not change as rapidly. Homosexuality remained clandestine and private in general. In November 1901, however, there was a public scandal about a police raid of a gathering of gay and cross-dressing men in Mexico City, known as the Dance of the Forty-One. Caricaturist José Guadalupe Posada made a broadside of the incident. Rumors abounded that the son-in-law of Porfirio Díaz was one of those arrested, but released. A list of those arrested was never published and the government neither confirmed nor denied. Education Liberals created a secular educational system to counter the religious influence of the Roman Catholic Church. Public schools had been established during the period of Benito Juárez, but expanded during the Porfiriato after the defeat of the French monarchy and their Mexican Catholic allies. Schools did not just teach literacy and numeracy, but also aimed at creating a workforce guided by principles of punctuality, thrift, valuable work habits, and abstinence from alcohol and tobacco use, and gambling. Even so, illiteracy was widespread, with the 1910 census indicating only 33% of men and 27% of women were literate. However, the government's commitment to education under Justo Sierra was an important step, particularly in higher education with the establishment of the secular, state-controlled Universidad Nacional de México. The Pontifical University of Mexico, founded in the early sixteenth century under religious authority, was suppressed in 1865. Teaching school was one of the few honorable professions open to women. Urban, educated women school teachers were in the forefront of feminists in Mexico. Public health Public health became an important issue for the Mexican government, which viewed a healthy population as important for economic development. Government investment in public health was seen as part of Mexico's overall project of modernization. In Mexico City, the government invested in large-scale infrastructure project to drain the central lake system, the desagüe in an attempt to prevent frequent flooding in the capital. Canals in Mexico City still had considerable boat traffic, such as on the Canal de la Viga, but canals were where sewage, trash, and animal carcasses were dumped. Access to potable water often meant drawing it from community fountains and distributed house to house by workmen with wheelbarrows or carrying containers on their backs. Some households were too poor to pay for the service, so a household member would draw and transport the water. Planners viewed inadequate drainage, sewage treatment, and lack of access