Usually the main hacienda residence housed the school. One of the twenty or thirty rooms was designated the classroom. It was small and had few or no windows; the open door let in light and air. Students in the sixteenth century sat on the floor. Later, they had benches and sat around a table, the maestro at one end. Slates came into being in the eighteenth century; and, in the nineteenth century, blackboards. Engravings of the presidents began to decorate bare walls. Dirty, foxed maps hid stains. Tiled floors were often cold and damp. Though there was sunshine most of the year, classes were never held under the laurel or palm trees.
Girls sat on one side, boys on the other—if the room was large enough. There were no sanitary facilities, no health precautions, no hygiene instruction. At recess, the children drank from the patio fountain or cattle trough.
