In some parts,
however, there are exceptions to this observation.
Education has been more attended to, by some of the leading
personages, than could have been expected in a society that had been
so much kept in the shade. We apprehend the advantages are chiefly
prospective, and may be well defined in another generation; at present
they are but small. The whites have been, and still are, the most
educated portion of the Mexicans, owing, no doubt, to their greater
opulence, and having access to official rank. The mass of ignorance,
however, among all classes, is inconceivable to any one who has only
moved in the principal countries of Europe. Nor is it confined to the
lower classes, but finds protection among the highest in the
community. We heard a reverend canon of the metropolitan church
gravely inquire, whether it was possible to reach London except by
sailing up the Thames. And we knew a very pretty, agreeable young
lady, moving in the first circles, who could not write a single letter
at the age of seventeen. She has been since married, and has, we are
informed, been taught to write by her husband, who is not a Mexican.
The religion of all classes resembles too much that of the Indians;
and the practical morality and general tone of society are by no means
refined.
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