The Republican journal., 1904-08-18
conveyed-as in India, Egypt, Mexico,

requisition. When it comes to empty
water-jars, as on the way to the spring,
the women tilt the jars coquettishly on
one side of the head at an angle of As
degrees, so that one wonders how on
earth they retain the balance. No doubt
this habit of carrying things on the
head strengthens the spine and imparts
a Juno-like grace of gait, the same for
which Hindoo women are justly cele-
brated. The constant disuse of shoes
and stockings gives to the women an
elegant pose, but it deforms the feet,
spreading the toes wide apart in a fan
shaped effect. Now and then you meet
tall, stately Guarani girl, serene of
countenance, with skin of brown satin,
piercing black eyes, heavy hair falling
in braids below her waist, beautifully
! formed and graceful; but you are shock
ed to see the inevitable coarse cigar, an
inch in diameter, between her pearly
teeth, and you know that she, too, at
| early middle age will be as hideous
specimen Of humanity as her mother is
now-scrawny, big boned, blear-eyed,
crook backed and wrinkled like dried
! fig.
The present government of Paraguay
is making an honest endeavor to edu
cate the masses, and considering it's
poverty and scanty revenues, is ex-
| pending a large amount of money in
free schools. 1t has adopted the Ar
gentine system of public education
primarily copied from that of the
United States), and has imported sew
eral New England young women teach
ers to inaugurate the good work. These
| ladies are furnished a fine large house
and necessary apparatus, and are paid
good salaries. The children of the ''first
families" in most cases attend these
| free schools, as we'll as those lower in
the social scale. Compulsory education
was made a law in 1881, when General
Cadallero was President. Five years
later the statistical year book recorded
that only fourteen per cent of the
population could read and write, in
Guiding all the children attending school
when the estimate was made. Within
a year after the passing of the law
there were IT'S public elementary
schools, attended by 6, 1872 pupils. Those
| figures are more than doubled in these
first years of the twentieth century,
and in addition to the original annual
grant of something like $4,000, reck-
oned in Z. S. money, taxes have been
levied on fines, rentals of all public
lands, and yerbalee farms where yerba
mate is cultivated), auction sales, ETC.,
which, all together, bring the educa-
tional fund up to creditable sum-
Besides these public free schools the
government has started and subsidized
more than hundred private schools.
In Asuncion alone there are six of
these (free) for boys and nine for girls.
But as yet secondary education has
made little advance. The most i'm
portant of the few establishments that
are comparatively we'll attended are
the National College, with its staff of
fifteen professors, mostly imported
from Europe; the Seninario de Asun-
clon, under the direction of the Lazar-
list Brotherhood, with Father Mon
taigne, Frenchman, at the head; and
the College of Padre Nahiz at Esperos
The board of education has recently
established high-class training col
lege, which all the teachers in elemen-
tary schools are required to attend one
year, certificates of qualification being
granted only to such as pass the pre-
scribed examinations. Secondary pro-
vincial schools have recently been built
in Villa Conception, Villa Rico and
Villa del Pillar, and that comprises all
the towns of consequence in the repub-
lie. There is also large training col
lege for the theological instruction of
young priests. The few English and
German residents have Protestant
church at Asuncion, in connection with
which mixed school has been opened
Roman Catholicism is the only recog-
nized religion of the country, although
the amended constitution guarantees
perfect liberty of worship.
In the time of Lopez there were more
than hundred parish churches scat
tered over the republic. Most of them
were demolished during the war, and it
is common thing to come across these
desolate and deserted sanctuaries, half
hidden by the rank vegetation that has
grown about the ruins. AS in all tropi-
cal countries, nature soon repairs the
ravages of war. Within six months
time fields strewn with carcasses, black
ened by fire and trampled by the hoofs
Of cavalry horses, are seen waving with
luxuriant harvests, every scar obliter-
ated. In the more populous parts of
the country some of the dilapidated
churches have been carefully restored;
but their number is limited and made
quate to the requirements of the popu-
lation. One morning l followed the