These two companion volumes provide one of the best comprehensive summaries available of education in colonial New Spain. Gonzalbo Aizpuru bases her study on both Mexican archival materials and an extensive array of published sources with which she is well acquainted. She explores all levels of education and defines education broadly, including in her monograph chapters on the role of church sermons and confession as part of the education of the indigenous population, as well as the education that took place in the home, for criollo women. At the same time, the study shares with other histories of education a common frustration: we know far more about the establishment of new schools and the objectives of their founders than we do about what occurred on a daily basis in the classroom. This is not so much a shortcoming of this particular work as it is of all histories of education, given the nature of the sources.
The essential component of education in colonial Mexico was, above all, religious education, at all levels and for all constituencies. Although the religious emphasis was not the author’s intent, one cannot leave these studies without being strongly convinced of the depth of the religious motive, however contradictory, in the colonial enterprise. Education was also the result of individual efforts, not of a comprehensive plan. The many schools that dotted the educational landscape reflected the diversity and priorities of their individual founders and fulfilled their missions with small numbers of students. Most of the population remained uneducated.
This reviewer found the volume on indigenous education the more interesting of the two. The diversity of schools established for the Indian population during the first generation after the conquest reveals a lack of consensus on just how the natives would fit into the new society. All educators were convinced education was a necessary means of propagating both religion and the dominant culture. Some, such as the founders of the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, envisioned education as the door to upward mobility. To this end, they exposed selected Indians to advanced theology, philosophy, and Latin. Others focused their efforts on basic skills and agricultural techniques with an eye toward creating a more talented working class.
The history of colonial education, like the history of the colonial period itself, is the story of an initial surge of creativity followed by relative stagnation. The initial confrontation with the New World may have provoked all manner of creativity: there were no existing rules or expectations. The Jesuits, who arrived late in the sixteenth century, exhibited the same initial enthusiasm and reinvigorated a tired enterprise. For these innovators, education was not only an integral part of a civilized society but a means of improving the quality of life in New World society.
The volumes themselves reflect this pattern of initial vigor, for their primary focus is the sixteenth century. One wishes they had provided more detail on the eighteenth century and the impact of the European Enlightenment, a subject they barely touch.
Gonzalbo Aizpuru appreciates the specific priorities and teaching styles of the various Catholic religious orders: the Franciscans emphasized the practical— indigenous languages, for example; the Dominicans, orthodoxy; and the Jesuits, humanism. Her study also demonstrates the degree to which New Spain was subject to changes in international Roman Catholicism as well as changes in Spain itself—the Council of Trent had a decidedly chilling effect on all levels of education.
Historians will find these two volumes useful not only for their summary of education in colonial Mexico, but also as an invaluable reference tool for identifying the principal characteristics of specific schools and religious orders.