Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/264

 254 . One of these I visited, in an old convent, which was granted it by the State. The scholars were taught French from cards hung round the room, and primers, and petite story-books. Our schools could and should make the youngest children conversant with this and the German language. It is far better to learn a language, which a child can easily learn to speak and read, than to study grammar, which an adult rarely knows, and which it is impossible for a child to understand.

Here, too, all the girls study book-keeping. Their penmanship is exquisite, and they will thus get openings to fields of labor hitherto denied them. They also are taught needle-work, and so made useful for the old as well as the new. Over three thousand pupils are studying English in the public and private schools. That is a sign of the influence of our language. The French has fallen out of favor since their invasion of the country. Our invasion seems to have made our tongue the more popular. It is probably because of the diffusion of this language, and the consciousness of its growing superiority as a world-tongue, and especially because of its utility as a neighbor-tongue, that it has such pre-eminence in these public schools.

The city has a school of mines, with abundant specimens of the wonderful treasures of the country. It has also marble works, where you see the rare marbles of the land, translucent, transparent almost, full of as rich variations as a polished mahogany knot; a future article of great commercial value.

As we are walking, you notice that man with a double burden, a strap going over his head in such a way that he carries a big jar before him and a bigger vase behind. He is the water-carrier—the institution of the city next to the lottery-ticket vender. The aqueducts flow into cisterns, like that of Vera Cruz, situated in the courts of houses; not every house, but as frequently as hydrants in our cities. These aquarii take the water from these reservoirs and carry it from door to door. A cuartillia a day, or a few tlaquas, will supply a family its daily need. His business is steady. Desierto comes thus to town, and its purveyors carry it to every door.