Page:Pedagogía Tolteca.djvu/18

6. - EDUCATION AS CULTURAL LEGACY.

Cultural heritage is divided into two areas, the tangible cultural heritage, which refers to "objects", such as pyramids, steles, ceramic, codices, etc. And intangible cultural heritage, which refers to "subjects", namely persons. This heritage is perceived in the knowledge, feelings, traditions, uses and customs of a nation. The particular way of understanding the world and life.

Intangible cultural heritage is the most important, in as long as, is the "producer and reproducer" of the tangible heritage. In this way, education can be considered the most important property of cultural heritage, and consequently, the most valuable cultural heritage to build a more humane, fair and harmonious future.

Of the six humanity oldest civilizations with autonomous origin, the Anahuac civilization was the only one that created a public, compulsory, free and with a total coverage educational system. The French investigator Jacques Soustelle, in his book “The Aztecs universe", noted in 1955: "It is remarkable that at that time, and on that continent, an indigenous American people have practiced compulsory education for all and that there was not a single Mexican child from the 16th century, whatever their social origin, which was deprived from school." In Europe the first public, compulsory and free education system was implemented in Italy in 1596.

If we assert that education transmits values and that in the Anahuac it remained present with total coverage, for at least for three thousand consecutive years. We can explain the reason why in Mexico, people who have generations of "not attending school" or not having completed grammar school, "are highly educated people, with strong ethical and moral values".