Oldest universities, New Spain

TL;DR -- Getting away from geographical concerns, we started to look at how the intellectual landscape developed in New England which led to considering what happened through time. Given that focus and our brief survey of New Spain, we had to look at the Universities of that region. ... 

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Our focus is the new world as seen from New England, principally the northern part. Though, plenty of families went south permanently. Some may have returned or kept in touch. Many lost connections which was easy given the difficulties of travel. Except, the sea was a facilitator. Not only was there a conduit of new arrivals from the south, say via the Bahamas, but, some families had multiple households. Essentially, there is no end to these stories. 

At one type of top, there is education with the higher-order types reigning. So, we are looking at the History of Harvard. Doing so, means that we need to look at what was what in England (say, Cambridge which was the influencer of many who arrived here early). Too, we had to look at the situation through time, say the earliest and then a sampling of others from a western cluster: Schools, New England and beyond. Naturally, that led to consider all schools in terms of time: Oldest universities.  

Those were all from the English perspective. Now, let's consider New Spain's experience in this regard. There were institutions formed in both the 16th and the 17th centuries, including Mexico's 1551 establishment in Mexico City. It's interesting that there were not any in California or New Mexico.  

Given that Mexico borders the U.S. and played a huge role in the establishment of the southern border from Texas west to the Pacific, a closer look at Universities there would be of interest. We have Mexico City (1551) Yucatan (1624) and Guadalajara (1781) are not close, at all, being more than a thousand miles in distance over difficult territory. One thing that looking at New Spain can do is get the Northeast familiar with the rugged southwest: Jedediah Strong Smith, St. Louis to San Francisco by coach (not on rail), and others are an example. 

The closest university in New Spain that would be considered close to the U.S. would the Havana (1721). Given that New England was represented well in the Carribean, we will have to look further into possible family connections with that institution. 

Remarks: Modified: 05/24/2022

05/24/2022 -- Of course, New France comes into play. For now, Sorbonne is the oldest for France, in general. Later, we'll take a brief survey of New France's efforts in this matter.