Page:Barbarous Mexico.djvu/347

Rh. Within a century past art flourished in Mexico, but now her art is decadent—choked like her budding literature, by the thorns of political tyranny.

General education in Mexico is appallingly absent. The flatterers of Diaz tell of the schools that he has established, but the investigator fails to find these schools. They are mostly on paper. There is practically no such thing as country schools in Mexico, while towns of many hundreds of inhabitants often have no school whatsoever. Nominally there are schools in such towns, but actually there are none because the governors of the various states prefer to keep the expense money for themselves. While traveling in the rural districts of the state of Mexico, for example, I learned that scores of schools in small towns had been closed for three years because the governor, General Fernando Gonzalez, had withheld the money, explaining to the local authorities that he needed it for other purposes. The fact that there is no adequate public school system in Mexico is attested by the most recent official census (1900), which goes to show that but 16 per cent of the population are able to read and write. Compare this with Japan, an over-populated country where the people are very poor and where the opportunities for education seemingly ought not to be so good. Ninety-eight per cent of Japanese men and 93 per cent of Japanese women are able to read and write. The sort of educational ideals held by President Diaz is shown in the schools that are running, where a most important item in the curriculum is military study and training!

Is Diaz humane? The question is almost superfluous, inasmuch as few of his admirers credit him with this trait. All admit that he has been severe and harsh, even brutal, in his treatment of his enemies, while some of