low as twenty-five centavos and as high as two pesos. At the present time this scale has increased from seventy-five to one hundred per cent, the greatest increase being in the more modern, better equipped mills at Orizaba. Up until the past few years when the eight-hour law at least nominally went into effect, the hours of labor were bad, judged by almost any standard. The operatives began work at six in the morning and ended at eight at night, with intervals of rest amounting to an hour and a half. Many of the operatives were women and children; of the latter some as young as ten years of age were employed. Happily these conditions, which led one competent observer to describe conditions in some of the mills to be "as bad as any to be found in India," have in large part been remedied.

The testimony in regard to the efficiency of the operatives in cotton factories varies greatly. A careful observer writing in 1887, declared that while the nimblest of the Mexican boys could not manage over four hundred and fifty or five hundred spindles, a bright girl in one of the mills at Fall River could easily take care of as many as seven hundred. Twenty years later a special investigator sent by the United States government speaks highly of the adaptability and relative efficiency of the cotton mill operatives. That this class of labor has somewhat lagged behind that employed in transportation is possibly to be attributed to insufficient training and routine methods of management fully as much as to lack of capacity of the operatives.

Labor Legislation: In this brief survey of labor conditions in Mexico, only a passing reference can be accorded to labor legislation and labor organizations. As is well known, practically no labor laws were written on the statute books during the administration of President Diaz. This failure to safeguard the rights or advance the interests of the laboring population was skilfully capitalized by Madero in his campaign for the presidency; after bis election labor legislation of some importance was enacted. In December, 1911, a Bureau of Labor under the Ministry of Fomento was created. This bureau subsequently raised to the dignity of a Department of Labor has, up to the present time, passed through various vicissitudes, but on the whole has justified its existence. Not only has it been instrumental in settling a number of serious controversies between labor and capital, but it has also published data of considerable value.

While the government of Huerta represented a certain hiatus in the progress of labor legislation, the Carranza administration. from its first lease of life evinced a profound concern for everything which affected the interests of the laboring classes. In a number of states, notably Sonora and Yucatán, comprehensive labor laws were enacted and attempts were made to inaugurate a quasi-socialistic régime of which labor was to be the chief-if

not the sole-beneficiary. The Constitution of 1917 in the famous Article 123 embodies a long series of provisions safeguarding with the minutest care the rights of labor. One detects a sincere though imperfect attempt to place Mexico in all that pertains to social legislation not only on a level, but even in advance of the United States and the most progressive countries of Europe. A number of the state legislatures, notably those of Yucatán, Sonora and Vera Cruz, have passed so-called organic laws designed to carry out the spirit of this paragraph while a comprehensive federal labor law has long been pending. The criticism has often been made, apparently with some show of reason, that labor legislation in Mexico has been so advanced, even radical in character, as to defeat its own object. The individual laborers, and especially labor organizations, have been accorded rights and privileges which they have been prone to abuse and have in many cases made a satisfactory adjustment between employers and employees impossible. The breakdown of a considerable part of the labor and social legislation promulgated in Yucatán by exGovernor Alvarado is a case in point.1

Labor Organizations: Only the most summary references to labor organizations can be included in the present brief survey. In the last years of the Diaz epoch labor unions, though laboring under many disabilities, began to appear and in 1908 had a total membership of some sixteen thousand. Under Madero the movement took on an enormous expansion, particularly among the workers in the cotton factories and on the railways. For a time the movement was swept into radical, even anarchistic channels through an organization known as the Casa del Obrero Mundial, the "House of the Workers of the World." The excesses of this body tended to discredit organized labor in Mexico and in 1915 it was virtually suppressed. Since this time the movement of organized labor has been gradually divested of its more radical leanings, and there is a healthy tendency now discernible to look to the United States rather than to Continental Europe for guidance and ideals. The doctrines of socialism, syndicalism and occasionally even bolshevism, though for a time making a certain headway, are rapidly losing ground. The fact that Mexican labor organizations tend to develop along the lines of industries rather than those of crafts or trades as in the United States represents perhaps the most striking difference between the labor movements in the two countries.

1On the subject of the activity of Alvarado in Yucatán cf. the article by the present writer, Four Years of Socialistic Government in Yucatán," in the Journal of International Relations, October, 1919.

2The creation of the Pan-American Federation of Labor through the efforts of the American Federation of Labor has had a salutary effect on the Mexican labor movement. Under the auspices of the first of these two bodies a rumber of international conferences have been held, notably one at Laredo in September, 1918.

Summary and Conclusion: In our brief survey we have found that Mexican labor possesses certain qualities which warrant us in characterizing it as inefficient if judged by foreign standards. It is cheap, improvident and uneconomical. The standard of liv ing is low and efforts to raise it seem at first sight to be discouraging. Until the Madero revolution, and in certain parts of Mexico even now, wages are lower than those prevailing in Western Europe and much below those current in the United States. We have also seen that the stamina of the laboring population has been seriously impaired by alcoholism and the ravages of certain diseases. Yet there is every reason to believe that with certain interruptions conditions have shown a slow but steady tendency toward improvement.

During the first half of the nineteenth century the status of labor was little better than in colonial times, but with the advent to power of the Liberal Party in 1856 and 1857, a marked improvement set in. Still further changes, all for the better, marked the long presidency of General Diaz. The reform of finances, construction of railroads, growth of industries, eradication of brigandage, decrease in illiteracy, and above all the establishment of peace ushered in an era of economic progress which was reflected in the improved conditions of the mass of the people. That grave abuses persisted cannot be denied, but the tendency on the whole was upward.

It is to the credit of American capital and American enterprise that they have from their first entry into Mexico contributed powerfully to this progress. By the creation of new industries they gave employment to thousands who had been living on the verge of destitution; it was the Americans who made the Mexicans understand that it was the American industries that were the most active helpers of the government in practical education. At their own expense they maintained schools whenever educational facilities were lacking. Many of them did more. They consistently strove to raise the standard of living both by granting higher wages as well as by inculcating habits of hard work, honesty and self-respect. In the establishment of hospitals, in their emphasis on sanitation and in their interest in every variety of welfare work they made the communities healthier, saner and more joyful places to live in; by their prohibition of alcoholic liquors and gambling they discouraged immorality and encouraged thrift. Finally, by patient teaching and force of example, they converted thousands of unskilled, undisciplined and inefficient workmen into skilled artisans and mechanics.

It is yet too soon to attempt to strike a balance between the good and ill effects of the last decade on the Mexican laborer. Unquestionably as a result of a series of revolutions he has lost much. The disorder, poverty, and corruption until recently existing in certain parts of the republic have frequently reduced

the laborer, particularly in the case of the peon, to a condition worse than under Diaz. Moreover, the plethora of laws and decrees issued by the Federal government and the various states in his behalf, has in many instances been a dead letter. Frequently they have done him downright harm since the possibility of their enforcement has discouraged the investment of new capital, the revival of industry and the employment of labor.

Yet in the final analysis it cannot be denied that Mexican labor has proceeded apace along the difficult road of social progress. Whatever the future may hold in store, a return to all of the conditions existing prior to 1910 is unthinkable. Neither the Mexican laborers nor their employers will tolerate again such abuses as regards hours and wages as formerly existed among many of the operatives in cotton factories. Moreover, the last remnants of peonage have been swept aside never to return. Yet save for these gains, the rural classes of Mexicans have profited little by the ten years of revolutions except in a few favored localities. Until some concerted intelligent effort is made to improve the lot of the peons one of Mexico's greatest social problems will remain unsolved.

PARTIAL LIST OF AUTHORITIES CONSULTED

Mexico, Secretaria de Fomento. Boletin de la Direccion General de Estadistica, (Mexico, 1914), containing the census returns for 1910 is the most important of these documents. Labor Conditions in Mexico, by Walter E. Weyl, Bulletin of the Department of Labor, January, 1912; Wallace Thompson, The People of Mexico (ch. X, The Conditions of Labor''), (New York, 1921).

66

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MEXICAN EDUCATIONAL

SYSTEM

By ISAAC J. Cox, Ph.D.
Northwestern University

The Fundamental Factors: First and most important of all is the human factor. The Mexican population is a mixed one, formed of Iberian and aboriginal elements in varying ethnic combinations, in which, along some stretches of the coast one may occasionally detect a slight African tinge. Possibly two-fifths of this population would still be classed as Indian-an inaccurate and widely variant term-and one-tenth as European, largely descended from Spanish incomers; but the mestizo element is gaining in numbers and influence at the expense of the other two and at no distant day is destined to control the country. Physically and mentally this element has derived more from its aboriginal forebears than from any other source, and it may be well to consider what this heritage definitely means.

We may take for granted the existence of a relatively high capacity for culture among these aborigines. The Mayan and Aztec monuments prove that, not to mention evidences of commendable progress in sculpture, pottery, feather-work, weaving, wood-working, and certain household arts, whose vestiges still survive in remote portions of the country. While their political system had hardly advanced beyond the stage of tribal confederacies and their religion centered around attempts to propitiate unfriendly deities through human sacrifice, they had in most quarters developed a village community life that still remains. the most important social factor of primitive Mexican life.

The Spanish conqueror exerted his cultural influence mainly through two agencies-the church and the encomienda (labor trusteeship). As for the latter, we may say that it was a system of forced labor that made neither for efficiency nor moral uplift. Because of its repressive character the intellectual outlook of the native at the end of the colonial period was little, if any, higher than at the beginning. Such slight improvement as had occurred was due to the church. That organization provided for the native a milder system of worship, a stimulating ritual, certain restricted opportunities for elementary and higher instruction, and a new language. These cultural opportunities included some definite guidance in vocational training-in building, raising crops, caring for domestic animals during the process of reducing" the warlike Indians to standards more. closely approximating those of the conquerors. For the Spaniard the church afforded almost the only agency of social and intellectual expression. Nearly all important work in linguistics, literature, and science, and all of devotional and ritualistic character, was performed by churchmen or under church auspices.