Page:Mexico and its reconstruction.djvu/45

Rh upon which to create a uniform civilization, living in territory of wide climatic contrasts, of necessity has serious problems to solve.

The population of Mexico is a group of peoples among whom primitive tongues are still spoken by a considerable portion, and among whom the standard of life, even among those speaking a European tongue, is still of a very simple type. They are peoples largely illiterate and among whom literary and professional, rather than vocational, education has been held up as the standard to be sought for. They are non-industrial and, up to the present, as a rule non-industrious. The development of the resources of the country has fallen into the hands of foreigners who, however great the benefits they have conferred upon the country, do not become a part of its political life as well as of its economic life. Those who seek to bring Mexico out of these conditions into the course of the civilization that we have come to know as European have before them no easy task.