Page:A Study of Mexico.djvu/243

Rh method for illumination at night, and had never had either the knowledge, the desire, or the means of obtaining anything superior. But at last, through contact with and employment on the American railroad, the desire, the opportunity, the means to purchase, and the knowledge of the simple mechanism of the lamp, had come to this humble, isolated Mexican peasant; and, out of the germ of progress thus spontaneously, as it were, developed by the wayside, may come influences more potent for civilization and the elevation of humanity in Mexico than all that church and state have been able to effect within the last three centuries.

The projection and extension of the American system of railroads into Mexico commanded the almost universal approval of the people of the United States. It was regarded as a measure