Note 119 — PART II

The majority of the young are abandoned entirely to the Indian servants, who soon familiarize them with all that is vicious. They know but little of their parents more than as the master and mistress of the house, whose hand they must kiss, kneeling, every morning and evening. By five years of age they smoke cigars, ride out at night by moonlight, abuse the Indians, and not unfrequently their parents. At 12 they are debauched. At 18 or 20 they marry, and then form the citizens for which such an education has prepared them. They are seldom or ever taught any useful employment or profession. This the majority of them would look upon with the utmost contempt: “Soy gracias a Dios, de sangre noble,”119 is their reply to any advice of this kind; and this is a passport to a cadetship in the army or colonial marine; which, though attained at the age of 12 or 13, seldom finds them with any vice unlearnt. The girls are educated nearly in the same manner, as far as to the acquirement of any useful knowledge. They are sent to the nunneries till 12 or 14 years, and from thence married. Of household duties they know little or nothing, and of any thing else, still less.