Calmecac

At the Aztèques, the calmecac (in Nahuatl rental form of “calmecatl”) was an educational establishment managed by priests and intended for the children of the “nobility”, but also accessible to the children from the merchants (“pochteca”) and even exceptionally to the children from the common people, if it is necessary to believe of it Bernardino de Sahagún. The majority of the children of the common peoples attended another type of school called “telpochcalli” (“house of young people”).

It seems that one entered to the calmecac between six and nine years and that one remained there up to 20 or 22 years. The pupils, who were intended for the priesthood or high administrative offices, there were treated with most extreme severity, in a quasi monastic atmosphere. By manual work, the fast, the abstinence and the self-mutilation, one taught them the self-control. One taught very diverse matters to them, such as the interpretation of the pictographic handwritten , the calendar divinatoire (“tonalamatl”), the different ritual ones, but also poetry as well as the art of public speaking, extremely appreciated Aztec and the very important one in the exercise of a public office.

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