Education in Mexico has a long history. The Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico was founded by royal decree in 1551, a few months after the National University of San Marcos in Lima. By comparison, Harvard College, the oldest in the United States, was founded in 1636 and the oldest Canadian University, Université Laval dates from 1663. Education in Mexico was, until the twentieth century, largely confined to males from the urban and aristocratic elite and under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico.