RUINS OF SAN LAZERO.
"It comes from the confiscation of the Church property," was the reply. "For three centuries the churches and monasteries had been gathering a fine collection of books for their libraries, and the confiscation of ecclesiastical buildings under the Laws of the Reform threw the most of these libraries into the market. Some of them were bought for speculation and others for private use; in either case they were pretty sure to drift sooner or later into the hands of the dealers. Gentlemen familiar with the subject say that Mexico is to-day the best place in the world for a book-collector to find what he is looking for."
From the portales the youths extended their walk through several of the principal streets, and reached the hotel just in time for breakfast. On their way they passed a school just as the pupils were going in, and this circumstance gave a hint on which they acted at once.
ON THE WAY TO CHURCH.
They proceeded to collect information concerning the public schools, in addition to what they had already learned. They found that there were in the capital 101 free secular schools, with an aggregate attendance of 7400 pupils; then there were thirty-seven Protestant and twenty-four Catholic schools, all free—the former with 1300 pupils, and the latter with 4000. The Catholic schools are held in large buildings, as will be readily seen from the number of pupils in the twenty-four schools; while the Protestant establishments are on a smaller scale. There are something more than 100 private schools for primary instruction, with an average of thirty pupils to each school. All the wealthy families have their children taught by private tutors or governesses, but the grade of their education is not high. The whole number of educational establishments in the city is a little short of 300, with an attendance in the aggregate of about 16,000.
