By the Constitution of 1917 elementary education was made free, compulsory to the age of 15 and secular, but pending the provision of enough secular schools many of the old schools under religious auspices continued to function. There are several good daily papers published in Mexico City. The World War increased the interest of Mexicans in reading, and as a result a number of new periodicals, of a superior quality, were established in the city, which had the first printing press in the New World and the first regularly issued newspaper.
Through lack of water-power and cheap fuel, Mexico has never been rated as a manufacturing city. However, the development of electric power, and the possibility of trans mitting it for long distances, have worked a noteworthy change in this respect, and a large number of 'industries have been added in recent years. The largest of the electric-power plants is on the Necaxa and Tenango rivers, in the State of Puebla, 92 m. from the city, which furnishes 40,000 h.p. for industrial and lighting purposes. Another plant is in the suburb of San Lazar°, the current being distributed by over zoo m. of underground mains in the city, and many miles of overhead wires in its outskirts and suburbs. Other plants are at San Ildefonso, 12 m. distant, and on the Churubusco river, 16 miles.
Manufacturing, still relatively unimportant, was represented in 1925 by some 215 establishments, with an annual output valued at 10,000,000 pesos, and employing about 10,000 workers, most of whom were Indians and half-breeds (mestizos). Foundries and iron-working shops add much to the prosperity of modern Mexico City. There are also large cotton mills and cigar and cigarette factories. In the suburbs, oils, chemicals, cigarettes and bricks are made at Tacuba ; cotton textiles at Contreras, San Angel and Tlalpam ; paper and boots at Tacubaya, and bricks at Mixcoac and Coyoacan. A little farther away are the woollen mills of San Ildefonso, the paper-mills of San Rafael, and important works for the manufacture of railway rolling stock.
The railway connections include direct communication with one port on the Gulf coast and with two on the Pacific, and indirect communication with two on the Gulf. The Mexican and Inter-oceanic lines connect with Vera cruz, the Mexican Central with Manzanillo, via Guadalajara and Colima, and the Veracruz and Pacific (from Cordoba) with the Tehuantepec line and the port of Salina Cruz. The last-mentioned
line also gives indirect connection with the port of Coatzacoalcos, and the Mexican Central, via San Luis Potosi, with Tampico. A southern extension of the Mexican Central, via Cuernavaca, has reached the Balsas river and will be extended to Acapulco, once the chief Pacific port of Mexico and the depot for the rich Philip pine trade. A Mexican extension of the (American) Southern Pacific has been completed from Nogales to Guadalajara, which gives the national capital direct communication with the thriving ports of Mazatlan and Guaymas. In addition to these, the Mexican Central and Mexican National, now consolidated, give communi cation with the northern capitals and the United States, and the Mexican Southern runs southward, via Puebla, to the city of Oaxaca. These railways, with the shorter lines radiating from the city, connect it with nearly all the State capitals and principal ports.
Mexico City dates, traditionally, from the year 1325 or 1327, when the Aztecs settled on an island in Lake Texcoco. The Aztec name of the city was Tenochtitlan, derived either from Tenoch, one of their priests and leaders, or from tenuch, the Indian name for the "nopal," which is associated with its foundation. The modern name is derived from Mexitli, one of the names of the Aztec god of war, Huitzilopochtli, which name was later on applied also to the Aztecs themselves. The island settlement which was practically a lake-village built on islets— some of them undoubtedly artificial—grew rapidly with the in creasing power and civilization of its inhabitants, who had the remains of an earlier civilization to assist in their development. About the middle of the 15th century their mud-and-rush dwellings were partly replaced by stone structures, grouped around the central enclosure of the great teocalli and border ing the causeways leading to the mainland. The town had reached its highest development when the Spaniards appeared in 1519, when it is said to have had, including suburban towns, a total of 6o,000 dwellings, representing about 300,00o inhabitants.