Page:Mexico and its reconstruction.djvu/255

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COLONIZATION
237

perience will parallel that of the native tribes in the United States. Because of the varied climate of the country it is not unlikely that both these processes may occur in different portions of the republic at the same time.

One of the means advocated for dealing with the problem of awakening the ambitions of the lower class Mexican is so-called internal colonization. Unlike other colonization projects this movement is not to depend on foreigners nor to have a military basis. It is not even necessarily to involve transfer of persons from thickly settled to sparsely settled areas.

Under supervision of the federal government it is argued there should be maintained a comprehensive system of agricultural education. There should be established in various parts of the country native agricultural colonies in which agricultural experiment work would be carried on by the younger men. To each would be given a plot, the produce of which would be his own. The government would stimulate competition by granting prizes. Instruction in agricultural methods would be given. Allied with such enterprises could go legislation that would encourage the use of natives in the higher positions in the various industrial establishments, thus making the economic development of the country contribute directly and in the most practical way to the schooling of the rising generation.[1] These projects aim to assure that if the foreigner himself will not come in the way the governments had once thought possible,


  1. E. Maqueo Castellanos, Algunos problemas nacionales, Mexico, 1909 (1910), pp. 110-116 et seq.