Note 3 — INTRODUCTION.

With critics of such severity to please, no wonder that it was necessary to begin the training early, and to set apart for it definite places and regular teachers. Therefore it was one of the established duties of the teachers in the calmecac or public school, "to teach the pupils all the verses of the sacred songs which were written in characters in their books."3 There were also special schools, called cuicoyan, singing places, where both sexes were taught to sing the popular songs and to dance to the sound of the drums.4 In the public ceremonies it was no uncommon occurrence for the audience to join in the song and dance until sometimes many thousands would thus be seized with the contagion of the rhythmical motion, and pass hours intoxicated (to use a favorite expression of the Nahuatl poets) with the cadence and the movement.