Perhaps nowhere are the results of the campaign for education seen to better advantage than in the soldiers’ barracks and penal institutions. The soldiers are mostly recruited from the Indians and are without education. The same is true of those who fill up the jails and penitentiaries. However much they may deserve their punishment, humane methods prevail. Attendance upon classes is compulsory upon both soldiers and convicts, and instruction is given in practical morals, civil government, arithmetic, natural science, history of Mexico, geometry, drawing and singing. If the prisoner is studious and obeys the rules of the institution, he is graduated and given his freedom. This little insight into a better life has made a good citizen out of many a former convict, and a better one out of a soldier who has completed the term of his enlistment. The native Mexicans are bright and intelligent, but self-culture is not common because of natural indolence. The Indians, and especially the _Mestizos_, are promising and quick to learn. Although there are no accurate statistics, it is estimated that nearly one-half of the adult population can at least read and most of that number can also write. The first college established in North America was founded in Mexico in 1540 and is now located at Morelia. The federal government supports normal schools for the preparation of teachers, and schools of music, agriculture, dentistry, medicine, law, mining, fine arts and trades for both sexes. There are also schools for the blind and mutes, and reform schools for incorrigibles. The medical college has had a greater reputation than any of the other institutions of higher learning. This college now occupies the old home of the inquisition. The staffs of these schools are generally finely educated men, and will compare favourably with the staffs of similar institutions in other countries. The Biblioteca Nacional, or National Library, occupies a magnificent building that was formerly a noted monastery. It contains several hundred thousand volumes, and is a storehouse of ancient documents and volumes of the colonial periods. When the monastic orders were suppressed, more than one hundred thousand volumes were added to the national library from these institutions. Although most of their books and pamphlets were religious works, yet many of them are extremely valuable and almost priceless. There are a few books here that date back before the discovery of America by Columbus, and many rare old documents on vellum and parchment. A few of the picture writings of the Aztecs are also preserved in this interesting library. The National Museum is a vast storehouse of the antiquities of the country. One can wander around through the rooms and corridors for hours and days and continually find some new object of interest in the vast collection of relics of the prehistorical races.