Legacy of Education of Pre-hispanic Aztec Civilization

Research Project

Project/Area Number	05610239
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Educaion
Research Institution	National Institute for Educational Reseaarch
Principal Investigator	SAITO Yasuo National Institute for Educational Reseaarch, Department of International Education and Co-operation, Senior Researcher, 国際研究・協力部, 主任研究官 (30132690)
Project Period (FY)	1993 – 1994
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 1994)
Budget Amount *help	¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,300,000) Fiscal Year 1994: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000) Fiscal Year 1993: ¥800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000)
Keywords	indian / Aztecs / education / mexico / pre-hispanic / 育児習俗
Research Abstract	It is known that the Aztecs paid much attention to the problem of the education of their children from an early age. For example, one Spanish priest who observed the aztec society in imediately after the conquest wrote his surprise as follows ; "Nothing caused me so much admiration and seems to me more worthy of praise and remembering than the care and discipline with which the Mexicans raised their children. "Based on their peculiar militant-religious concepts, the Aztecs felt a strong desire to instill in the children and youngs strength of mind and of body and a character devoted to the public good. It seems worth noting that they had already a universal and obligatory system of education. We can now make use of some indegenous texts and historical documents written in the sixteenth century to reconstruct its civilization and their daily life. And some of these written records includes many important informations concerning their parental teaching at home and their schooling system. In this report, it is intended to provid a panoramic view of Aztec education of those days, and I translated some of these historical documents on the education of the Aztecs in pre-hispanic period from spanish original texts.