During the next few years schools were established also for the education of mestizo children, that is, of the mixed race who are now called Creoles. In fact, in 1536 a fund from the Royal Exchequer was given for the teaching of these children. Strange as it may seem, for we are apt to think that the teaching of girls is a modern idea, schools were also established for Indian girls. All of these schools continued to flourish, and gradually spread beyond the City of Mexico itself into the villages of the Indians. As a {310} matter of fact, wherever a mission was established a school was also founded. Every town, Indian as well as Spanish, was by law required to have its church, hospital and school for teaching Indian children Spanish and the elements of religion. The teaching and parish work in the Indian villages was in charge of two or more friars, as a rule, and was well done. The remains of the monasteries with their magnificent Spanish-American architecture, are still to be seen in many portions of Mexico and of the Spanish territories that have been incorporated with the United States, in places where they might be least expected, and they show the influence for culture and education that gradually extended all over the Mexican country. In the course of time the necessity for advanced teaching for the constantly growing number of native whites began to be felt, and so during the fifth decade of the sixteenth century a number of schools for them came into existence in the City of Mexico. The need was felt for some central institution. Accordingly, the Spanish Crown was petitioned to establish authoritatively a university. Such a step would have been utterly out of the question in English America, because the Crown was so little interested in colonial affairs. In the Spanish country, however, the Crown was deeply interested in making the colonists feel that though they were at a distance from the centre of government, their rulers were interested in {311} securing for them, as far as possible, all the opportunities of life at home in Spain. This is so different from what is ordinarily presumed to have been the attitude of Spain towards its colonies as to be quite a surprise for those who have depended on old-fashioned history, but there can be no doubt of its truth. Accordingly, the University of Mexico received its royal charter the same year as the University of Lima (1551). Mexico was not formally organized as a university until 1553. In the light of these dates, it is rather amusing to have the Century Dictionary, under the word Harvard University, speak of that institution as the oldest and largest institution of learning in America. It had been preceded by almost a century, not only in South America, but also in North America. The importance of Harvard was as nothing compared to the universities of Lima and Mexico, and indeed for a century after its foundation Harvard was scarcely more than a