[Illustration: Hacienda de la Venta del Astillero. Jalisco: 18th-century stone and brick residence and chapel. 220 feet long.] Years of revolution retarded Mexico to an incalculable degree as guns took the place of brains. Towns, while occupied by troops or harassed by gunfire, had to abandon teaching and schooling. Youngsters born on an hacienda during those years grew up without seeing the inside of a school. Yet, it is an amazing and stimulating fact that Mexico, after such havoc, could evolve an educational system of merit and induce the young and the old to attend classes. The "Each One, Teach One," or "Analfabetismo Program," was put into effect and successfully carried out. In 1951, thirty-seven years after the haciendas had been abolished, the government appropriated 355,680,000 pesos for schools. Prefabs sprang up overnight; old buildings were renovated; education became compulsory; efforts were made to attract teachers and to train them. The wealthy elite sons and daughters of the hacienda studied at institutions of higher learning abroad. This favored group, though small, contributed to the nation's maturity. Universities such as Salamanca, Heidelberg, Harvard, the Sorbonne, Oxford, and Cambridge enriched these students. They assumed important posts, government positions, and engineering jobs; they became senators, doctors, lawyers, and educators. The long, bitter struggle to attain a middle class had begun. +VI. The Revolution+ [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand] John Reed, an American journalist who covered the campaign of Pancho Villa, described in _Insurgent Mexico_ the revolution at an hacienda in northern Mexico in 1913-1914: We crept close to the line and when we were almost upon them we opened fire. There were three detachments and we pushed right into their encampment and set fire to their shelters. Their corn and beans were laid out on blankets to dry in the sun and we even destroyed that. The Carrancistas fled from us and we chased them through very rough country. We believed we were winning, but man! It wasn't that way at all! We followed them without knowing where we were going. They stopped on the other side of a hill, at the entrance to Hacienda San Gregorio, and there a fourth detachment withstood us so we pulled back and joined our forces. There were five thousand of us but we were extended from San Gregorio to Topilejo. Our guides were local peasants and they sent General Chon and his men through the mountains. He was from Guerrero and he didn't know these mountains so they sent him to the worst peaks. His men were stopped but we weren't. We were sent along the side of the highway and General Teodor's men went on the highway because they were all on horseback. The Carrancistas had artillery but the shots passed over us because we lay down in the ditches....