According to folklorist Francisco Quevedo, a nation’s political life is its superficial existence, which must be transcended by those who wish to understand the innermost life of the people. He advocates immersion in folk art, warning that there is no sure road to progress while its power remains unknown. Quevedo proposes looking deeply into the traditional soul of the country because the true power of evolution can be found there, in that repository of all the nation’s qualities, defects, and vices. He claims that traditional legends, songs, and refrains reveal that the nation is a poet, a musician, and a philosopher, seeing in them the soul of Nezahualcóyotl, the embodiment and the essence of the people’s psyche. Quevedo notes that society has been dazzled by imported European art and ceaseless wants to imitate it; society also yearns for a life that is not theirs, unaware that the people represent who they originally were, and possess all their moral capital, all the country’s wealth of poetry and art. He calls for reclaiming the folk art that, until then, had been ignored, so that it can be studied and assimilated as an essential element of life since, without it, there will never be any art that is truly theirs, and they will merely produce copies or caricatures of foreign art. Quevedo suggests offering courses on folklore in order to create a national art, and proposes schools where the masses will be provided with the necessary technical tools. In conclusion, he explains that traditional poetry and music will teach people how to become artists. In the end of his view, the folk expressions of the people contain the fundamental vibrations of the Mexican people and psyche, which are the only chance of achieving artistic independence.