V. The Children's Home — ("El Hospicio de Nifios"). Founded in 1760 as the Home for the Poor. The original buildings. Apartments for Ma ternity Hospital. Large endowment. Beginning of Indus trial and Reform School work, June, 1806. Cherished names of benefactors. The Maternity Hospital rebuilt by the Em press Carlota. Government and health. The new ideal memorial edifice. Number of teachers and pupils. Plan of admission and dismission. Family ties. Elementary educa tion and industrial training. Cost of the new building. The new Maternity Hospital and its cost 22 VI. The Foundling Asylum. — A moving spectacle. Established in 1767. Method of re ceiving, and number of inmates. Open at all hours. Care ful records and custody. School work — Superior opportuni ties for those who show special talent. Care in "placing out." Classification by age and sex. Rewards and punishments. Resources and management. An agency for qualified nurses. Infants boarded in the country. A dowery fund for girl graduates 30 VII. The Industrial School for Orphans — Opened in 1841, in the Home for the Poor. Dependents and delinquents associated. Young delinquents not examined in court, but in the Boy's Ward of the Home for the Poor. The School moved to the suburb of Santiago. Terms of admis sion. Aim of the School. Paying pupils. Wholesome food. Comfortable uniforms made in the institution. The orches tra of forty-two pieces. Night school for apprentices. Cost of "maintenance. Intelligence of pupils. Excursions to fac tories and museums. Graduation. Ordinary discipline. Re ligious exercises. Rewards and punishments. Arts and trades taught. The daily program. Dormitory and baths. Duties of officers. A period of transition 37 VIII. The Mexican National School for Deaf-Mutes — Initial date in 1866. Adopted by the Government. The Oral Method. The health of deaf-mute children. Schools IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. IX. of the United States examined. Courses of study. Gradua tion. Causes of mutism. Number of pupils. Compensa tions 4.5 IX. The Mexican National School for the Blind — Founded in 1870 by Ignacio Trigueros. His first pupil. Ap paratus and Home for the School. Pupils come impelled by hunger. Rules and Regulations. Expenses. Music. Gym nasium and Industries. Adoption by the Government. Writing machines. A successful Musical Club. Handwork exhibited in Paris. Requirements for admission. Scrupulous watch- care. Daily routine. Prizes. Benefits of the School 50 X. The National School of Arts and Trades — Established by President Juarez in 1867. Terms of admission. Enrollment. Courses of instruction. The historic building. : :. 59 XI. The School of Arts and Trades for Women — Established in 1871 by President Juarez. Supported by the Government. Terms of admission. Subjects taught. Sale of handiwork. Classes benefitted. Large enrollment 61 XII. The Laws Relating to Children — Preventive confinement of children in educational, institutions. Not examined in court. Delinquent deaf-mutes and feeble minded children. Bonds required for good behavior. Ju dicial admonition. Police surveillance. Confinement for penal correction. Provisional liberty. Infanticide. Expos ing and abandoning children. Vagrancy 63 XIII. Children in the Asylum for Beggars— ("El Asilo de Mendigos"). Reason for the name. Founded in 1879. A private charity encouraged by the Municipality. Ample Room. Studies and Employments. Small number "placed-out." Resources. Total number of children enrolled. 67 X. CHARITIES for children XIV. The Correctional School for Boys — Founded by the Government in 1880. The mechanical de partment self-supporting. Delinquents, vagrants, and un manageable, boys committed. All inmates at the disposition ,of the Governor of the Federal District. Trades taught. Percentage of good results 72 XV. The Mexican Philanthropical Society — Founded in 1888. Control of "Asilo de Regeneration e In- fancia." Number in the Refuge. Officers. Co-operation with the Governor of the Federal District. How inmates are received. Religious instruction. A free Sewing School. Cost of maintenance. Purpose of the Philanthropical Soci ety. Rules for Girls' Department. Resources. Committees of Vigilance. Earnings of the inmates. Library. Supervis ion of graduates 74 XVI. The Columbian Asylum — Founded in 1891. Sustained by a Co-operative Society. Re ligious and industrial training. Requirement for Admission. Enrollment 77 XVII. The Public Schools — Child-saving institutions affected. President Juarez's efforts. Growth in a quarter of a century. A Congress of Education. 1889-1890. Education free, secular, compulsory and prac tical. Place of religion. Courses of study. A Council cf Vigilance. Child labor. Educational opportunities for all. -.- 78 XVIII. The School of the Salesians — Established in 1892. Ecclesiastical control. Resources. Studies. Industries. Requirements for admission. Italian Priests. Enrollment of pupils and teachers. Theory of dis cipline. Religious training. Results claimed 81 XIX. The Daughters of Beneficence — Established in Mexico City in 1894. Five schools maintain- IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. XI. ed. Both charity and paying pupils admitted. High moral and patriotic purpose 85 XX. The Shelter and School of the Sisters of Charity — Shelter opened in 1894. Number of children cared for. Pu pils examined by School Officials 86 XXI. Father Hunt's Working Boys' Home — Founded in 1896. Industrial School for Boys of the middle class. Enrollment. Resources. Four languages taught, in cluding Aztec 87 XXII. Feeble Minded Children — Number of girls cared for. Number of boys. Duty of the State. Self-support 88 XXIII. The Florence Crittenden Industrial Home and Day Nursery of Mexico — Established September, 1902. Extensive program. Non- sectarian. Committees. Five Departments '. 89 XXIV. The Friendly House of the Working Woman — Founded by Mrs. Diaz, wife of the President. A Day Nursery. Number admitted. Daily cost per capita. Supported by Mrs. Diaz. Terms of admission. Schools. Prophylactic value 91 XXV. A New Correctional School for Girls — Opened February, 1903. Correction by education. Correc tion by punishment. Character and number received. Clas sification of inmates. Education and discipline. Industrial training. Buildings greatly enlarged during 1906-7 94 XXVI. Evangelical Mission Schools — By whom maintained. Their purpose and value. Loyalty appreciated by the Liberal Government. The present educa tional need of Evangelical bodies in Mexico 97 XII. charities for children XXVII. Concluding Words — Charities inaugurated in the Colonial Period. Centuries of prosperity. Dramatic events of the nineteenth century. Ad ministrative energy of President Juarez. General Porfirio Diaz. Old and new charities compared. Private charity en couraged by the State. Special conditions. Race unity. Mexican charitableness. Wide range of institutions. The oldest American charity for children. The "savings fund" plan. Other excellent features. Scientific care of infants. Honorary directors. Central management. Classification. Placing-out. Cost per capita. Schools for feeble-minded. Resemblances. State over-sight of graduates. Committees of Vigilance. Need of specialists. Intemperance. Grounds for optimism. A prophecy 99 Bibliography 107 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Frontispiece — A Group in the Foundling Asylum. A Tropical Garden 5 Vera Cruz, Landing Place of Cortes 7 College of the Vizcainas 10 Paseo de la Reforma — The Champs Elysees of Mexico 14 A Court of the College of the Vizcainas 19 The Alameda — Mexico's Fashionable Park 24 Administration Building of the New Children's Home 26 Foundling Asylum- — The Nursery 30 Entrance to the Park 36 The Industrial School for Orphans 38 Pupils in the Mexican National School for Deaf-Mutes 47 General Porfirio Diaz, President of the Mexican Republic. Protector and Friend of Charities 58 Statue of Columbus. Paseo de la Reforma 60 Equestrian Statue of Charles IV., Comparable with that of Hadrian in Rome 62 An Aztec Idol 66 Chapultepec 71 Popocatepetl, Overlooking the Valley of Mexico on the East... 86 Iztaccihuatl, Adjoining Popocatepetl 88 Across the Rio Grande 90 Mrs. Diaz, Patron and Founder of Charities 91 The Friendly House of the Working Woman 92 Group in the Friendly House of the Working Woman 96 Porch of Plantation House in the Tropics :. 98 La Tierra Caliente 105 The Church Ill I. The Beginning of Spanish Mission Schools. Mexican charities for children are closely connected with the early missionary efforts of the Spaniards, and with the modern educational and correctional program of the Republic. The conquering Spaniards were filled with zeal "for the greater glory of God." The Capital of Montezuma's Empire was conquered in 1521. Within four years the great school of Los Infantes was founded. In 1529 the school of San Juan de , Letran was established for children of mixed blood who were abandoned by their parents and taken in charge by the authori ties. In 1533 the school of St. Paul was established exclusively for Indian children. In order to win the multitudes of be nighted idolators to the true faith and only salvation, rival reli gious orders established monastery and convent schools, where always primary, and often secondary, instruction was given. Great care was bestowed upon the training of children as a ben evolent, missionary enterprise. The mystery of making a piece of paper tell what the absent sender wished it to say had a great fascination for the Indian boys. Boarding schools were opened to which leading Indians were ordered to bring their children. Many against their will obeyed this order; while others, not knowing how it would turn out, brought the children of their servants or vassals, with the result that these sons of plebeians, having learned to read and write, came to be men of ability, mayors, of towns and governors of provinces, holding positions of authority over their former masters. As many as six hundred or a thousand children were in some of these schools, according to Geronimo de Mendieta, in his 2 charities for children "Historia Eclesiastica Indiana." Old men looked after the lads, and gave them the food, clothing and other necessary things which their mothers brought for them. Without any knowledge of the children's language the work of instruction was difficult. The young pupils were taught to cross and bless themselves, and to recite in Latin the Pater Nos- ter, Ave Maria, Credo and Salve Regina, the teachers being una ble to explain the meaning of any of it. By the eloquent language of signs they tried to teach that there is one only true God, and a heaven, where those who serve Him will enjoy his infinite riches; and that there is a hell of infinite pains, where their heathen gods would reward those who serve them with incon ceivable torments. The solemn monks tried to impress upon the tender minds of their pupils that the image of a crucified man which they held up was the image of our God in human form; and the image of the woman placed before them was that of the Mother of God, called Mary, who was to be honored and reverenced and taken to be our advocate and mediator to obtain from God that which is best for us. But with all this labor the little Indians understood nothing of the Latin, and ceased not to worship their idols. The discon solate friars had no words with which to reprove them. With fasting they poured out their prayers to God, and to the blessed Virgin, and to the holy angels for their help. It was suggested that they play with the children every day. Each one wrote down the words he had heard the children use. At an opportune time they compared notes. Often what they set down for fact today turned out tomorrow not to be so. A final solution of their difficulty was discovered. A Spanish widow had two little children who had learned the Indian language from their play mates. The friars asked and received one of these children as a teacher. He became the first interpreter to the Indians of the mys teries of the faith, and the first teacher of the preachers of the faith. He was taken from one religious community to another, so that all received his help. His name in the history is Fray Alonso de Molina, who labored for fifty years in the service of the church. IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 3 He published Spanish-Aztec and Aztec-Spanish vocabularies of great value.. As the need was felt more schools were founded. In 1536 when a great scholar was found, familiar with Indian tongues, Fray Arnaldo Bassacio by name, the Viceroy, D. Antonio de Men- doza, founded the School of Santa Cruz de Tlaltelulco in the Capital and made Bassacio president or rector of the institution. Scholarships were endowed. Boys from ten to twelve years of age, the sons of leading families were brought from the leading towns of all the provinces. From thirty to a hundred were assembled in the new school. The lads ate together like monks in their large refectory, which was kept in excellent order. They had one large dormitory with a row of beds on either side of a long aisle. Lights were left burning through the night; and a proper person attended to their deportment. They were given the same instruction as the sons of their Spanish lords, in Latin, logic, rhetoric, philosophy and Christian doctrine, and with such effect that many of them outrivaled in language and literature the sons of the conquerors. Children of twelve and fourteen years wrote and recited Latin prose and verse in good taste, and became proficient in vocal and instrumental music. Before 1544 the Seminary was established for the in struction of candidates seeking ecclesiastical preferment. The progress of the Mexican youths suggested the need of a Uni versity, which was founded in 1551, and formally opened Jan. 21, 1553. It adopted the statutes and enjoyed the privileges of the University of Salmanca, which was considered the first and best in Spain, if not in the world. The same subjects were taught in the new university as in the old: namely, Latin, Greek, phi losophy, rhetoric, theology, canon law, Roman law, State law and mathematics. In 1578 a chair of medicine was introduced. One professor had charge of the entire field of medical science. In 1599 a second professor was added. In 1661 departments of anatomy and surgery were added. Education was not confined to the higher classes, but seems to have been fairly wide-spread, popular and liberal. Even poor 4 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN boys studied a while in the monastery schools in the morning, before going to help their fathers in the fields; while the sons of the patricans remained for further instruction. In the smaller towns there was less distinction of class; and the sons of rich and poor alike received' such instruction as was offered, espe cially before the heavy weight of Spanish rule depleted the popu lation, and drove the remnant to toil for the support of the spoil ers. The prosperity of the lower schools conducted by the various religious orders created a greater demand for higher learning. . Influential persons invited the Jesuits to establish themselves in Mexico. In 1573 they founded "The College of St. Mary of All Saints," commonly called "The College of Santos." Here the most learned doctors of the realm were given scholarships which supported them in comfort, while they devoted them selves for eight years to the science or profession of their choice. The order of Jesuits was suppressed at various times in Mexico ; and the, college was finally demolished by General Santa Anna. At that early period the education of girls was not neglect ed. They were assembled in the church-yards and convent gardens near the schools of the boys ; and at first the brightest of the boys were chosen to instruct them. This plan was changed when the "most religious Queen Isabella" sent pious women to establish convent schools, in which the daughters of leading families were gathered and taught to repeat in their own lan guage the creed and prayers, and were instructed in religious customs and womanly occupations, such as sewing and embroid ery. The conqueror himself was interested in this conquest of ideas, and in 1525 established a school for noble girls in Tex- coco, in which he placed four daughters of Montezuma, to be ed ucated at his own expense. Another school for girls was estab lished in 1527. These institutions were directed by Franciscan and Augustinian women. Among the favors which Cortes asked of Charles V on his first journey to the court in 1530 IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 5 was that there should be founded in Mexico a convent of Fran ciscan nuns and a school for the daughters of chiefs. The favor was granted; and the wife of the conqueror brought back the founders of the convent school. In 1531 Fray Pedro de Gante also founded a school for noble girls of mixed blood, and for the daughters of chiefs, in the convent of San Francisco. The courts of the convents where classes of girls were as sembled by dignified matrons for instruction were spacious gardens protected by high walls, and shaded by pines, olives, willows, palms and other majestic trees and flowering shrubs presenting the semblance and reality of perpetual spring. 1 *- ¦ . v , K vV ' ¦ \ - it; 1 §» A Tropical Garden. The government of Spain opened schools for men and wom en, and encouraged private charity. In 1538 a society was formed for the purpose of distributing alms to the poor. In 1548 this society established a school called "La Caridad." Large sums were spent in building and endowment. Only or phan girls and those extremely poor were admitted. They were fed, clothed and educated from the abundant resources of the society. They were taught reading, writing and arithmetic, sewing, embroidering and music. The school was a real home in which they were free to remain as long as they lived; or if 6 charities for children they wished to marry, the Board gave them a dowry of five hundred dollars. Young women of the finest talents and loftiest aspirations abandoned the pretensions of aristocratic society to devote them selves to the service of God and the Blessed Virgin. The habit and austerities of a nun could not hide the elegance, exquisite taste, and refinement which would show itself in literature, music, or art. Various motives drove young women to the clois ter. Young men might marry as they pleased. But how was a young lady of Gothic blood, whose mother, perhaps, had been a lady-in-waiting to the Queen, how could she unite her fortunes with a common Creole, no matter how uncommon he might be in wealth and personal attractiveness ? These .Castillian fathers, and especially the mothers, were happy rather to offer a daugh ter's hand in marriage to the most worthless servant, or' gambler, if only he had "blue blood;" or they would shut her, against her will, within the walls of a convent. There was still another powerful motive leading young wom en to certain convents, especially to that of "La Conception," which had the reputation of having been founded in 1541 by the most beautiful young woman, Beatriz de Silva. The convent itself was a rich mansion which had every convenience of life of the period. It had within its wails women of the most illustri ous ancestry; it enjoyed special privileges, and had a colossal fortune, which was growing larger every day. Queen Isabella, wife of the most powerful monarch, had sent out the young women who governed it. The aristocracy favored it. All classes paid devotion to it. Little by little it acquired the sur rounding property needed to accommodate a larger community of women. Nuns who had habitations large enough to house a family gave to their apartments the humble title of "a cell." It was not the purpose to make nuns of the multitudes of girls who came to live in the convents. They were to learn good manners, Christian exercises, and the usual employments of the' Spanish women. After spending about ten years in the convent schools, many were married, and gave their unemployed time IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 7 to teaching their neighbors in their private grounds. In this way Catholic doctrine and Spanish culture were widely extended. The royal convent of Jesus Maria was founded early in the Colonial period to care for dependent daughters of the conquer ors. The Convent Shelter of Belen did a similar work. Both were endowed charities for girls, and both continued their work until the final overthrow of the religious orders. One can not look with indifference upon the achievements of those first missions to the aborigines of this country. Great schools, great charities and great churches were built up, some of them bringing the architecture and civilization of the past clown to the present. In 1633 the followers of San Ignacio de Loyola founded two girls' schools, one called "La Ensenanza," and later that called "Betlemitas," for Indian girls. In the long history of these schools thousands of girls were trained in sentiments of honor and piety and became model wives and mothers. T ."_.; "¦:' ¦¦¦ ¦-,/?,: >:'! , ' ... '• yiMfi " k 1 1 *:;¦•; 'ly ~ ... • > I' 1 m m - * W 1 ' '; ^¦jl \ ¦".¦ m ¦¦¦¦:. . .:./; ¦ ' ( 5PBlP";r ^ Uh \ J ¦ I -J '*wR-' i ¦gr ' ¦£ :,-• Ss8S«8»*5». «.,»!».* .»¦» ¦'- ¦-"" "'V,:::':'"S.: IP { * 1 i - -. PH PI \rm Vera Cruz, Landing Place of Cortes. II. A Charity School of the Old Type. While other charitable institutions of the old type have passed away, one fortunately remains whose history is insepar ably connected with the civil, social and religious development of Mexico. The college of the Vascongadas, or Vizcainas, called also the Royal College of San Ignacio de Loyola and recently The College of Peace, is one of the oldest charitable institutions on this continent having been founded a hundred and seventy years ago as a home and school for dependent women and chil dren, by the settlers from the Biscayan Provinces. The discovery of the New World, filled with wonders, where quick fortunes could be gained and glory achieved, led the ener getic Basques to come in large numbers and establish colonies in this strange land. The -circumstances and temper of this people peculiarly inclined them to form fraternities for mutual benefit. A brotherhood of immigrants from the Basque provinces built a small chapel as early as 1671. Their genius for commerce made them prosperous. Many of them became rich, and settled down to live and die on Mexican soil. They built a church. The society grew and flourished, and desired to signalize its prosper ity by doing some great thing for humanity. Several pious members proposed the erection of an asylum for the shelter of the large number of widows and young girls among them. It was thought that the older and wiser women could train the girls, inspire them with a love of work and deliver them from the dan ger of idleness. This proposition was taken up enthusiastically. Over $40,000.00 was subscribed in a period of forty-three days. The first subscription was made Oct. 23rd, 1731. The smallest amount contributed was eighteen cents, by one IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 3 of the nuns of the order of St. Joseph, "with permission of her prelate." Heads of families contributed for themselves and their children. One woman gave the diamond earrings she was wearing. Large subscriptions came in from Basques residing in different parts of New Spain. A concession of land and a supply of water was secured from the city council, "in conformity with the power and jurisdiction which this most noble city possesses to grant privileges and building sites, as the Royal Executor of the Royal and Supreme Council of the Indies." When the brotherhood had sixty thousand dollars in hand the Viceroy granted permission to begin the building; as it was es timated that this amount would be sufficient for the founding and endowing of the institution. Trenches were opened for the foundations May 4, 1734, and the first stone was laid July 30th, with the depositing of coins and inscriptions. As the work ad vanced, the enthusiasm and the offerings for the building in creased. Eighteen years were occupied in building; and they expended more than ten times the amount called for in their original plans. Within twenty years of the time when the first meeting was held to promote the project more than $583,000 was spent on the building; and $66,800 had been satisfactorily placed at interest to support twenty-four girls in the college. Most of this number had been cared for in the convent shelter of Belen until the time should come to open the new school. These Basques were stubborn defenders of an idea — the idea that there should be no monastic odor attaching to the new collegiate shelter and home. These men were deeply religious, but would not tolerate compulsion in religious, exercises. Six teen years of controversy passed after completing the edifice be fore letters patent were received from Charles III, guarantee ing that the college should be free and independent of church control, and never become an adjunct of any religious order. The Board of the college insisted to the point of declaring that they would burn the building rather than submit to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. By the first of August, 1767, these obstinate men 10 CHARITIES for children had expended $3,695.38 and were victorious in the controversy. On the ninth of September, 1767, thirty-three years after the first stone was laid the Archbishop accepted the invitation to come and bless the building. At six thirty in the morning he arrived in state. Carriages were sent to bring the students who had been supported in various establishments, pending the open ing of the new building. Sixty-four scholarships had already been endowed ; and there were six paying pupils. The work of the school was inaugurated with solemn religious rites. College of the Vizcainas. The building itself is well adapted to its purpose. It meas ures 412 1-2 feet on its principal front and has a depth of 448 1-4 feet.' It is two stories in height, built of imperishable 'blocks of dark-red volcanic rock, relieved by heavy ornamental door and window cases of grey stone. Fluted pilasters of the same material, bearing the coat of arms of the Basque provinces carv- IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 11 ed in relief, terminate in a turret-like crown on the building's front, giving it an aspect severely beautiful. This magnificent structure contains no less than two hun dred and fifty rooms of different sizes, besides the courts and cor ridors, porches and gardens, church and chapels. The resident chaplains, elected by the Board, occupy suitable apartments. The music hall is provided with a stage for lyric and dramatic repre sentations. The hall of sessions is richly furnished. Its walls are adorned with portraits of distinguished patrons. The internal management of this school, dating from Colo nial times, is of special interest. Only unmarried girls and widows of Spanish blood were admitted to the institution, the Basques always having preference. No illegitimate children were re ceived. For a hundred years the inmates were divided into family groups of about ten persons, the old and young, middle aged and infants, living together on what might be called "the cottage plan." Each group occupied a suite of three rooms and a kitchen. The oldest and most discreet of the group was the "head of the house." It was her duty, under the matron of the college, to look after the labor, instruction and expense of the group, teaching the children all that belonged to noble and honest womanhood, without disdaining the humble and difficult tasks. The matron, or general director, had charge of the commis sary and other departments of the large establishment. The girls rose at five-thirty in the morning, and until nine might give themselves freely to their devotions. From nine to twelve they went back to their living rooms, and attended to their housework, sewing, embroidery, reading, writing, and other similar occupations. Previous to 1833 all instruction was given in the family groups. At twelve o'clock they had dinner. As there were- no servants, each girl, according to her age and strength, had to take her turn with all the work. They were taught housekeeping and received the education of the women of the period. After dinner came the siesta. Then from three to five o'clock in winter, or until six in summer, they went on with their sewing. and other work. Then followed choral sing- 12 CHARITIES for children ing and supper. They returned to their own apartments and retired at nine o'clock. The founders hoped to see the large building filled with pu pils. For this purpose they continued to increase the endowment. Three thousand dollars was sufficient to establish a scholarship yielding a yearly income of $150. The amount obtained from scholarships was often increased from the sale of fancy work, the "mother" of the group taking care that the girls did not spend their earnings foolishly. The few pupils who had money, and were able to pay for what they needed, were taught to dress in harmony with the circumstances of the less fortunate. Ten dollars a month provided for a pupil's board; and thirty dollars a year was the ordinary expenditure for clothing. From the year 1798 the institution gained a wide reputation for its laces and silk thread work. The Biscayan embroideries were unri valled. The powerful families left their orders at the college for small pieces for wedding and baptismal presents. The vice roys presented most richly wrought garments from the college to the Spanish monarchs. For this work the girls were well paid, and were able often to help themselves and their poor relatives. Twenty-six years after the formal opening of the college a priest of the city left in his will $8,000 to endow a public school, "in which any girl under thirteen years of age might be taught to read and write, be instructed in the doctrines of the church, and learn hand labor." By the terms of the will four teachers were to be employed and they were to be taken from this college. The Board of managers at once accepted the new responsibility. Necessary changes were made in the rules and extensive alterations in the building to adapt them to the new purposes. The new day-school was opened June 21, 1793. More than five hundred poor children came with "joy painted on their expectant faces." The endowment brought an income of four hundred dollars. At least two thousand dollars a year was needed for so large a school. In 1796, a legacy of $28,000.00 was added to the en dowment. In 1803 new rules and regulations were proposed IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. ' 13 for the government of the public day school. Besides giving in struction to all classes of girls "in the matters and doctrines of our sacred religion," they were to be equally well instructed by expert teachers in "all womanly duties and curiosities in order to awaken in them the most solid sentiments of honor and hon esty." The first teachers, eleven in number, were chosen from over three hundred students residing in the college. The endow ment of the day school soon yielded $1,800 a year. This amount was distributed to the teachers in February, June, and October at the rate of $100 a year. The writing teacher had thirty-two dollars a year. The lady Prefect, who had charge of the ar rangement of classes, was paid $80 a year. Her assistant was paid $50. The five hundred and thirty-two dollars remaining was to be used "to purchase books, linens, thread, silks, water jars, benches, tables, sewing cushions, etc." If any money was left, it was to be given in premiums to the children who improved most in the year. On festal occasions "attention should be given to cleanliness and tidiness, but avoiding profanities, such as cur tains and carpets which require expenditures, except in the mat ter of seats for the illustrious Board." Teachers were not to for get that "religion, the king, and all the people place under their direction and care those tender plants that they should cultivate and refresh them with the precious water of doctrine and good example." There were five rooms prepared for the clay school, with a total capacity of five hundred. In the first and second rooms they studied the primer and the principles and prayers of the Christian doctrine. In the third room they studied spelling, learned Caton by heart, and memorized the catechism of Ripalda. In the fourth room they "perfected themselves in Belarmine and Fleury," had reading exercises, using any book, even those brought from home, so they were not "prohibited." In the same class they were taught to read hand-writing. In the fifth room they learned stitching on linen, needlework, embroidery, and "whatever belonged to a woman's education." Those who show ed the most application were also taught to "make curious things 14 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN with silk, also bead work and artificial flowers, and to write and reckon by all the rules of arithmetic." Poor children "who had nothing except a lively desire to learn, found in this school everthing. freely and lovingly offered to help them." They were taught to make useful articles to sell in the street, the school allowing them the gross product of their sales. To make sure that no child should be embarrassed by poverty, the pupils were never allowed to bring any sort of Paseo de la Reforma. The Champs Elysees of Mexico. gift or contribution to the school for flowers or presents for the teachers, or for the school. For this reason altars, functions, and candles were prohibited with scrupulous rigor. All this caution was not from opposition to religion. The teachers were to encourage children to commune as often as their confessors told them to ; but they were not to be urged nor scolded if they did not wish to commune. The children were especially to be taught how to prepare themselves to receive the sacrament "so that it should be a holy and fruitful experience." III. A Charity School of the Old Type— Continued. The friars who first arrived in the country instructed the na tives in a wide range of matters. For a long time the general education of the period was open to the Indian and Spaniard alike. The sixteenth century was marked by great educational activity which started at the Capital and spread in ever widening circles until the closing years of the eighteenth century. The new kingdom of knowledge seems to have been accepted by the natives in place of the lost empire of imaginary greatness. The newly acquired art of printing enabled the In dian scholars to translate and publish for practical use the teach ings of the Church in the language of the people, and at the same time to rescue from oblivion whatever was available of the his tory of the tribes. The natives had made alarming progress in all departments of knowledge. The more selfish and ignorant among the ruling classes in church and state began to think it was useless, and even dangerous, to teach the Indians Latin. "It would be better," they said, "to give their scholarships to Span ish youths." In 1795 the Viceroy, Branciforte, declared that the catechism was all the people needed. They began to be left in ignorance. The business of education fell into neglect. Many provinces were without higher schools, and sent their sons to the Capital, or to Spain. In 1799 there were only six hundred stu dents in eight colleges in the City of Mexico where there had been thousands. Teachers were few and poorly equipped. How ever by the close of the eighteenth century the scholarship en dowment of the Vizcainas had gone well past the half million mark. But most of it ($531,000) was destined to go a long journey to the Royal Treasury of Spain to help in the Napoleon ic wars, and never come back. The Spanish government appro- 16 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN priated the endowment of all pious institutions. For only a brief period was the interest paid. The nineteenth century promised to be an eventful one. Span ish-America was aweary of Spanish rule. The fire of patriotism was being kindled everywhere. In 1810 the patriot priest Hidal go uttered the cry, "Viva Mexico! Viva la Independencia!" And the long struggle for self-government began. Revolutionary leaders demanded tribute on all sides. Charitable schools were reduced to trying straits. The school of the Vizcainas sold its silver lamps and candlesticks from the church and chapels. One lamp brought approximately $3,200,. Wisdom, poverty, patriot ism and efficiency characterized the management. The program of Mexican Independence included the payment, by the newly constituted government, of all debts of the Vice-Regal govern ment. But when the Emperor Iturbide entered the Capital of Independent Mexico in 1821, he demanded tribute of the Bis cayan College. By 1830 the national indebtedness to this school amounted, with arrears of interest, to more than nine hundred thousand dollars. This increased several fold before it received favorable consideration from a settled government. On the con trary, after the Independence was won, and especially during the dictatorship of Santa Anna, assessments continued to be levied by various revolutionists. New leaders demanded fresh tribute. The funds of the Vizcainas suffered heavily from this cause. Two generations of conflict and devastation and neglect of education produced the dismal picture drawn by Mr. Manuel Siliceo, Maxmilian's Minister of Public Instruction. In a report dated June 1865 he says: "Public instruction in Mexico at the time of the Independence, and especially primary instruction, the most important of all, was most lamentably backward; partly because in that epoch the rulers could not teach more than they knew, and partly because it belonged to their political program to keep the popular classes in ignorance and the multitudes of natives in brute ignorance. ( Porque formase parte de su politick IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. Ii conservar en la ignorancia a las clases populares, y en el embrute- cimiento a la numerosa poblacion indigena.) "Primary schools were reduced to the smallest number, and in them instruction was limited to reading, writing and simple operations in arithmetic. And the whole instruction in religion consisted in memorizing the catechism of Ripalda. There were no schools for girls. In the home they gave themselves to the duties of their sex. They were scarcely permitted to learn to read. To obtain this privilege it was necessary to belong to the decent and well-to-do families." In 1840, according to Brantz Mayer, it was estimated that there were four millions of Indians in the country, only two per cent, of whom could read and write. At the same time there were two millions and some thousands of white and mixed in habitants, only twenty per cent, of whom could read and write. At that time the government spent eight millions a year for the army, and only $110,000 for all the institutions of learning. The results of two hundred and fifty years spent in educating the na tive races were well nigh obliterated. The University founded in 1551 was practically suppressed in 1833, and abolished in 1865. The National Conservatory of Music now' occupies this historic structure. During this trying period nothing but invading armies inter rupted the charitable school work of the Vizcainas. From Decem ber 8 to 19, 1847, a regiment of Gen. Winfield Scott's army took possession of two-thirds of the college building, the 120 resident pupils being confined to the other third. The day school of three hundred children was temporarily suspended. During the French intervention the quartermaster of the Mexican army prepared to use a part of the college building as a hospital. But the French troops came instead and took possession of a part of the building, in July 1863, and paid a monthly indemnity, until they left the country. After the long struggle for Independence and for political leadership, there followed the inevitable conflict for the establish ment of Republicanism, as advocated by Benito Jaurez, the Con- 18 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN stitutional President. In this conflict the Church threw all its wealth and energy in opposition and lost in the contest its worldly power and possessions. During this three centuries of Spanish rule, benevolent institu tions, whether founded by individuals or by societies, were gen erally managed by religious orders. Alcedo, in his dictionary of America and the West Indies, published in Madrid in 1787, tells us that besides the Great Cathedral, costing $3,720,000, there were a hundred other sump tuous temples, distributed over the fourteen parishes of the City. There were twenty-one convents and twenty-five monasteries of different religious orders named by him. Besides the Royal and Pontifical University with twenty-two professors "of all the sci ences," a fine library, and a cloister of two hundred and twenty- five doctors and masters, there were thirteen important colleges and seminaries. There were other notable churches, schools and academies, thirteen hospitals, three refuges for women, an asylum for foundlings, and a general home for invalids and beggars. On July 12, 1859, President Jaurez as a war measure set forth the Reform Law, suppressing all religious orders in the Republic. The victorious republican army entered the capital December 25, 1860, and three days later these laws were solemn- • ly published, and the Board of the College of the Vizcainas consid ered itself suppressed. But with full consideration of the secu lar character of the college it was determined that the institu tion did not fall within the terms of the decree. Its life was spar ed. The old convent schools and monasteries came to an end. Priests and nuns were driven from their venerable habitations. In the City of Mexico streets were cut throught the grounds and buildings of the old religious orders; their inmates were scattered, and their great estates confiscated. Clerical schools came under control of the States, and lost their ecclesiastical character. All hospitals and establishments of beneficence which had been administered by ecclesiastical authorities or corpora tions were secularized, those in the Federal District falling under the management of the General Government, those in the States IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 19 under the supervision of the State Governments. (Codigo de la Reforma. ) The girls of two suppressed convent schools were brought with portions of their endowment to the College of the Vizcainas, twenty-five scholarships from the convent school of San Miguel A Court of the College of the Vizcainas. de Belen and eleven from the charity school of Sta. Maria. A long list of institutions passed .away, leaving only archi tectural remains and memories behind. Strange to say their fall was celebrated as a national victory. Note — The author has preferred to use the Spanish name Vizcainas rather than Biscayans. IV. A Charity School of the Old Type — Continued. Stable conditions were not maintained till after the civil war of 1876 which terminated in the triumph and election of General Don Porfirio Diaz as President of the Republic. He entered his office the fifth of May. On May 23 he changed the Board of Directors of the college; and a committee was appointed to in quire into its affairs. This committee recommended the aboli tion of the group system and the establishment of a common boarding hall for the pupils ; a better system of sanitation ; en largement of the program of studies to include branches which would prepare the pupils for a lucrative profession; and the in troduction of practical methods of object teaching, such as are adopted in modern schools. The name of the institution, which had done so much for the public, through its long and eventful history, was changed. It was called, "El Colegio de la Paz," (The College of Peace). The peril to which the institution was exposed by grasping politicians in 1883 led President Diaz on his return to office in 1884 to introduce legislation "to stim ulate private benevolence, by guaranteeing the faithful use of funds given by generous persons for the service of humanity," thus placing the property and funds of Las Vizcainas forever beyond the reach of political caprice or intrigue. On the recom mendation of the President, Congress provided for the support of the school, giving at first $3,000 a year, and later $2,000 a month. While this is only a small part of the great debt which with long accumulated interest amounts to over two millions of dollars, it is sufficient to bring the instruction and equipment up to the level of the schools of the times. More than forty persons of recognized aptitude are employed as teachers of books; while thirty others teach arts and trades. IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 21 Instruction is given in all branches of primary and secondary studies, as well as in various kinds of work, useful and orna mental. In 1901 there were enrolled as pupils seventy-eight half- orphans whose mothers were living, and some of them paying ten dollars a month. Sixty-two girls from well-to-do families were paying eighteen dollars a month. Fifty-five pupils were supported by scholarships. Five other pupils were expecting scholarships. There were four hundred and thirty-eight day pupils. The food and care of the resident pupils is of the best, wheth er they are supported by scholarships, or pay the required fees. The scholarships are given to the poorest and most deserving girls without distinction of nationality, unless, as rarely happens, the applicant be a descendant of the Basques. The original idea of religious freedom is still respected. The first stone of the building was laid in 1734. Six gen erations have passed through the halls of the institution. If the original founders were to come back to inspect their work and its results, they might well congratulate themselves that they had struggled so long to secure lay as opposed to ecclesiastical control. Otherwise their splendid charity would have been for more than forty years in its grave, instead of being continued, improved and extended as it is today, benefitting as many needy ones as possible, teaching them to love work, and to seek it without fear. The founders of the school empowered their successors to change, interpret, or elucidate the fundamental rules when necessary, "ordering and doing it. with that sobriety, maturity and consultation, which is customary in order to attain holy ends, the greater honor and glory of God." V. The Children's Home. ("El Hospicio de Ninos.") The Home of the Poor, "El Hospicio de Pobres," was the original name employed until 1905 to designate an enduring char ity, founded in 1760, which has survived the changes of time and fortune for one hundred and forty-six years; and today holds a strong place in the hearts of the benevolent and sympathetic people of Mexico. The term Hospicio is a general name for charitable estab lishments, where the poor find shelter and sustenance, where work is given to those who can labor, and education to those who need it. The Home was founded by the Bishop, Dr. Don Fernando Ortiz Cortez. The original building was begun Sept. 12, 1763, and finished Dec. 16, 1768, and opened to the public March 19, 1774, when a period of eight days was set for the poor of both sexes to assemble, or be gathered in by the police. The place proved in adequate for the large numbers admitted. Within a few months the Viceroy, Bucareli, gave other buildings and adjacent ground, on which were erected apartments for a maternity home called San Carlos Hospital, where a medical certificate gained admis sion ; 'and no questions were asked. There are a few notable events in the history of this Home. All the old edifices, vast and spacious as they were, had grave defects. The science of hygeine was unknown at the time of their construction; and the promiscuous association of the sick and poor of all classes was disastrous physically and morally. After the most primitive fashion dependent children were asso ciated with delinquents, the well-behaved with the vicious. To IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 23 correct this evil a rich miner, Francisco Zuniga, a Captain of Provincial Dragoons, provided $400,000 for the building of an annex for boys needing reformation. To remove all stigma the name "Patriotic School" was given to the institution; and en trance therein was made a mark of honor instead of disgrace. Captain Zuniga died before his project was consummated; but in his will he left an endowment -of $250,000.00 and a third share of the profits from his various mines to educate poor orphans, and give them a trade, which would make them useful to them selves and to the State. This may be called the beginning of The Industrial School and of the Reform School in Mexico. The new department was opened June 1, 1806. The founder of this school is also said to have deposited $500,000.00 in the Royal Treasury, on which the government agreed to pay 3 % , for the care of the destitute. His name and fame are secure in the hearts of the Mexican people. In 1843 Colonel Don Mariano Ayllon established a linen fac tory in the Hospicio. One hundred and fifty spinning wheels were put in use and the boys and girls soon learned to make canvas, sailcloth and sheeting of good •quality. Don Francisco Fagoaga is entitled to grateful memory for a gift of $45,000.00 for repairs to the building occasioned by the destructive earthquake of April 7, 1845. The maternity department of the institution was sadly neg lected until it was rebuilt and refurnished in 1866 by the unhappy Carlota. The name was- changed from San Carlos Hospital to "Lying in Hospital and Asylum for Infa'nts," although it was still a department of the Home for the Poor. Isolating wards were provided for boys and girls suffering from contagious di seases. Separate rooms and wards for confinement cases were added, and also for convalescents. The establishment was governed and sustained at first by a royal board made up of the principal dignitaries of the city. In 1863 the Empress Carlota placed the institution in the hands of the Sisters of Charity. After Maximilian's death the City Council controlled it until Jan. 23, 1877, when the entire property 24 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN was transferred to to the Board of Public Beneficence; and put in charge of the Secretary of the Government. It is generously supported from the Federal Treasury, making up for the loss of the splendid endowment which had long since vanished. In May 1882 all the old ladies of the establishment were transferred to the Asylum for Beggars. The Alameda — Mexico's Fashionable Park. The old building was erected in a miserable, deserted place, which became with the lapse of time and the growth of popula tion one of the most desirable sites in a crowded and fashionable part of the City, near the Alameda. IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 25 On account of excellent care, large apartments, dormi tories, gardens, courts, and baths, together with comfortable clothing, well-cooked food, and the observance of such sanitary regulations as were possible, an epidemic rarely invaded the school and there was an average of only two per cent, of unim portant sickness. The Chief Executive, comprehending that the fashionable centre of the city was far from being an ideal location, ordered the purchase of new grounds and the erection of new buildings about two and one-half miles south of the National Palace. Five years were consumed in the construction of the new plant which occupies eleven and a half acres of ground on the Electric line to Tlalpam. The buildings are fire proof, and combine sim plicity and solidity with beauty, grace and perfect adaptation to their purpose fitly representing the culture and progress of Mexico. On the seventh of September 1905 Sehor Don Porfirio Diaz, the distinguished President of the Republic, "in developing his general plan for the enlargement and improvement of Public Beneficence" had the pleasure of opening this new and splendid edifice for the care and education of boys and girls, who through poverty or misfortune have become the adopted children of the Nation. The ground occupied by the new Hospice contains ample area for homes, schools, gardens, shops, offices and recreation grounds, with abundant sunshine and pure air all around. In the central front of the grounds is a spacious court of honor planted with trees and flowers, making an elegant English park, on opposite sides of which stand the boys' and girls' schools respectively facing the avenue. A stately corridor in the rear connects them with the main administration building which oc cupies a focal position in the extensive plant. This building contains a grand memorial staircase leading to the official de partments and public halls to which the pupils go only for the an nual distribution of premiums. In the same building are the living rooms of the officers in charge, with offices and reception 26 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN rooms. Back of these are the dining rooms. The large and well appointed kitchen and its subsidiary rooms are further back and provided with dishes, utensils and stores for the proper care of upwards of twelve hundred people connected with the Home. On the opposite side of the administration building are the boys' and girls' departments constructed on the same general plan. There is a two-story school building with a one-story ex tension for caretakers' apartments. Back of these a series of Administration Building of the New Children's Home. two-story structures provide twelve dormitories for girls and eight for boys. Each dormitory is forty metres long and five and a half metres wide which gives four and a half square metres of floor space and twenty cubic metres of a'ir to each pupil. Con nected with each dormitory is an apartment for a night guard. IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 27 The dining hall for 400 boys has a floor space of 432 square metres. The dining hall for six hundred girls has a floor space of 540 square metres. Both are provided with an abundance of daylight, and both communicate with their respective dormi tories through passageways supplied with sanitary wash rooms. The class rooms for boys are arranged for forty pupils giv ing each one a metre and a half of floor space. The ceiling is 4J^ metres high. The rooms are lighted by large windows at the left of the pupil. Each department has a large hall for phys ical exercises in bad weather. The school for girls has six reci tation rooms arranged for 50 girls each ; and the school for boys has eight recitation rooms with accommodations for 400 pupils. The building is supplied with modern and commodious baths. Two artesian wells supply an abundance of potable water which is forced to all parts of the building and grounds. There is a department for small children with a capacity for one hundred, with their own dining room, dormit6ries, recreation places, and class rooms, with complete furnishings for kindergarden train ing. The pure air, open fields, and large gardens, are favorable to the carrying out of Froebel's ideas. In the extreme rear is a large and completely equipped laun dry, where the girls do the work. Large motors and dynamos furnish forty-two arc lights and eight hundred incandescent lamps for the grounds and buildings, August 4, 1902, there were 241 boys and 467 girls making a total of 708 pupils in the school. At the time for moving into the new Home there were five hundred and eighty pupils. The establishment is governed by a matron and a head of each de partment. Besides sixteen professors there are seventy-nine em ployees in various lines of work. Abandoned children of both sexes are received up to five years of age. Children of very poor parents are received tem porarily and children of bad parents are committed to this insti tution by the court. Boys under ten years and girls under four teen are eligible. 28 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN Parents of the right sort are allowed to take their children out for a visit so that family ties are not broken. Parents of the worst sort are only allowed to see their children in the Home on regular visiting days. When the boys are twelve years old, they are transferred to the Industrial School for Orphans, where they complete their primary instruction and learn a trade, unless placed with a responsible man for the same purpose or to learn a profession. When the girls reach fifteen years of age they are returned to their families if it is best, otherwise they remain in the Home until they are twenty-four years of age, unless earlier they are able to take care of themselves, making use of the in struction given them in the school. For such girls as remain there is no other institution offering industrial training. Ac cordingly special shops will soon be installed when they will have practical training in various wage-earning occupations to prepare them for self-support. The method of instruction em ployed combines practical with intellectual studies during the first four elementary years, giving manual training to the girls, military exercises for the boys. There will be, when completed, shop room for three hundred girls where instruction will be given in cap making, dyeing, dress-making, construction of all kinds of flowers, pasteboard boxes, printing, lithography, photography, and paper ruling, classes in drawing, lineal, natural, ornamental and landscape. In addition to the studies now taught several new ones will be added such as typewriting and stenography. Nothing will be omitted which tends to the perfection of the domestic training of the girls, the cutting and making of clothing, and preparation of different kinds of food, plain and fancy cooking, many kinds of needle work, the use of sewing and knitting machines, and all that relates to housekeeping, and earning a living — including weaving, music and English. When the girls are far enough advanced to earn something they are paid for all the good work they can do and they are taught to clothe themselves from their earnings. The system of instruction is that prescrib ed by law for the public schools. IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 29 Both boys and girls receive class instruction in the gym nasium. By means of inscribed tablets placed on the front of the ad ministration building, the National Government pays. homage to Dr. Don Fernando Ortiz Cortez, the bishop who founded the institution, and to Captain Don Francisco Zuniga, who liberally endowed it. No better monument could be raised to individual contributors to the cause of private charity. No stronger ar gument could be used to encourage other men to devote their resources to promote the general welfare. The cost of the new "Home for Children," as it is now most fittingly called, was six hundred and fifty thousand dollars American gold — equivalent to one million three hundred thousand dollars Mexican money. While the new Memorial Home for children was building beyond the old gates of the City, a new and extensive Model Hospital was in course of erection beyond the southern walls. The plant consists of seventy-four distinct buildings erected at a cost of three millions of Mexican dollars where every human ill except insanity is treated. "The Hospital for Maternity and Infancy" has three commodious buildings especially constructed for its use, besides a separate structure for children having con tagious diseases. For greater convenience a Central Consulting Station is maintained on the old grounds of the Hospice where the poor may more easily apply for office treatment, or be sent to the Hospital, if the case demands. A school is provided at the Hospital for children whose ailments do not prevent study. Thus in the few years of the reconstruction of Mexico the char itable institutions have become diversified and specific. VI. The Foundling Asylum. (Casa de Ninos Expositos Titulada, "La Cuna.") A moving spectacle in the Foundling Asylum is a large and lofty hall, lined with cradles, where dark Indian women may be Foundling Asylum — The Nursery. seen nursing white infants. Many of the cradles are richly fur nished, indicating that many of these unfortunate creatures are IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 31 children of high class women. Soon after such a child is de posited in the institution, money, clothing and other things not infrequently arrive. The names of the parents may be disclosed, and regular payments made. This asylum was established the eleventh of January, 1767, by the most illustrious Francisco Antonio Lorenzana and Urua, Metropolitan Archbishop of Mexico. With his own funds he bought the building which is still occupied by the institution for foundlings in front of the Merced Market. From the beginning, nameless children received within its hospitable halls have been called, after the name of the founder, "Lorenzana." The Asylum is open to all children under four years, who are destitute of the ordinary protection of a home. There are three classes of inmates, — foundlings, dependents and children for whom twenty-four, twelve and six dollars per month respective ly are paid. These last are sent to the country with a nurse. When the child is weaned, and brought back to the institution, the monthly payment for care is twelve dollars. The price is the same, if the friends wish to keep the child in the institution where they can visit it. Many children of parents who stand well financially and socially, although unmarried, are sent to this institution, and a high price is paid for their care; while the poorer people obtain essentially the same benefits, but pay a much lower price. Unfortunately some married people prefer to pay an institution for the care and trouble of training their children. August 23, 1902, there were in the Asylum three hun dred and twenty- four children, distributed as follows: one hundred and seventy- four infants; fifty children between two and five years of age ; and one hundred over five years. Of these sixty-five were foundlings ; one hundred and eighty-two were de pendent; and seventy-seven were boarders. When a woman goes to the Maternity department of the Asy lum to avoid scandal, her name and residence are recorded, but not made public. The child may be sent to the Foundlings' Home and kept for her, if the cost of niaintainance and education is 32 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN provided, or she may stay without expense for board or laundry and nurse her own child, subject to the strict rules of the house. In the month of July, 1902, seventy children were born in the Asylum. Eight of these were still births, five infants died while their mothers were still confined to their beds, four of the number were transferred to the department for foundlings. Children are received by the lady Rector at any hour, day or night. She records their age and condition and the name and residence of the persons presenting them. The house physician immediately weighs and measures them, and records in a spe cially numbered book the date of each child's reception, its name if any, the color of its skin, hair and eyes, and any special marks, or other data, which may serve for identification. He also records the name and residence of the person bringing the child. Once enrolled, the child belongs to the establishment, unless reclaimed by parents or friends who have paid for its maintain- ance. No child will be transferred to any person who is unable to care for and educate it. The Home employs a teacher for young children, and two teachers who hold first year certificates. All the children be tween four and ten years old are obliged to attend the classes, and have the same studies and examinations as the children in the public schools. At the age of ten, boys are either "placed out" or transferred to some other State institution. Whenever a boy or girl shows notable intellectual capacity, he, or she, is advanced to one of the National Schools, where a literary career may be followed. The girls, besides performing the manual labor required in the public schools, are taught to cut garments, and are trained in all ordinary domestic duties, such as sewing, washing, ironing and cleaning. Those who show special talent for music are taught to play instruments, and may be sent to the National Con servatory of Music. All the children are compelled to attend the classes in the choral singing, and gymnastics. The parents and friends are allowed to visit the children on^e a week, or oftener by special permission. But if they fail to pay IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 33 the monthly allowance agreed upon, and fail to visit the children for two years, without an acceptable excuse, the child is consid ered abandoned; and, as in the case of foundlings, the Director may allow some one to adopt it, but always under agreement to keep the child, perform the duties of a parent, and make the child, "which has been freely and spontaneously adopted," a lawful heir. This contract is made in duplicate, with all the formalities of law, and signed by the Director, by the adoptor, by a surety, and by two witnesses present. Whenever, on account of accident, neith er the adoptor nor the surety is able further to satisfy the terms of the contract, the child may be returned to the Asylum. If the adopted child dies, the adoptor is bound, equally with the surety, to notify the Director of the Asylum, accompanying the notice with proper documents. Within the institution there are four separate halls : one for nursing children of both sexes, another for nursing children from two to five years of age of both sexes, and two for children over five years, when the boys and girls have sepa rate halls. The boys and girls from two to five years of age are under the care of girls of the house, appointed by the Lady Rector. There is one girl for each ten children, all being di rected and taught by a care-taker who is paid a monthly wage, and, if possible, is also a "daughter of the house." The same plan is followed in the halls set apart for boys and girls of more than five years of age. The care-takers in the halls for boys must be boys, who have charge of the order and cleanliness of the department confided to them. It is their duty to see that the younger boys wash themselves, clean their dormitories daily, and take their turn in the classes for instruction, or in the shops. Employees are not allowed to inflict painful or humiliating pun ishment upon the children. The Director may offer prizes to encourage them to do their best, in the school or shop. But the foundlings who show bad inclinations, or perverted instincts, and are disobedient to disciplinary counsels, may be transferred, with the consent of the Secretary of the Government, to a cor rectional establishment, thereby losing all right to share in the 34 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN dowry fund of the institution. Dependent and boarding pupils who merit similar punishment are returned to their friends, or are sent to a correctional school. During the Colonial period the institution was under eccle siastical control ; but since the Independence it has been managed by the National Government, which pays all bills in excess of the institution's own income from rentals and from paying inmates. The work of the institution is in charge of a man Director, a lady Rector, a lady Curator, a teacher of young children, a primary teacher and assistant, a teacher of sewing, a teacher of choral singing and gymnasium, a doctor, a pharmacist, a photo grapher, a clerk, a bookkeeper, two watchmen, six lady wardens, a trained nurse, a woman in charge of clothing, and twenty-five servants. Every nursing child has its own nurse, who is under the watch-care of a lady warden; and she is under the vigilance of the Lady Rector. All are under the care of the house physician. The disasters resulting from chance employment of wet- nurses led the authorities of the institution to create a Department of Inspection from which they are able to provide for their own needs and to meet an ever-growing public demand for qualified nurses. The Department is provided with a Medical Inspector and Assistant, and has one or two messengers provided with bicycles. The Medical Inspectors are in their office every day, from seven to ten a. m., and from five to seven p. m., to receive all nurses who come seeking a situation, and to record their names, ages, places of residence, the date of birth of their children, the condition of their circulation, respiration, and general nervous and sanitary condition. They record signs of previous sickness, or marks of general infirmities, analyze the milk, taking account of its color, abundance, chemical reaction, density, richness in butter-fat, sugar, albuminoids, etc., and make a microscopical examination of its elements. From those who are examined, lists are prepared in three different colors of ink, according to their general appearance and constitution, and the quality of their milk. So thoroughly IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 35 is this work done that many wealthy and aristocratic families patronize this agency. The medical inspector also keeps a register of sick, or unqual ified applicants for nursing, specifying the sickness, or cause of disqualification. He must prepare statistical tables, showing the diseases which have caused the death of children, both in the country, and in the institution, so that from these data investiga tions may be made, for the purpose of avoiding or combating the diseases. He is to furnish the Supreme Council of Health with required data; advise the Director of the institution of measures which he judges will conduce to the public benefit; and if possible, install a~ department for the preparation of artificial food. For this purpose he is provided with the necessary appa ratus for sterilizing and making a minute comparative study of the milk of different nurses, in order to make sure that the arti ficial food shall not be injurious to the children. Thus the Home for' Foundlings, which was intended as a charity for the outcasts, has come to be a scientific laboratory through which the homes of the people are being benefitted. As already indicated, some children remain in the institution ; others are sent to the country in care of nurses, whose health and good conduct are respectively accredited in the first instance by the physician and political authority of the place in which each woman resides. Twice each month the Medical Inspector accompanies the Director of the institution on a visit to all the nurses employed by them in the country, to determine who shall be continued in service, and what children are to be returned to the institution. The country nurses are also obliged to come to the institution every fortnight with the children entrusted to them for general inspection, and to receive their wages. Every child not found in good condition may be assigned to a new nurse or may remain in the house, as the Doctor thinks best. All children are returned to the institution when they are weaned. Sick children must be brought to the institution for treatment. If any child is brought back dead and the explanation is not 36 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN satisfactory, the body of the child, and the nursing woman are turned over to the competent authorities for investigation. All foundlings are considered the true and legitimate children of the Home. Accordingly a dowry fund has been created for all who leave the institution with a good record. This fund comes from fees charged for the inspection of nurses, and from volun tary gifts of visitors. For this purpose a box marked "Dowry Fund for Foundlings" is placed to catch the visitors eye. These amounts are deposited with the Treasurer of the Department of Beneficence, who keeps an itemized account, and credits to each foundling, at the close of the year, an equal share of the fund. Children adopted by a family, or sent to a "house of correction," lose all right to this fund, and their share is distributed to the credit of the other members of the institution enrolled during that year. As all boys whether good or bad are either adopted or transferred by the time they reach ten years of age, only the girls, who, for any reason have not been adopted and are allowed to remain in the institution until they reach the age of twenty-one, are beneficiaries of this fund. |Wl"».i ,-i; ..... ¦.¦:-y. ¦¦¦:>?-¦ , y,:. - ¦ ¦:¦.< ' '.y% „ '¦ '¦ :~: >:; >y, ¦;'/¦¦ ; /'ife .¦.,-;,' :$y-ry ¦¦¦ -¦- ¦ . '^vmyy-, *•': ¦-""..¦ /¦. "'J , i:; J ' - • . ¦ i ' .¥*,/•:-«- '->\-- V- ¦ ..: & ' .'¦ •^¦fiSfr- ''E'-'f ¦¦¦ ^Rlfl Entrance to the Park. VII. The Industrial School for Orphans. ("La Escuela Industrial de Huerfanos.") For many years The Home for the Poor was used indiscrim inately for the' indigent classes, whether young or old. Young delinquents were sent to prison in company with hardened crim inals. A change came in 1841 when a few benevolent citizens determined to establish a Correctional School. A department in The Home for the Poor was set apart for the purpose. But the necessity of separating these institutions and of separating good boys from bad was felt. In 1850 workshops for the older boys were provided and called the "San Antonio Correctional School." In 1877 the workshops were all removed to the suburb of Santiago ; and all boys over ten years of age were transferred to that institution, which was thought of as an industrial institu tion mainly. Young delinquents were required to be sent first to the Boy's Ward in the Home for the Poor, and later, if found advisable, they were transferred to the Correctional School. But the Board of Public Beneficence, yielding to urgent solicitations, purchased and fitted up a farm colony at a convenient distance from the city ; and in 1880 ninety-two lads undergoing correction at Santiago were removed to this new place. By this change the delinquents were permanently separated from dependents. Admission to the Industrial School was there after determined by the needs and merits of the boys. They must be orphans, or extremely poor, and from ten to fourteen years of age, and free from any infirmity that would injure others, or prevent study. The aim of the school is to provide the opportunity for phys- 38 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN ical development, primary education and apprenticeship in some art or trade. No pupil is allowed to remain in the school more than four years. His age and the judgment of the Director may fix a shorter period. There may be paying pupils, who comply with the conditions as to age and health. The regular rate is $15.00, The Industrial School for Orphans. Mexican currency, per month ; but the Director, in consideration of circumstances, may reduce the amount. There is no difference in the treatment of the paying pupils and those admitted free. The food supply is ample: coffee and milk with rice, beans, or a cereal food, and a piece of bread, for breakfast; soup, a thick porridge of rice or other cereal food, a, dish of meat, beans, IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 39 and two pieces of bread for dinner; for supper, milk is served with a salad, beans and a piece of bread. The day's ration is 2>y2 pounds. The good cooking is shown in the robust and vigorous appearance of the children. All inmates wear the uniform of the school. Many when they enter the institution are almost naked. At the time of this report, each one had two woolen, and two cotton suits made from products of Mexican Mills, also two un der suits of cotton and a pair of cloth caps, — all made in the in stitution by the children at comparatively small cost. The beds are comfortably furnished. Each pupils' clothes and bedding are numbered, so that they always have their own things. The boys require four pairs of shoes each year, one pair of which is made by the pupils themselves, in the school shop. The institution has an orchestra made up of ten stringed instruments, thirteen of wood, and nineteen of brass. For the purpose of discipline, the three hundred pupils are divided into five companies of sixty each, and subdivided into groups of six, composed of a leader and five comrades. This di vision is similar to that of the soldiers of the army, and is for the same purpose, to secure thorough oversight of the pupils. Night Schools for Apprentices. In order to carry out the plan of giving a thorough appren ticeship in different trades, a beginning was made by distributing the boys in the different shops of the city, while still giving them food and lodging in the institution, where they were taught to keep track of their work, and to dispose of their earnings in such a way as to provide for their clothing and other necessities. This plan demonstrated the practical need and feasibility of having a school for apprentices properly equipped by the Government. The Director in his report of 1898 urged this plan for boys over fourteen years of age so that after learning a trade, they might go out for employment with the recommendation of the school ; thus rescuing them from the street at a time when their danger 40 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN is great and they lack experience to resist the first impulses of passion. With the view of stimulating good conduct the Prefect of the school established at one time a table of honor in the dining room. Only pupils who had perfect marks for three consecu tive weeks, and who had not been reproved for any fault for a month, and who had been models in the performance of all of their duties, were allowed to sit at that table. Once only in a year did any pupil reach that high estate. The boy committed some fault which placed him back in the company of his fellow students. The cost of maintaining this school with its three hundred pupils, and necessary officers, teachers and employees, is about forty-five thousand dollars annually, ($45,000.00) Mexican cur rency. It is interesting to notice the signs of intelligence. The annual report for 1897 showed that out of three hundred pupils only thirty-six failed to pass their examinations. In the first grade there were fifty pupils, thirty-seven of whom passed to the second. There were a hundred and thirty in the second year. Only twelve were required to repeat their year's work. There were seventy pupils in the third grade, of whom only nine failed to pass. In the fourth grade there were fifty pupils, forty-eight of whom completed satisfactorily their primary studies. The classes of the school went beyond the requirements of the program of public instruction, especially deserving praise for their exam ples of handiwork. During the year the pupils are taken by their instructors on excursions to various museums of natural history and arts, also to factories operated by steam and to the open fields — all giving most satisfactory results. At the expiration of the four years in the school the estab lishment gives recommendations to the boys in order that they may find work, in commerce, or arts, in private or in government offices. The school of Mettray, in France, has served as a model in establishing this institution. Pupils are required to maintain order, cleanliness and moral- IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 41 ity, and to work for the improvement of the school in all their relations with their teachers and fellow students and with the ser vants of the institution. Students are not allowed to follow any religious practices which interfere with the hours of labor, nor at any time to engage in exercises which are opposed to the re ligious faith which they profess, nor is anyone allowed to influ ence them to do so. Rewards and Punishments. In order that the pupils may learn to love their work, and may become addicted to good habits, the superior officers of the school offer rewards for progress or for good conduct to those who distinguish themselves by their constancy in study, or in work. Teachers and heads of the shops and wardens prepare monthly reports of the work and read their respective grade marks before the students. In each school or shop there is a roll of honor, on which is written the first day of the month, the names of pupils that have most distinguished themselves by their work, improvement, and good conduct. There are also in the office of the Director, two honor rolls, in which the names of the most deserving students are recorded. The pupils may be rewarded daily with tickets of distinction which have the value of one, five, or twenty-five points of honor. These tickets serve to free the pupil from light punishments, which in the judgment of his superiors he deserves ; or at the end of the month, at the discretion of the Director, they may be exchanged for money, afterdeductingthepointsofbaddeportment. Annually there is a distribution of premiums consisting of books or instruments appropriate to the art or study in which the pupils are engaged. These rewards are distributed by the Chief Magis trate of the Nation, or by the Secretary of State. Lack of application, or of subordination, or of cleanliness, or of morality, is appropriately punished. For light faults the supe rior officer reproves the pupil in private. If the fault is repeated, or is serious, besides being admonished in private, he receives one 42 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN or more marks of discredit. If these means fail of effect, or the fault is more serious, pupils are reproved before the class, and have to stand for fifteen or twenty minutes in a conspicu ous place. At the same time there are marked against him as many points of discredit as may seem just. A second public re- proval being required the pupil is sent to stand fifteen or twenty minutes in some other department, and his name is erased from the roll of honor, until good conduct has been maintained for at least a month. A repetition of the fault, in spite of these pun ishments, or an offense which is injurious to others, or to the mor als of the institution, is punished by confinement in a lighted room, where the pupil is required to complete some study, or manual labor, before being released. If the pupil is contumacious in committing grave faults, in spite of punishment, he is expelled from the institution in the presence of all the other pupils and teachers, the Prefect indicating the reason for expulsion; and he is sent to the Correctional School; or with the approval of the Secretary of the Government he is delivered to the person who has legal charge of him. If he commits any real crime, he is placed immediately at the disposition of the ordinary courts of justice. The arts and trades taught in the institution are lithography, typography, book-binding, weaving, carpentering, tailoring, shoe- making and work in tin. The Director will propose the open ing of new shops, when he thinks proper. Military instruction is given to improve the discipline of the school, and is according to the age and understanding of the pupils. On all working days, except Saturday, the pupils rise at five in the morning, from the 15th of April to the 15th of September, and during the remainder of the year at 5 :30 o'clock. From that hour until 5 :50 a. m. they are busy washing and dress ing and cleaning the dormitories. For this latter work they are divided into sections, which do the work alternate days. At ten minutes to six they are ready for the military exercises, which begin promptly at six, and end at seven. From seven to eight, after twenty minutes recreation, breakfast is served. From eight to twelve part of them are employed in the shop IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 43 and part in the class instruction. At twelve, they get ready to enter the dining room. After dinner they have recreation until two o'clock. From two to five they are again busy in the shops or classes. From five to six those who are in the day classes go to the gymnasium, alternating different days with those from the shops. These latter take their alternate hour at drawing. From six to eight the students from the shops go to the night school; and the other pupils, divided into two groups, attend alternate days the classes in note singing, and in drawing. From eight to nine supper is served ; after which they all go to the dor mitory. Pupils who are learning to play some musical instru ment have their classes from six to seven in the morning, and every third day from five to six in the afternoon. On Saturdays, until two o'clock, all the pupils have the same arrangement of time as on previous days ; but from two to three they prepare to go to the country for military exercise, which lasts until six; or to pass inspection of arms, equipment, and clothing, as may be determined. In addition to this they pass a monthly inspection by the Commissary in presence of the Treas urer of the Department of Beneficence. Sundays before break fast they go to their baths. At ten o'clock as a reward for appli cation and improvement they go out for a walk, being obliged to return before six. At nine o'clock the students and their wardens must be in the dormitory and distribute themselves to their beds in the order occupied in their companies. Fifteen minutes later, every student must be in his separate bed, and keep perfect silence. The dormitories are kept conveniently lighted, for oversight during the night. There is a regular doorkeeper who opens the outside door at the hour the students arrive in the morning, and locks it again at nine o'clock at night, and delivers the key to the Prefect; so that the door cannot be opened again without his express orders. He must have the order of the Prefect in order to allow students or servants to pass out of the gate. It is his business to keep for the Prefect a list of the employees and the hour they enter or 44 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN leave the school daily. Aside from those who are employed in the establishment, or in the Department of Benefi cence, no one is allowed to enter the department without permission of the Director or Prefect. The doorkeeper must see that no clothing, food, or any other article goes in or out, without the knowledge of the Prefect, or his representative. The ordinary employees who fail to do their duty are admonished formally, reproved privately, or fined, not to exceed the tenth part of their monthly wage; or they may be suspended, or dis missed. Only the Prefect has the right to reprove or dismiss employees whose pay exceeds five dollars per month. Only the Prefect, the Sub-Prefect, and the Steward are permitted to have their families in the establishment; and outside of the employees who are obliged to live in the school, no one is per mitted in the institution longer than is necessary to attend to his duties, and cannot be given food nor lodging. Boys under twelve years are not allowed to enter the shops ; and if they are not through their primary studies they may not enter until they are fourteen years old. Retrospect and Prospect. Before going further we must pause to notice that we have reached an intensely interesting period in the history of Mexico. The old order was passing away. The air was full of ozone. Entirely new and important charitable schools were struggling into existence, to be followed by still others, until the National Schools shall be counterbalanced by religious schools of corre sponding high grade, and strictly conformed to the Reform Laws. VIII. Tne Mexican National School for Deaf-Mutes. (Escuela National de Sordo-Mudos.) No effort has been spared to place this Mexican National School in the front rank among institutions for deaf-mutes in the world. Its origin dates from a day in 1866 when a foreign er named Huet called on Sr. Ignacio Trigueros, President of the Mexican City Council. Huet was a deaf-mute who had been educated -in Europe, and had come to Mexico seeking appoint ment as director in a school for deaf-mutes. Finding that no such school existed, he thought of establishing one. Mr. Tri gueros had been cherishing the thought of giving his country a school for the blind, and he took up Huet's idea with enthu siasm and obtained permission from the City Council to open a school for deaf-mutes in the old building of the College of St. Gregory. Later the school was transferred to the old Convent of Corpus Christi. Through the influence of Antonio Martinez de Castro, at that time Minister of Justice and of Public Instruc tion, the school was taken under the protection of the General Government, and placed on a solid foundation. Some form of sign language is natural, and has always ex isted. In the sixteenth century Ponce de Leon taught a deaf- mute Castilian noble some scheme of signs. A better system was introduced by the venerable abbott L' Epee ; and society ac cepted the responsibility of educating these unfortunates. Mimic language redeemed the mute from misery and ignorance. But it was reserved for Julio Tarra of Milan to restore the deaf-mute to social and business activity, by giving him the power of speech. Tarra determined to combat muteism and destroy it. He did not wish to give the mutes a substitute for human speech, but to teach them the very use of words. The managers of the Mexican school saw that the pupil must be taught the National language, so that he could think, and ex- 46 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN press his thoughts, as others do. Society cannot me made to understand the mute in a strange language of his own. But the pupil must be made to understand society. Any other plan leaves him isolated. It was proposed to make this method effect ive for all pupils of the Mexican National School. But the mimic system had been used for twenty years; and forty pupils were taking full courses in the old method. Strenuous efforts were made to separate pupils who were studying different meth ods, by giving them separate dormitories and different hours for recreation and meals, with separate teachers, care-takers and servants. These efforts proved ineffective. Facility in the use of signs greatly retarded the acquisition of speech. But in spite of difficulties the oral method was persisted in, and adopted for all the pupils twenty years ago. The method is called oral, because the instruction is communicated by word alone, articulated, and read from the lips. It is called perceptive, because the word is taught in the presence of the thing, or act, perceived, or by. recognition of the words employed. The method is called pure, because there is no mixture of any other method, preceding or following, to attenuate, or complicate, the impression and efficacy of the living word. The application of the method begins with a period of phys ical preparation. Only children between nine and twelve years are admitted. They are generally in precarious health ; and their tempers are taciturn and irascible. The silence in which they have lived has rendered them suspicious. Their feelings are harsh, passions strong, bodies weak, minds a blank. These defects .persist in them for a long time. But the hygiene and medicine, proper food and gentle treatment, little by little convert the sickly and rude child into an obedient, attentive and amiable pupil. Pulmonary weakness is noticeable. Their lungs are al most atrophied on account of the little use they have had; and they lack energy for any exercise whatever. They are intro duced to a spirometer and taught to blow. A large and well equipped gymnasium is provided, where muscular energies are developed to overcome defective nutrition. With these prepara- IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 47 tions, the pupil is ready to learn to produce definite sounds. Some object is presented to the student, and the teacher directs attention to his own mouth, while he pronounces the name of the thing clearly, distinctly and repeatedly, without requiring the pupil to repeat after him. The purpose is to provoke natural imitation in the pupil, and make him understand that these move ments of the lips, teeth and tongue are what form the word. Then the teacher tries to excite in the pupil laughter and ex- Pupils in The Mexican National School for Deaf-Mutes. clamations of joy or pain, which are the three first uses of the human voice. He tries to give the pupil to understand that he is to emit tone, as he has done in laughing, exclaiming, or com plaining. Special care is taken that the pupil begin with light tones, avoiding cries and shouts. This tone, weak and soft at first, is gradually strengthened until it reaches the natural qual- 48 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN ity. Then the process of teaching the five vowels, the value of words and the construction of sentences begins. After a long history of successful work, a laudable desire to insure the greatest possible efficiency in this National School de termined the sending of Dr. F. Vasquez Gomez to visit the schools in the United States, where, according to the census of 1890, there were 41,283 deaf-mutes, for whom were provided, 89 special schools, public and private, in which 11,054 pupils were receiving their education. Within ten years the number of schools had passed the hundred mark, counting primary, pre paratory and superior schools in the different States of the Re public and in the District of Columbia. Some of these schools are dedicated to higher instruction in the arts and sciences. In his exhaustive report, rendered July 18, 1901, Dr. Gomez urged the use of the oral method, either alone or associated with the auricular method with those who possess some degree of hear ing, and the manual method with those whose throat construc tion makes it impossible to produce sound. A special commission, appointed Aug. 12, 1901, to examine the report of Dr. Gomez, gave as their opinion, Jan. 5, 1902, that it would not be convenient to adopt the auricular method, nor to re-adppt the sign language in the school, as it would then be necessary to treble the teaching force and would introduce confusion in the classes. It was further agreed that, if the classes in drawing and lithography should be suppressed, as Dr. Gomez had recommended, it would take from the pupils the surest method of subsistence; since on account of their lack of hearing and speech they have developed a finer sense of touch and vision. On this account they are able to execute the finest details in drawing and to distinguish shades of coloring with the greatest precision. Full proof of this is seen in the large number of graduate pupils now employed in photography, lithography and painting, both in the Capital and in the States of the Republic. The course of study embraces : National language, arith metic, object lessons, elementary geometry, geography, book keeping, drawing and penmanship, gymnastics and horticulture. IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 49 As far as possible special classes are formed for the acquisition of some trade, by which the deaf-mute may afterwards earn his living. Great care is taken that whatever is learned shall be thoroughly practical and useful. For this purpose shops are maintained in the school, where the boys may become familiar with tailoring, shoe-making and lithography. Many of the students are being encouraged to prepare themselves for teach ing, so that the States of the Republic of Mexico may open special schools, or departments, for deaf-mutes in connection with their primary schools. Unless employed as teachers, at the conclus ion of their studies, they enter shops outside of the school ; and the special protection of the institution ceases. The school is, and has always been, entirely free from ec clesiastical control. The Minister of Justice and Public Instruc tion had control from the beginning until July 1891, when it passed to the control of the Minister of the Interior. A careful inquiry is made into the relationships between par ents, and as to any fits or dangerous diseases either they, or the child, or near relatives may have suffered; and as to whether either relatives or neighbors had been mutes. Other questions relate to age, temperament and natural intelligence. These questions are not always answered satisfactorily; but the present conclusion is that muteism is mainly due to the un- healthiness and consanguinity of parents. The number of pupils enrolled is about sixty, one-fourth of them being girls. All the efforts of the teachers and government officers are amply rewarded by the joy of breathing into these children of sorrow the breath of moral and intellectual life. IX. The Mexican National School for the Blind. (Escuela National de Ciegos.) After the school for the deaf mutes, had been firmly establish ed by the Government, it was hoped that the same strong help would not be refused to those unfortunate beings who were liv ing in perpetual darkness. Filled with this hope, Ignacio Trigueros redoubled his efforts to establish a school for them. The first difficulty was to find a teacher. He wrote to New York to secure one. Those who offered themselves imposed impossible conditions. The philanthropist found himself obliged, either to give up the idea or to learn for himself the method, and become the teacher. He knew of a blind man who had died leaving some books and writing apparatus. Mr. Trigueros called on the family and found them glad to aid him. He returned from his visit carry ing under his arm the appliances with which he hoped to give light to the blind. He entered immediately upon his studies and sought his first pupil, who soon surpassed his master in rapid reading and writing. He had type made with raised points. Later he ordered from Europe books of instruction and apparatus employed in arithmetical operations. Atlast the indefatigable Trigueros found himself possessed of a few books for the blind, some instruments and one pupil. A place to open his school was found in the old college of San Gregorio, from whose halls had gone forth in former times men noted for their learning and virtues. Later it had been an asylum for children of the working classes. Later still the School for Deaf-Mutes had found here a temporary home. We may say that the foundation of the present National School for the IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 51 Blind was laid in March, 1870, when Mr. Trigueros took pos session of some lower rooms in this historic structure, and had them cleaned and furnished at his own expense. Trigueros found employed in the Hospice for the Poor a man whom he taught the elements of his system, and who with self-abnegation, cast in his fortune with the new enterprise, and became the teacher of A, B, C's in the new school. At the end of 1870 the school had a Director, a primary teacher, four pupils and a few books and useful articles, in a very humble domicile. Trigueros continued to move as he could, with the result that in the following year, with the help of the first Minister of Justice and Public Instruction, a part of the "Old Convent of Instruc tion," used at that time as a state prison, was given by President Jaurez's government for the use of the school. Trigueros took possession May 9, 1871. With light hands, and light hearts, they moved their four pupils and few books and apparatus into the new edifice, which "seemed to smile with am plitude, ventilation and light ;" so much more agreeable was it than the low, damp and shadowy rooms they had left. In November of the same year, the Secretary of the Government decreed an impost upon the public lotteries, by which 15% of the product, (to be administered by the Board of Beneficence of which Trigueros was then President), should be given to the School for the Blind, "for the purpose," as was explained in a note, "of making the co-operation, which the President of the Republic was offering to this school, positive and efficacious." Trigueros took advantage of the good position in which he was now placed, and devoted his attention more carefully to the different establishments for the needy, and especially to the school organized by himself, which from that time began to feel the inspiration of adequate equipment, furniture, implements of labor, and instruments of music. Carpenters and masons came to make needed repairs, giving the air of elegance to the building; and the teachers began to receive proper compensation. Pupils began to come in, perhaps not so much with the desire to learn, as that they had heard of a free boarding-school where 52 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN they should have good food, clothes and beds — an accumulation of benefits undreamed of before. The time had come for the establishment of rules and regu lations for the management of the institution. The Minister of Government ordered the following: Art. 1. This school shall continue established in the part of the Ex-Convent of the Antigua Ensenanza which has been given to it by the Supreme Government for this laudable pur pose. In it shall be received without any expense whatever, the children of both sexes, between the ages of 8 and 10 years, who are blind and notably poor, where, besides receiving general train ing, board and lodging, they shall be cared for in the establish ment during the entire period of their studies, and attend the classes of the institution free of charge ; and those whose friends are able to pay something each month shall be admitted to the establishment, the payments going to the funds of the institution. Art. 2. The classes shall' be those which are already estab lished in the school, — classes in reading, writing, Spanish gram mar, arithmetic, geography, geometry, Mexican history, vocal and instrumental music, and in the arts and trades which are about to be established. , Art. 3. The school shall be under' the free direction of Mr. Ignacio Trigueros, as its founder; and shall consist of a professor and his assistant, both qualified to teach boys ; and one lady pro fessor and her assistant qualified to teach girls. For instruction in Arts and Trades the Director may choose the persons whom he considers best qualified and fix the amount of salary which they shall receive. Art. 4. The salaries of professors and their assistants and of other employees and the expenses of the establishment for the present year shall be: "The professor, per month, $100.00 ; his assistant, per month, $60.00; the lady professor, per month, $100.00; her assistant, per month, $60.00; administrator, per month, $70.00; a cook, per month, $8.00 ; kitchen girl, per month, $5.00 ; current expenses, per month, $60.00 ; a porter, per month, $12.00 ; chamber maid, IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 53 per month, $8.00 ; a care-taker for the boys, per month, $25.00 ; a care-taker for the girls, per month, $25.00." The total cost of the school for a year at that time was, therefore, $6,396.00. This outlay was probably met by the school's share in the proceeds of the lottery. For any additional expense, on account of the enlargement of the school, or for the purchase of necessary articles, the Director of the establishment was authorized to call upon the Minister of Government. In 1873 a larger body of professors was enrolled, — a teacher of brass instruments of music, one for the violin, another for the flute, another for the harp, one for the oboe, and fagot, and bandolon. A teacher of letters also taught piano and vocal music. Shops were opened for teaching tailoring, shoemak- ing, printing and book-binding; and a professor was appointed for the gymnasium. All needed instruments, furniture and ap paratus were provided. During the year a committee of the foremost citizens of Mexico was called in to examine the pupils, and was much pleased with the progress made. A public distri bution of rewards was held in the College of Mines at which the President of the Republic, Mr. Lerdo, distributed among the pupils according to their merit. $600.00 in money. The school advanced with great success in the years of 1873- 4-5. But in 1876 the lottery, which had furnished most of the funds, was suppressed. Then began a period of scarcity and difficulty. The shops had to be abolished ; and most of the teach ers were obliged to seek their living elsewhere. Hunger and nakedness were staring the school in the face. Besides the troubles without, there were dissensions within, until Gen. Diaz came into control of national affairs, and the School for the Blind, instead of depending upon the local Board of Beneficence, became a national affair, and its expenses were included in the general budget. Mr. Antonio Martinez de Castro became Director for a short period. The former success of the school was surpassed. More funds were at the disposition of the institution. The year's budget amounted to $10,500. The Director, who was always 54 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN studying the best way to bring the pupils into right relations with the world outside, introduced the writing machine, with raised letters on the keys. The speed with which the blind pupils were able to operate these machines suggested the possibility of em ploying them in business offices for direct dictation. A Students' Musical Club was formed, resembling somewhat "The Spanish Students' Club" of times long passed, when they wandered in groups from town to town, playing and singing merry tunes for diversion, or for self-support. A competent teacher was found to give the necessary instruction; and in a few months these blind students made their debut, on the occasion of the birthday of the Minister of the Government. They appeared at his country home in Tacubaya, arrayed in picturesque costumes. Standing in the shade of the majestic trees which surrounded his house, they filled the air with lively songs, which were warm ly applauded. They afterwards visited some of the neighboring cities, by invitation of the authorities, as a special attraction for Industrial Expositions, and were treated with the greatest consideration, both by public officials and by private citizens, who gave them handsome presents of money, which were placed in the "sav ings fund" for students. These cities also sent them diplomas of honor, which were placed upon the walls of the different class rooms, with other diplomas and medals which had been won by the exhibits of the students in Paris, Amsterdam, Mexico, Vera Cruz, Toluca, and Queretaro. The exhibits consisted of laces, floor-mats made of rushes or flags, woven fibres, brushes, print ing with points and raised letters, book-binding, and knitting of different kinds with needles or hooks. In order to be admitted to reside in the school, whether by payment or on the free list, it must be shown by certificate of birth or baptism, that the child has completed seven years of age, and is not over 15. He must bring the certificate of an accredited physician, showing clearly that the blindness is complete and incurable, that the child is not an epileptic, has no contagious disease, and has no bodily defect which will in- IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 55 terfere with taking the studies prescribed in the school, and that the applicant has had small-pox, or still has the scars of vaccina tion. He must have some family or persons residing in the City to make arrangements with the school, and to take charge of him during vacations ftnd days of festivity. If the child is to be a free pupil, it must be shown that his family absolutely lacks funds to pay his expenses. The regular charges are $15.00 per month for a paying pupil and he must furnish his own clothing. If he leaves the school, no part of this amount will be returned on account of the unexpired fraction of a month. There is no charge for day pupils ; but those who take their dinners at the school pay $5.00 a month for the mid-clay meal. The boarding scholars are dressed in uniforms "made to measure." The day scholars are permitted to wear such clothing as their circumstances permit. But they must be clean and have shoes on their feet. Detailed records are kept of every pupil, and great care is taken of his physical and moral welfare, outside the class room as well as in, both day and night. Mental, manual and musical training are combined in the excellent daily routine. At half past five in the morning, dur ing the summer, and' at six o'clock during the winter, the pupils rise. Most of them take a shower bath. When they are ready they pass to the dining room and take a light breakfast. Then the boys go to the gymnasium for exercise, while the girls wilk around the corridors. At 8 o'clock in the morning they all meet under the care of the warden and lady prefect, in one of the prin cipal halls, and sing with indescribable tenderness and pathos the praise of the Uncreated Being. Those who hear in silence often experience the most powerful emotion. , This service has been arranged in lieu of general religious instruction, for the purpose of cultivating the hearts of these unfortunate beings, who have never had vision, or have lost it after a brief time. Thus the sweet hope of future joy and of glorious light is held out before them. All sectarian religious instruction is excluded from gov ernment schools. After singing, the boys and girls are conducted to their respective class rooms, where they study from 8 to 11 ; 56 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN from 11 to 12 they practice singing; at 12 o'clock the girls go to their dining room up stairs, and the boys down stairs, for their dinner, after which they pass the time in recreation until 2 o'clock. From 2 until 5 o'clock the boys are in the shops' learn ing printing, book binding, tailoring, shoemaking, carpentering and lath making, or manufacturing tobacco, with the exception of those who are studying languages, either French or English, from 4 to 5 o'clock. The girls are busy the three hours of the afternoon in manual labor, including cigar making. The classes in music are held from 5 until 8 o'clock. They study the piano and harp, the flute, the bandolon, fagot and oboe, bow stringed instruments and brass horns. At 8 o'clock they return to the din ing room for their supper, after which they take some exercise; and at 9 o'clock they all go quietly to their respective dormito ries. On Saturday the program is changed ; and the school hours are from 8 to 10. From 10 a. m. to 12 m. they have instruction in orchestral music ; from 12 until 2 o'clock, dinner and recrea tion; from 5 to 7 o'clock, moral instruction; from 7 to 8 o'clock, bandolon. On Sundays the boys and girls go out for a walk. Members of their families come for them in the morning. Some of the larger boys, who are acquainted with the city, and have the per mission of their fathers, or tutors, are allowed to go alone. Those who are younger, and unacquainted with the city, and have no friends to take charge of them, are accompanied by an officer and an attendant, who take them out for an airing. The instruction is divided into primary and secondary, occu pying four and six years respectively. Pupils who have finished the four years of primary instruction, and who show no quali fication for the study of music, or for the other intellectual branches, have their principal attention directed to perfecting themselves in some trade which is taught in the school ; and they are required to repeat their primary studies. Those who are qualified for the secondary instruction are taught thoroughly in grammar, arithmetic and Mexican history, IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 57 and are given a course in general history and geography. They are taught the elements of astronomy, and the rights of citizens. Those who have a taste for it receive instruction in the theory and practice of music during the entire course of ten years, and are taught the perfect mastery of some one musical instrument of their own choosing. The industrial training is also carried through the entire ten years. Both public and private examinations are held. The pupils are strictly graded ; and a system of cash prizes is used to stimu late them. The amount is placed to the winner's account in the hands of the administrator,. together with a share in any general gifts which may be made to the pupils. Every pupil has his in dividual account into which the net products from the sales of any articles he has made are placed to his credit. This accumu lated fund the pupil takes with him when he graduates ; or, in case of need, with the permission of the Director, he may draw any amount up to $5.00. If the pupil is excluded from the insti tution for bad conduct, he loses his right to this reserve fund; and his portion is distributed among the other pupils, unless the Secretary of the Government decides otherwise. Most of the children of this institution come from the un happy and destitute class, and bear all the marks of misery and neglect. But the regular work, good food, perfect sanitary conditions, with the high moral environment, maintained by ceaseless vigilance, soon produce a perceptible improvement in the physical constitution and in the moral aptitudes of the pupils ; so that they live well and happy, in spite of their misfortunes. Those who have remained to complete their studies are wonder fully transformed. They return to their homes qualified, by their habits and manners and cultivated speech, to be received in the best society. Their industry, their skill in hand labor, and in music, for which they have a special predilection, makes them attractive as well as useful members of the society in which they live. The Government may well be satisfied with its work, in rescuing so many unhappy creatures from ignorance and misery. 58 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN The halls and gardens of the school are adorned with statues, and the walls with allegorical paintings. The work-rooms, living rooms, class rooms, and dormitories are kept in excellent hygienic condition, with all the necessary modern conveniences. A mon ument in one of the courts is crowned with a bronze eagle in commemoration of the day when the school was placed under the protection of the National Government. Courtesy of "The National Lines of Mexico. " General Porfirio Diaz, President of the Mexican Repub lic, Protector and Friend of Charities. XI. The National School of Arts and Trades. ("Escuela Nacional de Artes y Oficios.") This school was established in 1867 by the orders of the distinguished Citizen President, Benito Juarez. The institution is under civil management and is sustained by the General Gov ernment. The requirements for admission are, that the appli cant should have completed his course of primary instruction. and be twelve years of age. Instruction is given in the following trades and professions : Carpentry, lathe work, blacksmithing, foundry, stone cutting, electroplating, photography, lithography, typography, and tele graphy. After taking these studies in the school, the graduates are able to take positions and do the work. Similar schools in Europe have served as models for this establishment. There is as yet no book in the Spanish language which discusses ade quately this class of institution. This school has an enrollment of three hundred, with an average attendance of one hundred and eighty. Besides the work in the shops, the following subjects are studied: Arithmetic and geometry, the first and second courses in mathematics ; the first and second courses in mechanics ; chem istry, physics, French, English, lineal, mechanical and ornament al drawing, modelling and wood carving, theory of telegraphy, and knowledge of electrical and industrial machines. The school occupies about half of a very large block in the old convent of San Lorenzo, established the twenty-first of November, 1598, by four women of the order of St. Jerome and two of the order of Jesus Mary. One of them in her first noviti ate, contributed her property for the construction of the build ing. The friars and nuns were expelled from the monasteries 60 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN and convents in February, 1863., and the School of Arts and Trades was organized on a small scale in December, 1867. The old building was almost in ruins. It had been repaired from time to time; but considerable portions not needed by the school re main in picturesque dilapidation, a very interesting archeological relic. The best protection society can give to young girls, or to young women, is an education. No one can measure the sweep ing benefits to all classes which result from such a school as is described in the next chapter. Statue of Columbus, on the Paseo de la Reforma, City of Mexico. The School of Arts and Trades for Women. ("La Escuela de Artes y Oficios Para Mujeres.") This school is under the very intelligent management of Mr. Zamacona, who was at one time minister to the United States, under appointment of President Lerdo. He is at present one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Mexico. There is no printed history of the school, or other matter giving information in regard to it. The institution was established in 1871 by President Juarez, and is sustained by the General Gov ernment, a part of the "funds for general education" being set aside for this school. There is no revenue produced from any work done in the school. ' The pupils who produce anything of value are allowed to sell it, and use the money for their own benefit. Any girl or young woman with reasonably good health and good moral character may enter the school and enjoy the bene fit of free instruction. There are competent teachers giving in struction in dress-making, embroidery, millinery, and sewing machine work, cooking, photography, telegraphy, stenography, typewriting, hand lace making, painting, drawing, bookkeeping and English. There is a small store where specimens of their art work are left to be sold. They are also exhibited in a show-window of the institution. And the young ladies seek purchasers, or take orders for their own work. Diplomas, or certificates of recommendation, are given to the girls to help them find situa tions at the close of their school training, and their future success depends on their personal ability and application. The institution was established in the first place for the bene fit of the lower class of women, and was intended to teach them how to earn a living, in the most humble occupations of life, such 62 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN as cooking and plain sewing. But that class of pupils did not avail themselves of the benefits offered; and in consequence the school has changed somewhat to meet the demands made upon it; and now the girls belonging to the higher class of society, known as "gente de tapalo," are taking advantage of the school. Girls of this class in former times were kept very much secluded in the home, and never allowed to go out, except in company with some other responsible member of the family. But now they are anxious and enthusiastic to enter into the competitions of life, and gain an honorable living for themselves. For this reason various departments of instruction have been changed to meet their needs. During the school year of 1902 a little over 1200 pupils were enrolled in the school. The average daily attendance is a little over 600. The system of teaching and subjects studied do not make daily punctual attendance so necessary as it is in ordinary schools. The management has never neglected the study of similar institutions in Europe and in the United States, and keeps abreast of the most advanced. Equestrian Statue of Charles IV. Comparable with that of Hadrian in Rome. XII. The Laws Relating to Children. At this period a new and advanced code of laws relating to children became effective in the Federal District, Dec. 20, 1871. Chapter X. of the Penal Code treats of preventive confine ment in educational institutions. This treatment is applied to children under nine years of age, when it is believed necessary, whether on account of the incompetency of those who have them in charge to give them an education, or on account of the gravity of the offence which has been committed. The same rule ap plies to children over nine and under fourteen years of age who without discernment have violated some penal law. The term of the committment is fixed by the judge with the purpose of making it long enough for the accused to complete his primary education; only the term must not exceed six years. Neither judges nor governmental authorities are allowed to place in a correctional establishment for education, neither are they allowed to be admitted therein, youths who have been con demned on account of delinquencies committed with discern ment. The proceedings of inquiry into accusations against children under fourteen years of age must be conducted in the Correctional School, and not in the court. If it turns out that the children acted knowingly in breaking the law, they are transfer red to the establishment for penal correction. In the cases mentioned above, the judge who ordered the committment may order the release whenever by improved con duct and completed education the person gives assurance that he may be returned to his family with safety to society. If his primary education is not finished at the time of release, there 64 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN must be assurance that the person will be able to complete it outside of the institution. Deaf-mutes who break the penal law, according to their age and discernment, are sent to their homes, or to the School for Deaf-mutes, for the time required to give them an education. The expenses of preventive confinement are paid by the State, if the family, or guardians, are unable to pay. When a foolish or weak minded child, not being criminally responsible, commits an offense he is sent to his home under bonds sufficient to guarantee the payment of any future liabilities which may be incurred by lack of vigilance on the part of the person in charge of the offender. In case no such guarantees are given, or when the judge considers that the interests of society demand it, the person accused is sent to the proper institution with special recommendation that vigilant care and custody be exercised. Bonds may be required for the good conduct of any accused person. A promise of good behavior may be exacted of any person whose bad antecedents cause fear that he may commit some given crime, and with notification that if the crime is committed, it will be treated as a second offence. The judge may give, publicly or privately, as he thinks best, a fatherly ad monition, advising the accused, and trying to have him see the consequences of his act, inciting him to amendment, and threat ening him with greater punishment if any offence is repeated. Persons may be placed under police surveillance, care being taken that no public prejudice result to the person watched. Confinement in an establishment for penal correction is ef fected fn an institution destined exclusively for that purpose. Boys over nine and under eighteeen years of age who have been delinquent with discernment, while suffering the penalty, re ceive moral and physical education. When first admitted they are kept in solitary confinement for from eight to twenty days, according to the gravity of their offense. After this period they work with the others, unless their bad conduct makes further solitude necessary. (Codigo Penal Capitulo V.) in the city of mexico. 65 Provisional Liberty. Persons committed to a penal correctional establishment for a term of two or more .years, after keeping up a standard of good conduct for a period equal to half of their allotted time, may obtain provisional liberty for the remainder of the time, provided they have not only conformed to the rules of the prison, but give positive indications of having acquired habits of order, labor, and morality, and have overcome the weakness, or passion, which led to their arrest. They must show that they have the means of gaining an honest living, and must have secured em ployment with a suitable person during the time of their pro visional liberty. If they fall into bad company, or bad habits, they may be recalled, (p. 34.) Infanticide. Intentional infanticide, when caused by an act or omission of the mother, is punishable with four years of imprisonment, provided the act was committed to hide her dishonor, and pro vided further that she did not have a bad name,' and that the birth had been kept a secret, not being recorded in the civil register, and that the infant was illegitimate. If these condi tions are lacking the imprisonment may be increased to eight years. If some other person than the mother commits the crime, eight years of imprisonment are imposed ; and if it was the act of a doctor or professional midwife, the imprisonment is for nine years, and the person is forever debarred from practic ing his or her profession. (Codigo Penal pp. 164-5.) Exposing and Abandoning Children. Exposing and abandoning a child under seven years of age in a solitary place, where the child's life is jeopardized, is pun ishable with two years of imprisonment and a fine of from fifty to five hundred dollars, provided no harm results to the child, and the crime was not committed by some natural protector of the child. The parents or natural protectors would be punishable with three years imprisonment and from one hundred to one bb CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN thousand dollars fine, and they lose all right to the child's prop erty and person. If the child suffer wounds, or death, the crim inal is punishable according to the evident intentions in the case. Vagrancy. When parents or tutors abandon children under sixteen years of age to dissolute company, vagrancy or begging, they are pun ishable with major arrest: that is, from one to eleven months confinement. A vagrant over fourteen and under eighteen years of age is punishable with major arrest, unless bonds be given for his release. An Aztec Idol. XIII. Children in the Asylum for Beggars. ("El Asilo de Meudigos.") One may object to the name. The reason assigned for it is that every one may know that there is a home provided for this class, and that persons solicited for alms may properly decline to help those who prefer to be mendicants, rather than have a respectable home in this institution, where they will be properly cared for, if found worthy. This benevolent institution was founded in 1879, as a 'private charity. It is managed by a Board of Directors, who have the moral support of the municipal authorities. At the beginning of their history the City Council gave them $2,000. One-half of which was used to purchase property. The other half was applied to adapt the building to its new use and to buy beds and other furnishings. To the original lot, a larger one was added, until the property measured a hundred meters in length, by sixty in depth. And to the very humble building, originally bought for the establishment, there were added, little by little, ample de partments, and all that was necessary to accommodate 350 inmates. So that at the beginning of the year 1900, the institu tion had fourteen dormitories, 4 dining rooms, 3 schools, and a carpenter shop for the work required in the institution itself. There is also a shoe shop, in which the shoes for the inmates are made, and some are sold to the public. There is a large kitchen, where food for five hundred inmates could be prepared and anoth er kitchen where the girls of the institution learn to cook. There are, besides, a dispensary, wash-rooms, and courts for work and for recreation, with gardens sufficiently ample, small dwelling places for employees, a good sized hall for meetings of the Board, and a neat little Chapel, which is also used as a place of 68 charities for children worship by the neighborhood. This Chapel, modest and simple in its construction, is the pride of the asylum. On Sept. 1, 1897, the asylum had 172 old people, and a hun dred and seventy-seven boys and girls. The old people live here, resting from their bitter toils and are not obliged to do even the work of cleaning up the department, unless their age and health permit. The boys, who are educated sufficiently, work in the shops; and the younger boys study in the schools of the establishment, following the program of instruction of the public schools, and are examined by some one appointed by the Director General of Primary Instruction. Their studies occupy four years. They are instructed in the Catholic religion, in English, in French, and in choral music. In the latter classes 200 boys and girls take part. Day pupils are also received, the very poor being given their dinners at noon. The teachers are Sisters of the Order of Josefina. The classes in languages and music are in charge of men. The instruction in religion is given by the Chaplain. Neither the old nor young lack for anything needful. The establishment has made progress in material things, and has maintained healthful conditions, both physically and morally. A published list of the names of children placed out shows that between December 1888 and March 1897, 14 boys were adopted by families, or placed out at service. And between October 1880, and January 1900, 45 girls were so placed. Other girls were taken by their friends and placed in families. One cannot help remarking that the number placed in fami lies, being only 59 in 20 years, is out of all proportion to the num ber in the institution. May we not hope that at no distant day, the charitable people of the world will make it impossible to keep children in poor houses? The register of the asylum, on Aug. 31, 1899, showed 161 old people, and 201 young men and boys. The institution received in two years, in regular monthly pay ments of charitable individuals, $33,917.00, and in different sums from different people, $16,532.09. Extraordinary donations IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 69 were received: $8,553.67 from legacies, $808.32 from two bene fit performances of Orrin's Circus; $42.28 from the Mexican National Circus; $183.47, from the sale of things given to the asylum; $1,018.22, from charity boxes placed in churches and stores; $288.10, for work done in the shops. The institution encourages the payment of monthly, or yearly, donations, by publishing and circulating the list of donors. The shops of the Asylum were established for the purpose of apprenticing boys who had finished their primary education. When there is not room to teach them all, they are sent to private shops, where they are paid according to the work they do. From this money, a savings bank account is established, from which they buy clothing and shoes. So, little by little, they learn to take care of themselves, and go out into the world to make their living. As a proof of the success of these methods, the Board calls attention to one graduate who deposited his savings until he had a sufficient sum to buy land in a desirable suburb and trying to earn money to build a house there. Another case mentioned for the encouragement of subscrib ers is that of two orphans, children of a notable Mexican sculptor, who died poor and bereft of reason. One of the children, a boy of 14, after educating himself in the asylum, showed an intense desire to study for the priesthood, and was admitted to the Seminary, by special permission of the Archbishop. His sister is being educated in the College of Josefina. The asylum founded in 1879, in pain and sorrow, has now recorded in its history many noble results of its charitable enter prise. In May, 1882, at the solicitation of the Secretary of the Government, all the old ladies from the Hospicio de Pobres were received into this institution. Out of 1063 boys and girls received into the institution, 196 have concluded their primary education and passed to the shops, or to service in families. Others were taken away by their relatives; and a few ran away from the establishment. A peculiarity of this asylum consists in the relative liberty which the older inmates have to go out in turn every two weeks, CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN with the exception of Saturday, the day elected by the outside poor, to solicit alms. The asylum, besides helping the unfortu nate, attempts to moralize and educate the children, and to find out those who are worthy of help. Up to the present time, no worthy applicant has gone without assistance. When this insti tution was established a thousand beggars were wandering through the streets of the city; and in spite of the fact that this institution is ready to relieve distress, many still wander through the streets, sure of the alms of the people. In twenty years the institution had furnished 2,275,570 rations at a cost of $229,226.14. $99,696.01 had been expended in buildings ; $50,377.97 had been expended in other necessary things. In the same time only 21 children died; and all were bur ied decently, and prayers are offered for their souls in the Chapel of the institution, where three masses are celebrated on Sundays and Feast Days, the expense of the same being provided by the alms of the people, or when necessary, by the asylum itself. From the report of the Asylum submitted Feb. 28, 1902, we learn, that in the examinations hejd Dec, 1900, the examining officer was pleased with the work of the three schools of the institution. Eight boys and six girls were passed to the shops of the asylum, or to other private shops. The practice has been continued of receiving boys and girls as day pupils, and of giving a dinner to the most needy of them. In the month of July, 1901, four of the inmates of the insti tution contracted marriage, the ceremony being performed in the Chapel with appropriate formalities, after they had complied with the civil law, which requires that a civil judge shall solem nize all marriages. These two pairs have their home, which they sustain with the product of their labor, and constitute two fami lies that will doubtless be useful to society. From the 1st of September, 1900, to the 31st of August, 1901, 13 boys went out from the institution prepared to earn their living either as book-binder, shoemaker, carpenter, pressman, typesetter, or office clerk. They had spent an average of 8 8-13 years in the institution. The pressman had spent 21 years and IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 71 the typesetter 14 years. Evidently they had been useful to the institution. In the list of apprentices, there are boys and old men learn ing some trade in the shops. From September 1, 1900, to August 31, 1901, 21 boys and 28 girls were received into the institution ; 37 boys and 31 girls left it. There were 102 boys and 73 girls in the institution at the close of the year. The number of persons in the asylum Oct. 7, 1902, was : In valid old men, 78 ; boys in the school. 90 ; young men working in the shops, 13 ; invalid old women, 82 ; girls in the school 65 ; girls over 14 at work, 12 ; total, 340. Mr. Francisco Diaz de Leon, the founder of the establish ment and its Director, is in charge of the Stamp Department of the Government, where he works during the day, but lives in the Asylum with his family, and looks after its details, as a father looks after his children. My informant on this point says, "I was especially invited to be present at a concert given on the Director's Saint's Day. I was received by Mr. Diaz de Leon with much kindness, and was given much information about the institution. The exercises consisted of declamations, dialogues and songs. The children that took part, were as intelligent and good looking as the children of the wealthier people outside, and took their part as well." Chapultepec XIV. The Correctional School for Boys. ("La Escuela Correctional.") The Correctional School in the City of Mexico was establish ed in 1880 by the Government, at first as an agricultural school outside of the city ; but later it was moved into the old Convent of St. Peter and St. Paul in the city, and has occupied that posi tion until the present time. Within a year or two, the school will be moved to specially constructed buildings in the pictur esque suburb of Tlapam. The institution is sustained and man aged by the Government ; and no formal religious service can be held within its walls. Private services may be conducted for the benefit of the sick or dying who ask for a priest or minister. This rule is maintained, with but slight variation, in all of the institutions sustained by the Government. The mechanical de partments of the institution are generally self-supporting. The best masters are secured to teach practical mechanics. The things produced are sold at prices yielding a net profit to the boys after deducting cost of material and salaries of teachers. This -ule is applied, with more or less variation, in all of the schools where boys and girls are taught to work; and they thus become producers of a fund from which they draw a proper share when they go from the institution to gain a living for themselves. Boys are admitted between the ages of fourteen and eighteen years; but they are considered of age at eighteen, and are allowed to leave the institution no matter how brief their stay there may have been. There are three classes of boys in the institution. First, there are boys who have been guilty of crimes more or less grave, and have been sentenced by a criminal court to spend some time in the school proportioned to the gravity of IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 73 their offenses. The second class consists of boys that have been gathered in from the streets as vagrants, and appear to have no home. In the third class are boys whose parents can not manage them, and they are taken to the school of correction to learn some useful trade. The average number of all classes is about 300, divided as follows: 60% are put in by their parents as boys wfio can not be managed at home; about 35% are brought by policemen as vagrants, or sneak thieves. The remaining 5% are sentenced for some special crime. Thus it will be seen that the number of actual criminals in the school is always small. The Governor of the Federal District has charge of all the boys in the insti tution; and within the law he disposes of them in the manner that may appear best to him. Of the whole number received, about 30% learn some good trade, and at the age of eighteen go out to make their own living, and are considered well reform ed and fully capable of earning an honest living. The remain ing 70% who go out at the age of eighteen years are not so certainly reformed, and not so competent. The trades learned are carpentering, cabinet making, carving, turning, making models, blacksmithing, turning of metals, brass founding, tin smithing, brass work in general, making saddle trees and saddles, printing, book binding and shoe-making. A part of each day is spent in school in which the courses corres pond with the four years of elementary instruction in the gov ernment schools and are supposed to be sufficient to prepare the inmates for success in any of the mechanical trades which they are expected to learn and use in gaining a living as good citizens. In music they are taught to play string and wind instru ments. This instruction prepares them for serving in the army, at theatres and balls, and in other places where good prices are paid. Preference is given to these boys when workmen are needed on public buildings; but there is no special protection shown them after they leave the school of correction. The managers of this school have not followed any other institutions as models, but have worked out their own method with the help of available literature on the subject. XV. The Mexican Philanthropical Society. ("Sociedad Filantropica Mexicana.") This Society was founded January 31, 1888, and controls the "Asilo de Regeneration e Infancia." (Asylum for the Regeneration of Wayward Young Women and for the Protec tion of Infancy.) At the date of this report there were in the institution thir ty women over fifteen years of age, and forty-six girls under 15 years of age. The officers in charge are a lady Director and her assistant, two teachers, and three other paid workers. The number of inmates varies from week to week. The Government of the Federal District furnishes the building and food for the in stitution ; while the Philantropical Society furnishes clothing and instruction, and pays the salaries of employees. Some of the inmates have entered this institution voluntarily with a desire to reform; some have been sent there by their par ents or guardians; and others have been committed by the Gov ernor of the Federal District. There is a small Chapel in which a priest, called by the Socie ty and appointed by the Archbishop, holds a weekly service. A monthly paper, of eight pages, is published, entitled, "El Bien S°tial." In the issue of August 1, 1902, the Committee of Visitors of the sewing rooms state that there were 316 and 304 persons present, in halls No. 2 and 3 respectively, during the preceding month of April. These were mostly day pupils. The committee of Vigilance of the asylum, reported that in the month of June, 1902, one child was received and one young woman ran away, leaving the actual number of seventy-two in the asylum. A sample of the month's expense, is as follows : Food, IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 75 $46.85. In the paste board box class, $10.09 ; five pieces of mus lin, $23.75; extra expenses, $19.74; charcoal, $16.00; vegetables, $25.00; balance for the previous month, $21.00; total expenses, $215.43. The Mexican Philanthropical Society was organized "for the purpose of inculcating morality and advancing public instruc tion by a free distribution of papers and tracts and by establish ing conferences among criminals, laborers and the ignorant masses." They also sought to extend beneficient aid to the help less and destitute social classes by founding adequate institutions, preferably those which furnish the necessary help by providing some kind of work. The society stands ready to avail itself of any means which give promise of realizing its object. The dis cussion of political and religious subjects is excluded from its publications. Rules for The Girls' Department. Young girls who are beginning a career of vice may be con signed to this institution by the Governor of the Federal Dis trict. An indispensable requisite for admission is that they have no contagious disease. The effort is to reform them by means of instruction and labour and good example. The greatest care is given to their moral and industrial training in order that they may know how to earn an honorable living. Children who distinguish themselves by their application or good conduct are appropriately rewarded. Whenever the girls have made satisfactory progress in their intellectual, moral and manual training, the Board of Directors of the Society gives notice to the Governor of the District that he may act in the case. Members of the family, designated by the .board of vigilance, are permitted to visit the children on prescribed days. Whenever a girl proves incorrigible and her influence pernicious, the case is reported to the Governor of the District for suitable action. All ordinary questions are settled by the Board of Directors. The resources of this society consist of appropriations by 76 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN the authorities, legacies and gifts of individuals, the regular monthly subscriptions of members and one-half of the net pro duct from the labors of inmates. Every two months the Board of Directors designate three property owners who act as a Com mittee of Vigilance. It is their duty to visit the Refuge at least once a week, and report once a month on the progress and needs of the work, and decide upon applications for admission to the asylum. When the labor of the inmates produces any income, it shall be divided into two equal parts, one for the benefit of the Asylum ; the other is placed in a fund for the immediate benefit of the in mates, or for a dowery fund when they leave the institution. In-i mates who are qualified to have the care of one or more children, may be assigned such duty ; the care which they bestow upon the children being taken into account in their deportment and in the distribution of premiums. A library of moral, instructive, and agreeable books is being established for the use of the in mates. When an inmate is ready to leave the Asylum the Philanthrop ical Society tries to find employment and gives all possible pro-. tection. No one v/ho has been dismissed on account of bad conduct is re-admitted to the institution until after one year, counting from the day of her departure. If an inmate leaves at her own request and not on account of bad conduct, she is not admitted again until after six months from the time of her leaving. One who leaves a second time is never re-admitted. The trades taught depend upon the ability of the society and the aptitude of the inmates. y^H^ s .-snar ¦.-— V -\ ^Sfe, vT- ' ' f% 3 3 • . . '^8?Sifes^ W'y •' . • ' \ • Jft :^f y*. - ¦'-[ y f.' ._ . . - ....:. v ' ¦ ¦' XVI. The Columbian Asylum. ("El Asilo Colon.") The Columbian Asylum is a school of arts and trades for girls. It was founded in the year 1891, and is under the direc tion of Father Antonio Icaza, who is pastor of one of the churches in the suburban colony of Santa Julia where the school is located. The building occupies a large plat of ground, but was only partially completed at the date of these observations, November, 1902. The person gathering information was cordial ly received and conducted through the establishment by an Irish nun who had recently arrived from San Antonio, Texas, and who occupied the position of sub-director. There are three or four other nuns, Irish or Mexican, who serve as teachers, or work in other departments. These nuns are of the order of the Divine Word, ("El Divino Verbo"). The Columbian Asylum is under the protection of "Our La dy of Sorrows," and was founded for the purpose of receiving poor children, and is sustained by a regularly incorporated socie ty of ladies, under the name "Co-operative Society of the Colum bian Asylum." (Sociedad Cooperativa del Asilo Colon.) The work is strictly within ecclesiastical lines. The girls are receiv ed for the purpose of educating and training them in religious principles, in sentiments of honor, and in habits of industry. The only requirement for their admission is their poverty and room for them in the asylum. The program of primary public instruction is followed, together with training in ordinary hand labor, in domestic science, in typewriting, and in whatever is necessary to fit them for employment in commercial offices. There are one hundred and twenty girls in the institution. XVII. The Public Schools. The state of public education largely affects child-saving in stitutions. On the re-establishment of constitutional government after the death of the Archduke Maximilian, and the return of Pres ident Juarez to the Capital, public instruction was in a demoral ized condition. The first attention of the Government was turn ed to the building up of the schools. Dr. Gabino Barreda, a distinguished disciple of Comte, was given charge of organizing public instruction. He laid out a splendid modern program of education. A decree was issued Dec. 2, 1867, making primary education gratuitous, obligatory, and secular, excluding all religious and metaphysical subjects from the curriculum. Notwithstanding the poverty resulting from prolonged wars, great progress was made, and in the year 1874 it was found that there were in the Republic 8,103 schools with an enrollment of 349,000 pupils, and that of these schools 2,000 were private and 117 clerical. In 1900 there were 11,590 schools, mostly in appropriate buildings, with an attendance of 764,353 pupils; 369 of these schools were clerical with an at tendance of 27,811. Laws were passed to give life and strength to the education al systerfi, as it was found impossible to secure the results de sired. A Congress of Education composed of delegates from all the States was called which began its work December, 1889, and concluded its sittings March 31, 1890. It recommended the es tablishment of a uniform national system of secular education, which should be free and compulsory for all children from six to twelve years of age. The Congress further declared that pro vision should be made for the education of adults who had not IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 79 had early opportunities ; and that education should be made com pulsory in soldiers' barracks, and in jails, penitentiaries and cor rectional schools. The law of compulsory education became effective in the Fed eral District and Territories January 7, 1892. (pp. 40-43). The program of primary public instruction in Mexico aims to secure the physical, intellectual and moral education of the pupil. The effort is made to place the child in hygienic conditions favorable to general bodily development, and to "impart manual and sen sorial dexterity, and agility, while cultivating intellectuality and imparting the indispensable elements of knowledge, and complet ing the instruction by forming in the pupil good sentiments, and excellence of moral character." The teaching of religion is prohibited in the public schools. That is believed to be the work of the family, or of private schools, which are not interfered with, so long as they keep up with the program of public instruction, which teaches scholar ship, industry and patriotism. The course of studies includes practical morals and civics, reading and writing the national language, arithmetic, notions of physical and natural science, of geometry, geography and national history ; lessons in drawing simple outlines of usual plain objects ; instruction in singing, in gymnastics and military drills for boys and in manual labor for girls. This program is worked out in a period of four years and is enforced in National, municipal and private schools and charitable institutions for children in the City of Mexico. A Council of Vigilance composed of the Commissioner or Inspector of Police and two citizens of each of the various City Wards is appointed annually, by the Director of Primary Instruc tion, whose duty it is to keep a -register of all children of school age, and to keep informed as to their attendance or non-attendance in public or private schools, and to report infractions of the law, which are punishable by fines or imprisonment. Bodily infirmi ty, too great a distance (more than a mile and a quarter) from school, or a certificate showing that the child has passed the re quired grade are the only acceptable excuses for non-attendance. 80 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN Parents, or guardians have the unavoidable duty of securing primary elementary instruction for the children. No owner or administrator of country property, or of industri al establishments, is allowed to receive into his employ children under 12 years; unless they present a certificate showing that they have completed their primary elementary instruction. Mi nors of 12 years may, however, be employed where a school is maintained in which they study the subjects required by law for at least three hours a day. Public school children may also be employed outside of school hours. For the con venience of schools in country places, or in factories, or shops, a special program of studies is provided for half time; and the children are divided in two groups, half of them receiving in struction in the morning and half in the afternoon. The obliga tion is always considered to have been complied with when a certificate of examination shows that the child has completed his studies. Every one has a chance to learn. In the Capital there are free schools for all sorts and conditions of men, women and children including the blind and deaf. Besides primary and sec ondary schools with day and evening classes, there is offered free instruction in music, medicine, law, commerce, engineering, in military science and mining, in agriculture and veterinary sci ence. There are normal schools for men and women and all that belongs to an Academy of Arts, besides instruction in the ordi nary arts and trades and all that ambitious scientific, literary, and professional students require to fit them for a career. XVIII. The School of the Salesians. ("Colegio de San Francisco de Sales.") In the Colonia de Sta. Julia is situated one of the schools of this religious order, which has similar institutions in many parts of the world. This school was established in 1892, and is en tirely under ecclesiastical control. It is sustained by charitable contributions of people throughout the Republic of Mexico. The methods employed are the same as in other schools; and the lessons taught are those usually followed in Primary Schools. After completing these studies, the children pass to the shops for practical instruction in printing, carpentry, book-binding, blacksmithing, shoe making, etc. It is held that apprenticeship in some art or trade prepares the pupils for the competitions of life. The different schools of Europe have served as models for the establishment of this institution. Applicants for admission must be over ten years of age and under sixteen, sound, robust, and well disposed in person and must have an aptitude for studying some art or trade taught in the school. He must show certificates of character, of baptism, and of vaccination. In order to be received gratuously, he must show that he has neither father nor mother living, and is poor and abandoned. If he has brothers, uncles, or other relatives, who are able to care for him, he cannot be admitted gratuously. Those who are admitted gratuously, must bring the same equip ment as the paying scholars and conform to the general condi tions. The number of free scholarships depends upon the funds contributed by co-operating Salesians. Those who are not admit ted gratis pay a matriculation fee of ten dollars, besides fees of ten dollars a month in advance. Failure to make such payment is 82 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN interpreted as a desire to have the pupil return to his home. Some exceptions in regard to age and payment are made. The required equipment for all children entering school in cludes the usual articles of clothing, with brushes, towels, sheets and pillow cases, all marked with the number designated by the registrar. No pupil is allowed to go out of the institution ex cept in cases of grave illness of parents. All expense for books, clothes, shoes, and for articles used in class, or in the shops, is paid for by the pupil. If a pupil leaves the school within a week after his entrance, he has no right to the return of any part of the month's payment. The director endeavors to have the pu pil keep his clothes and other things in good order, but is not responsible for any piece of clothing that may be lost. The children are not permitted to receive food or to keep money, knives, watches or other articles of value. They should be delivered to the teacher. The pupils may be visited by their parents or guardians in the reception room of the school on the day and hours appointed. Irreligion, immorality, stealing, or habitual insubordination are sufficient causes for expulsion from the school. The priests who have charge of the school are all Italians who have similar institutions in many parts of Europe, and in some parts of the United States. Some of them act as teachers, others are heads of the departments of manual training. All are dressed in the robes of their order. The pupils and apprentices all live in the. building; and none are received as day pupils. The building occupies the space of two blocks. One-half of it is occupied by the boys' department and the other by the Sales- ian School for Girls. The church of the order when erected will stand between the two. At the time of this report there were three hundred and fifty boys and three hundred girls enrolled as pupils ; fifteen men were teaching and twenty-five ladies. There are two systems always used in the education of the young: the preventive system, and the repressive system. The repressive system consists in making them understand the laws and watching to discover the transgressors, and apply the neces- IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 83 sary punishment. In this system the word and aspect of the mas ter must be severe and threatening, and he must avoid all famil iarity with his pupils, and rarely mingle with them, never when handling a case of discipline. This system is easy, less wearisome, and especially helpful in military schools, and in deal ing with adult pupils. The preventive system consists in watching the pupils with vigilant eye and correcting them with affection, making it im possible for them to commit grave faults. This system rests entirely upon reason and religion; conse quently love excludes all violent punishment and seeks to alle viate even the lightest. Under this system the pupil is not hard ened by his fault nor maddened by the correctional punishment threatened or administered. Friendly advice wins his heart and makes him see the necessity of punishment and almost to desire it. Children forget the disciplinary rules and punishments which threaten them and often commit faults and incur punish ments which would have been avoided by a friendly admonition. The repressive system, may prevent disorder without im proving the disorderly. Children remember violent punishments, but forget the fault committed and often cherish anger and seek revenge, even to old age. On the other hand the preventive sys tem, makes a friend of the pupil who sees in the preceptor a well-wisher who advises him and desires to do him good, by delivering him from the mortification of dishonorable punish ments. The teacher who has gained the heart of his pupil exer cises over him a powerful influence, correcting, consulting and reproving, not only while present, but afterwards when he is beyond the teacher's power. The practice of this system is based upon the words of St. Paul: "Charity never faileth. Charity beareth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." Rea son and religion are the instruments which the preceptor must constantly use, teaching and practicing them himself if he wishes to be obeyed and to accomplish his end. For this reason the di rector feels that he must be entirely consecrated to his pupils, and undertake no work which would separate him from his 84 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN office, but on the contrary should always place himself among his pupils having no occupation or obligation which hinders it. The instructors and heads of the shops must be persons of recognized morality, who try at whatever cost to secure the af fection and friendship of their pupils, and remember that the loss of one of them may affect the entire institution. They must see that the pupils are never alone and never unoccupied. They have ample liberty to leap, run, and shout, and divert themselves at their pleasure. The gymnasium, music, declama tion, theatrical performance, or walks in the open air are the most effective means of obtaining discipline, morality and health. The saying of San Felipe Neri is observed: "Do whatever you please only do not sin." While faithful attendance upon religious duties is a necessary support of this system no threats or punishments are used in religious matters. The method is not to compel attendance, but to encourage and make it easy for the pupil. The greatness, the beauty and the holiness of re ligion are set before him as useful and indispensable for the welfare of society, the tranquility of the heart, and the salvation of the soul. In this way the pupils are spontaneously moved to the practices of piety in which they find both pleasure and profit. Great care is taken to exclude from the school objec tionable books and visitors. Every morning after the ordinary prayers a few words are addressed to all the pupils giving ad vice or counsel about things to be done or not done, using for illustration the things that have happened the preceding day in the school or outside. These talks not exceeding two or three minutes, aim to strike the key-note of morality and success in education. The advocate of this system claims that in forty years of experience he has been able to obtain, without violent punish ments, not only what was necessary, but what was merely de sirable, even with boys for whom all hope of success seemed lost. XIX. The Daughters of Beneficence. ("Las Hijas de la Beneficencia.") This is an Order established in Mexico City in 1894. Be sides caring for the sick of all ages and conditions, they have opened and are sustaining five schools. Three of them are for poor girls, where everything is gratuitous and the girls are in structed according to their needs. The effort is made to lay the solid foundation for a good moral character, and to teach some branches which will enable them to gain an honorable living. Each year their clothing, books and necessary utensils are given them as a reward for their pains and application. Many children are cared for; and these schools are a great comfort to the poor families who are able to send their children with confidence to these places of shelter. The other two schools are for girls and young ladies, where those within and without the city are received as boarding pupils and instructed in the fundamental principles of morality and religion, and in domestic science. The cost is moderate. This establishment is truly useful and benefi cial to society. No speculations are indulged in. The aim of the Congregation is "to lead the girls in the path of true enlighten ment, as the only sufficient assurance of the happiness of the indi vidual, the peace of the family, and the regeneration of the com munity." They hope to open an orphanage, or an asylum, and are always ready to serve without compensation in any of the charitable institutions of the Government. Being Mexicans in blood and in heart, they wish to be useful to their beloved coun try ; and being fervent Catholics, they wish to offer some service to the cause of their religion; and being Daughters of Benefi cence, they are ready to sacrifice their life for the welfare of their sisters and are ready to go to the aid of the sick and poor, and especially of orphan children; and in serving and helping them, they find their own happiness. XX. The Shelter and School of the Sisters of Charity. ("Las Hermanas de la Caridad.") In 1894 The Sisters of Charity ("Las Hermanas de la Cari dad") opened a shelter and school for children. They occupy a three story private house, where eighty poor children are cared for as inmates because of the inability of their parents to pro vide for them. There are also twenty-eight orphans in the home ; and twenty others live there whose parents or guardians pay for their board and education. Seventeen sisters live in the house or in another house nearby. The Directors of Municipal Schools send a committee every year to examine the scholars ' in conformity with the public school law. Popocatepetl Overlooking the Valley of Mexico on the East. XXI. Father Hunt's Working Boys' Home. ("Hogar de Nihos Trabajadores.") This institution was founded Aug. 15, 1896, and is under the direct supervision of the Rev. A. M. Hunt-Cortes, a native of New Orleans, of Spanish-Irish descent, but for more than a third of a century a resident of Mexico. On becoming a priest about ten years ago, he saw the need of an industrial school, where well-disposed young boys of the middle class, thrust upon the world and having to rely on their own resources, might have some one to encourage and care for them, giving attention to their habits, and manners, in order that they might become worthy and respected young men. To meet this need Father Hunt organized this school, where boys are trained for positions in stores, banks, and business houses; and after they are thus employed outside, they remain in this Home, until it is convenient to find or make another for themselves. As a reward and distinction for the little fellows, medals, premiums, outing parties, picnics, and other amusements suita ble for youths are often given, so that the establishment may have for them the attractions of a real "Home." Boys are re ceived between the ages of 6 and 15. There are upwards of 150 in the school. The Home is far from self-supporting, and ap peals to the sympathy of the public for clothing, provisions, mon ey, of any useful thing. Visitors are welcome at all hours. En glish, French, Spanish, and Aztec are spoken at the Home. XXII. Feeble Minded Children. In the insane asylum for women, ("El Hospital de Mujeres Dementes"), situated in la Calle de la Canoa, Sept. 1, 1902, there were twelve girls of more or less intelligence, who were classed as "idiots from birth, or as degenerates whose minds had become enfeebled by disease." These are under, the care of a woman, who is called a teacher, and who is doing what she can to train and educate these unfortunate creatures. At the same time in the "Hospital de San Hipolito," the asylum for men, there were found six boys, classed as "idiots or degenerates." On account of the small number nothing was being done for them, except that they were sheltered and fed in the institution. For moral reasons feeble minded children should never be free to go at large. Whenever possible they should be taken care of by the State in special schools, and given the benefit of expert instruction, in the hope that under proper supervision they may become self-supporting, and experience the great pleasure of knowing that they are of use in the world, and that there is an other world where the clouds will be lifted and imprisoned minds will be set free. IzTACCIHUATL ADJOINING POPOCATEPETL. XXIII. The Florence Crittenden Industrial Home and Day Nursery of Mexico. This Home was established in September, 1902, to help wom en to become independent by providing a school where they can secure a complete training in various branches of domestic sci ence. Their program includes the opening of a Day Nursery and Kindergarten where children may be left by their mothers during working' hours. They undertake to furnish a home where friendless girls may be helped to regain their former place in society. They aim to conduct a reliable employment bureau to assist women in securing suitable positions or to give them tem porary aid when out of employment. In fact, the society aims at all times and by all means to assist friendless women, and to surround them with better social and economic conditions. , The Day Nursery and Kindergarten departments are devoted to the physical and moral development of children, and especially the children of those mothers who are forced to leave them while going out to earn a living. There is great need, and a broad field, for this especial branch of work. It is entirely non-sectarian in character and opens its doors to all who may need its help, its sole effort being to build up a high moral and ethical tone in those who come under its in fluence. It is not a foreign institution; but, as its Board shows, it is composed of Mexicans and those of the foreign element who have identified themselves with Mexico and the interests of the Mexican people. Nor is it intended to compete with existing institutions, but rather to supplement them, and to aid and en courage those needing it, to avail themselves of the opportunities 90 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN for employment now offered by the Mexican Government, and by private establishments. It is hoped that local interest may be so enlisted that in a few years every section of the city will have a Kindergarten and day nursery supported by the people, for the people. The Home will be saved from the experimental stage usual to the establishment .of a new organization by being a branch of the National Florence Crittenden Mission, which for more than twenty years has carried on a successful work on these same lines not only through its fifty-eight Homes in the United States, but also in similar Homes established under its auspices, in Japan, in China, and in France. The experiences in these countries prove- that these agencies are suitable in their practical philanthropy for all nations. Everything pertaining to the organization is characterized by business-like and practical methods. Separate committees have in charge the departments of Education, Domestic Sci ence, Day Nursery, Kindergarten, Mother's Meetings. fa£BH| ¦ . . ¦ T"*Ti Hi ¦1 /¦yjjj -]» 1 -¦,.-. ..... a^H Across The Rio Grande. XXIV. The Friendly House of the Working Woman. ("Casa Amiga de la Obrera.") This charity was founded by Mrs. Carmen Romero Rubio de Diaz, wife of the President of the Mexican Republic. Courtesy of "The National Lines of Mexico." Mrs. Diaz, Patron and Founder of Charities. The object of this foundation is to provide food, instruction and care for small children while their mothers are at work. All the services rendered to the children of this establishment are entirely gratuitous, all expenses whatsoever being paid by 92 charities for children the founder, Mrs. Diaz, or by other benevolent persons who have gladly come to her assistance. The number of children admitted is two hundred. Under special circumstances the number may exceed this, but never falls below. The daily expenses for the instruction and board of the children are estimated at twelve cents for each child. The in stitution pays no rent, the house being the property of Mrs. Diaz, who has set it apart for the benefit of the institution. The Government exempts houses of private beneficence from taxa tion. The employees of the house, mostly women, are all lay workers. The ecclesiastic who acts as Chaplain only takes part in the religious ceremonies and practices which are deemed nec essary. The Friendly House of the Working Woman. IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 93 Both boys and girls from three to five years of age are ad mitted, if they are healthy and able to study. The mother or person in charge of the child must show by certificate of the proprietor or manager of some shop or factory that she is employed therein. Other conditions of admission are indicated in the regulations for purposes of discipline. The children must enter the establishment between six and eight in the morning; and their mothers must come for them between five and seven in the evening, as these are the times when workers enter or leave their place of employment. The hours for instruction, recreation and meals are properly arrang ed. The instruction follows the system of Froebel, for small children; and there are several classes in the kindergarten de partment. With the older children, the official program of public in struction is followed, with modifications suited to the partic ular character of the institution. The children are drilled in all modern forms of calisthenics. All the studies are carried on in silence, as is the custom in the United States. And this rule seems to be followed in the charity schools of the City of Mexico, but is not in force in the municipal schools generally. The prophylactic value of such institutions is apparent, in shielding mothers from beggary and vice, and the children from abandonment and misery, and going far towards maintaining happy homes, the mightiest social forces in the world. Another similar institution was established September 21, 1902, with the addition of teaching various bread-winning oc cupations. Other institutions of this class should be established among the laboring people in every part of the city. XXV. A New Correctional School for Girls. ("La Escuela Correctional para Mujures.") "El hnparcial," which has a daily circulation of sixty thou sand copies, and is sold for a centavo and read by all classes of people, represents an immense growth in the newspaper circu lation in the City of Mexico. In 1893 the most popular paper had a daily circulation of about seven thousand, and on gala days about twice that number. We are indebted to "The Impartial" for an outline of the plan of the new Correctional School for Girls opened in Coyoa- can, a suburb of the Capital, in February, 1903. It was recognized that in a city of 375,000 people there was need of additional facilities for the proper treatment of young women and girls, who have committed some error, and need the protection which they are denied by the poverty or wickedness of their parents, or which in the absence of parents, they alto gether lack. The location selected for the new institution, is a large garden, in which stands a building used in the time of Santa Anna. as a- prison. The chief engineer of the Federal District was commissioned to adapt the old edifice for the new purpose. According to the description given, the school is di vided into two sections, for correction by education, and for cor rection by punishment. The first Section is divided into two groups. For the first group of girls under nine a preventive correctional education is provided. In this same group will be placed girls under four teen who have been accused of infringing some penal law, but who do not give evidence of being intentionally criminal. In the second group of section one are placed girls between four teen and twenty-one years of age who are sent to the institution IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 95 by the Governor of the Federal District, as an aid to parents in the exercise of their proper authority. A general dormitory is provided for the girls in the first group large enough to accom modate fifty children. A school is also provided for them in which the courses required in the public program of educa tion are taught. Five special rooms, or cells, are provided for the confinement of girls whose conduct has been bad. This temporary separation from their companions is imposed simply as a disciplinary measure. For the second group of girls in section one fifty cells are provided, each containing a bed, a small table, and private toilet conveniences. Each person in this group occupies her cell at night, and when necessary will suffer disciplinary confinement there during the day. A school is also provided for the second group where the obligatory instruction of the public schools is given. A manual training shop large enough for fifty girls is provided, also a waiting room where they may receive visits from their parents. The dining room is large enough to accom modate a hundred persons. There is no communication between the dormitories, schools, or cells, of the two younger and older groups; but both have easy and independent access to the wash room, hospital, recep tion room, and dining room, which the two groups have in com mon. In the second section, are placed girls under eighteen years of age, and over fourteen, who have been judicially sentenced for having committed some fault, which they knew better than to commit. They are punished with solitary confinement for from eight to twenty days, according to the gravity of their of fense. At the end of that time, they are allowed to work with their companions, unless their conduct again makes it necessary to place them in isolation. In every case, they are kept in sep arate cells at night. There are fifty rooms, or cells, for girls in this section. The building has two stories. The dormitory, cells, hospital and officers' department are all on the second floor. The rec- 96 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN reation rooms, dining rooms, kitchen, laundry, store-rooms, schools and shops, where modern domestic machinery will be installed, are on the first floor. A proper education and indus trial training, with wholesome food, recreation, regular hours, good example, and sound moral training are relied upon to es tablish the inmates in good habits and character. After a year and a half spent in enlarging and improving the buildings occupied by the school it is expected that the new portion will be ready in July, 1907. Group in the Friendly House of the Working Woman. XXVI. Evangelical Mission Schools. Evangelical Missions Schools were organized at the begin ning of American mission work in Mexico. The strategy of all far-reaching social movements lies in the thorough education of the children. The Protestant Episcopal boarding school for girls, the Presbyterian Girls' Normal School and the Methodist normal school for girls have completed more than a generation of the grandest kind of self-sacrificing work. These schools were begun purely as charitable institutions for the education and Christian training of needy children. Public education was then at its lowest ebb in the Republic. The efforts of the missions were always loyal to and appreciated by the Liberal Government. Special inducements had to be held out to bring' the children to the missions. Within a few years their value was recognized and more pupils sought than could gain admittance. As polit ical and economic conditions improved in the country under the wise and vigorous administration of President Diaz the friends of the missions were able to pay the moderate cost of maintain ing their daughters in these schools which rose from elementary day schools to the full dignity of normal schools — with only a few charity pupils. The Southern Methodists and the Northern Baptists have maintained free day schools, kindergartens, or industrial schools for many years, and merit a more particular and extended account than we are able to give. A request addressed to the various missions would doubtless secure all de sired information. The great demand educationally among the evangelical bod ies in Mexico is an endowed college of letters and arts in which students in preparation for all professions and occupations would be under the influence of recognized scholars who hold the uni- 98 CHARITIES for children versally accepted traditions of the whole church in reverence. Such a school could be established so near to the great schools of the Capital that students of law, music, medicine, arts, or mines could attend lectures in these various national institu tions and receive their diploma. On the other hand the growth of all schools and the increased demand for higher learning in the ever enlarging American colony, as well as among the Mexican students whose laudable ambition impels them to seek a wider ' and deeper acquaintance with the English-speaking world, would seem to justify the founding of a new school which would be a stimulus to existing institutions and be greatly stimulated by them. The next step in social and institutional development for Mexico is not to be one of separation and disintegration, but of unity and fraternity in which the best thought of all classes shall be blended and conserved. Porch of Plantation House in the Tropics. XXVII. Concluding Words. Mexican Charities wrere begun early in the period of the Conquest, and were carried on with the enthusiasm born of suc cess. During the Colonial period, churches, schools and chari ties made rapid and general progress. New Spain played well her part among the Christian nations during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and down to the close of the eighteenth, when a disastrious period of war on the Peninsula absorbed the the endowment of charitable institutions in Spain and Mexico. There was not a dull hour in the nineteenth century. In 1810 the patriot priest Hidalgo uttered the "Grito," the battle cry of Mexican Independence, "Viva Mexico! Viva la Independencia!" The dictatorship of Santa Anna, the brief empire of Iturbide and that of the Austrian Archduke, the invasion of Mexico by American and by French armies, the death of many patriot mar tyrs, frequent revolutionary uprisings and civil wars, the over throw of church rule in state matters, — these were a few of the incidents which punctuated the first seventy-five years of nine teenth century Mexican history, and brought the schools and charities of the country to the verge of utter paralysis. This long period of disaster, broken by the administrative energy of the peerless statesman and patriot, President Benito Juarez, was closed by the civil war of 1876, and the triumphant election of General Diaz, the most successful constructive states man of the age, as President of the Mexican Republic. Now in his seventh term of this high office, he has reorganized the na tional charities on a modern scientific basis. The old institutions were established to help people in mis fortune, such as sickness, mental or physical weakness, infancy or old age. They were, in general, places of order and cleanli- 100 charities for children ness, but of little industry. In the march of events, many of them have perished, leaving only architectural remains and memories behind. The new institutions which have risen in their places, not only help the helpless, but provide moral, intellectual and handicraft training for those who need it. All the old edifices, vast and spacious as they were, had grave defects. The science of hygiene was unknown at the time of their construction ; and the promiscu ous association of the sick and poor was disastrous, physically and morally. The construction and arrangement of the new buildings obey the fixed requirements of hygiene and pedagogy, adapting them to the individual improvement of the orphan, the outcast and the unfortunate. Recognizing that charity is not a primary function of the State, and that the exalted spirit of private charity, impelled by a spontaneous and ardent desire to impart spiritual comfort, is more efficacious than any official action can be, the Government does not seek to enter into competition with this admirable work, but only desires to aid and encourage it. There are special conditions affecting child-saving interests in Mexico. The generous soil and mild climate provide inex pensive food and shelter, leaving to mother and child less danger of suffering from hunger and cold than in our crowded northern cities. There is more neighborliness, more readiness to sacrifice for one another among the homogeneous elements of a Mexican tenement than would be seen in heterogeneous sections of Ameri can cities. All this tends to minimize the causes of distress, while creating an interest in the children of the poor, thereby re lieving the public of much expense and care. The age-long custom of concubinage practiced by one class, and deferred marriage too common with another class, have worked together to mitigate somewhat the disgrace of illegiti macy; while the love and respect shown between parents and children are noticeably strong. There is no cast, no color- line, no race suicide. Children are not considered inconvenient. And natural children are commonly cared for. But precarious IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 101 relationships of parents often leave them homeless and dependent. The naturally sympathetic and charitable disposition of the Mexican people will lead them to attempt every form of charity, and the advance spirit of the modern liberal governmental insti tutions will carry them to the highest forms of artistic as well as utilitarian and practical results. The foregoing chapters will, it is hoped, clearly indicate that the City of Mexico maintains, with a high average of efficiency, a wide range of institutions for the care of needy children. While the Casa de Beneiicencia in Havana, dating from 1665, and the Maternity House, ("Casa de Maternidad" ) , dating from 1687, doubtless give to the Cuban Capital the honor of seniority in founding charities for children on this side of the sea, the School of the Vizcainas in the City of Mexico is probably the oldest living children's home on the mainland of North America. At an early day a "savings fund" plan was adopted in Mex ican institutions. The plan is general at present and highly im portant. No institution is conducted on right lines which does not allow inmates to earn something and save something, so that pupils leaving the institutions may carry with them not only the instruction they have received, the skill they have acquired, but a certain amount of money to pay their immediate expenses. The charities conducted by the Department of Beneficence in the Capital comprehend the importance of a sound physical basis for a moral and intellectual life, and have instituted the most far- reaching and scientific care of infants. The diversified activities of the various institutions are practically and economically co ordinated. Emphasis is placed on the industrial competence of school graduates. The high water mark of institutional construc tion of the congregate type is reached in the Hospicio de Nihos and in the new General Hospital. The various public charities are in charge of unsalaried, honorary directors, chosen by the Chief Executive from among the leading citizens of the Capital. The equipment is made doubly effective under the central man agement of the Secretary of the Government. The changing needs of growing boys are met by moving them 102 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN from one institution to others, suited to their advancing age and unfolding faculties, thus giving to each institution its appropri ate work, and an appropriate staff of officers, and avoiding the confusion of having all ages and grades of intelligence and char acter cared for under the same roof. The thoroughness with which boys and girls are taught to be self-supporting by giving special training to those of special talent is adapted to the pres ent demand for more skilled men and women of the highest class in all the arts, trades and professions, a demand greatly intensified by the marvelous development of the business and nat ural resources of the Republic. This fact doubtless explains, in part, the reason why "the placingrout system," so general and so successful elsewhere, has not been extensively adopted in Mexico. Perhaps the former prevalence of the monastic idea of sheltering and protecting the helpless from the world, may have delayed the adoption of this plan. But there is no reason to doubt its adaptability to Mex ican society when the right time comes. Hitherto the main effort has been to train the children for citizenship and artisanship in the general assortment of highly organized institutions. The whole problem of child-saving is the complete restora tion of the neglected and defective units to normal relations in society; and it is regarded by many as a demonstrated proposi tion, that the surest way to restore the child to society, is to re store him while he is a child. This would mean a shorter aver age period of time spent by the children in the institution; and the benefits now bestowed upon the few, would be given to many more, without increase of expense, * and with no loss to the av erage child, who would be adopted into a carefully selected nor mal home, and grow up with a happy experience of obligation to the other members of the household, and a personal affection, which the children of the best institution in the world cannot feel. This would perhaps make it possible to bestow more atten tion upon those children who are least attractive, and less likely to find a desirable private home. "The annual average expense per child, in various Mexican institutions, ranges from $45.00 to 875.00 (U. S. currency). IN THE • CITY OF MEXICO. 103 There will always be the necessity of maintaining separate, well-equipped schools for children who are too far below the normal standard of intelligence to be successfully cared for in the regular schools. The small number of mentally defective children brought to the public attention is almost sure to result in inadequate provision for their education. This is sadly true today, whichever way we turn. Parents shield their weak ones from the public gaze when they are little; and they become a great burden to the home, and frequently a serious menace to society. Whenever proper public provision is made for the care and training of this class, a surprisingly large number of applicants is brought forward to claim the benefits offered. In some re spects the Mexican system strongly resembles our own. They do not appear to have an adequate method of finding the needy child. Neither have we. We have not developed an adequate system of watchcare over those who go out from our institu tions. Neither have they. But they would seem to have less need of it, as their graduates are older and better trained to care for themselves. Experience has proved that the State must maintain a vigi lant oversight of all young children placed in private homes, a business too sadly neglected among us. The time should soon come, when the Committees of Vigilance in the various wards of Mexico City, and the truant and probation officers among us, should extend their oversight to all minors who are destitute of proper parental discipline. A large force of trained workers ap pointed under civil service rules is demanded by the time. Such a force should effect a large saving of the public funds by mater ially reducing the volume of crime. We cannot close our eyes to the chief cause of misery every where. Intemperance adds its crown of thorns to every sorrow ; and the child is often the innocent victim. We know that state revenues received from the bar-keepers is swallowed up many times over in the vain attempt to protect society from the rav ages and misery of drunkenness. The loss is immense ; and there 104 CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN is no compensation. Who can tell in what one of the Christian centuries this well-spring of sin and sorrow shall be stopped up r In spite of all hindrances and difficulties, the workers en gaged in rescuing children have reason to be optimistic. While the law of heredity holds with children snatched from the slums, it is evident that the undeveloped and badly developed parent transmits the latent possibility of a better life. We are all born ignorant, and have to learn vice or virtue. The advantage lies with those who have the child first. But the good results ob tained, even with children who have learned the worst and are afterwards taught the best, must give us hope for all. We measure the culture of a period by its care for childhood. The establishment of "The Home for Children" (the new Hos picio de Ninos), in an ideal and monumental edifice, instead of weakening should strengthen the charitable sentiment of the peo ple, the sense of personal obligation to make provision for the helpless, and belief in the importance of placing, all charitable in stitutions for children on the highest plane. When the people of Mexico have fully recovered from the long years of destructive wars, and more of them experience the comforts of wealth and overcome the newly acquired American spirit of commercialism, and shall also have learned to sufficiently admire the bountiful pro vision of the Government for "The Children of the State," there will be a reawakening and a renaissance of private charities. In deed, this is already apparent in the increase of charities in the last ten years. But what we prophesy is the creation and endowment of re ligious schools and colleges of the highest order, in friendlv rivalry with public institutions, where the children of trouble will find the consolation of the Gospel, while cultivating patriotic sentiment, intellectual strength, and manual dexterity, therebv securing satisfaction of the natural human hunger for health, wealth, knowledge, beauty, sociability and righteousness. The effectiveness of charities can only be measured relative ly. If there were more institutions in proportion to the popula tion, they might all be busy reaching a wider need, ministering IN THE CITY OF MEXICO. 105 to a different, -perhaps a higher stratum of social neglect. But when the new generation of farmers and miners and manufac turers, with the statesmen, poets, artists and professional men and women have been graduated from the new schools, and the fifteen millions of people have grown to be twenty and forty millions, and new charities have been endowed by pious people and dedicated "to the greater glory of God," the present insti tutions, representing the Mexican love and care for children, with a record of good works, unbroken again by invading armies or by civil strife, will be a lasting monument to the nation's Chief, whose name and fame with that of his illustrious wife, will always be inseparably connected with the beneficent progress of Mexico. La Tierra Caliente. Bibliography. Nuevo Codigo de la Reforma, Flores Alatorre, Mexico: Mi guel Zornoza, 1870. The Civil Law of Spain and Mexico, Gustavus Schmidt, New Orleans, 1851. 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