The Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco, Mexico, the first European school of higher learning in the Americas, was established by the Franciscans in the 1530s with the intention, as is generally accepted, of preparing Indian boys for eventual ordination to the Catholic priesthood. In any event, the colegio soon ceased to function in that capacity and no student there was ever ordained; Indians were banned from ordination to the priesthood in 1555, along with mestizos and blacks. Students trained in the colegio were important contributors to the work of Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún in the creation of his monumental twelve-volume General History of the Things of New Spain, often referred to as the Florentine Codex. The failure of the colegio had long lasting consequences, with scholar Ro