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200 as indicated by her superstitions, architecture, costumes, and myths, was Oriental. Of her middle age, that long period following the Spanish invasion, and preceding authentic accessible accounts by travellers or natives, the vain spirit of exaggeration has been the chief exploring activity. On the one hand, hostile prejudice has charged against the ostensible religion of the Spaniards the results due in large measure to natural causes, which neither political forms nor moral forces could easily overcome. On the other, shallow religious partisanship has credited the Spaniards with achievements in Mexico, educational and moral, of which there is little material proof.

Itemizers of history, for instance, who rush into discussion with an isolated date, and who assume the dignity of the architect with the function of the brick-carrier, have made ado over the fact that the first university on this continent was established in Mexico in 1551. It is not true even as an isolated fact. If it were true, its historical value would consist in the impression it made on the national life, not in its categorical precedence. The ceremonious authority for the creation of a university in Mexico was given by