Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/126

118 who had forsaken the world and taken up religion as a profession.

Reading and writing in Mexico were not the simple studies which in these times are set before a child of five or six years. The vast majority of the people knew nothing of these fine arts.

Besides the use of the brush and the pencil in picture and map-drawing, history was committed to memory, together with national hymns, war-songs and prayers used in the temple-service. The studious pupil was taken out on the temple-roof at night to study the heavens with the old astrologers. They knew the Pleiades and other constellations, and were able to measure off the years by these starry timekeepers. Some of the little ones were sent to the temple at a very tender age. It is probable that on account of the frequent battles of that warlike tribe there were many orphans under the care of the government.

The temple was also an industrial school. Every boy and every girl had work to do to keep its numerous buildings and courts in order. The great stairs and terraces by which the altar was reached from the outside were soiled with the feet of many long processions going to and coming from that place of blood, or by the clouds of dust for which the valley is still famous during the long dry season. The tesselated pavements of shrine and hall and corridor had to be cleansed frequently, or they could not have compared favorably with the streets of the city, which, we are told, were swept daily by a thousand men. The priests' quarters were also in the temple, and, with the vast army of these officials (said to have numbered five thousand in all), there must have been work enough for all the