Professional instruction, which in the United States of the North is not deemed a part of the system of free public education, is here undertaken by the Government; and four faculties are established to teach law (_derecho y notariado_), medicine and pharmacy, engineering, and philosophy and literature. Each of these faculties elects a dean, secretary, and four _vocales_ who have charge of the courses of study and other matters peculiar to their branch, while the four directories (_juntas directivas_) form a council charged with the sole administration of the professional schools. Forty professors teach one hundred and thirty-three pupils at a cost of $24,903.96 to the nation. The law claims forty-two pupils; medicine, seventy; engineering, eleven; and literature, ten. Special instruction does not stop here, for there are also in the capital seven schools, costing $21,762.24, and teaching two hundred and forty-two pupils in the following branches:— Music and Oratory 66 pupils. Commerce 50 ” Design 62 ” Arts and Occupations 55 ” A school for deaf-mutes has nine pupils. The Polytechnic School is under the direction of the Minister of War, and has eighty pupils. It is interesting to note that the system of marks in use in this institution has recently been adopted in Harvard University. While I am aware that a mere table of numbers, a census of pupils and teachers, even if illustrated with the courses pursued and the instruments for instruction, cannot convey to my readers a fair understanding of the results accomplished by the system of public education in Guatemala, I may be permitted to say that I have for six years performed with attention my duties on the school-board of one of the largest cities in the North, and my interest in the subject of education led me to examine the schools of this Southern city, with constant comparisons with the type most familiar to me; and the conclusion to which I arrived was that the system in Guatemala was excellently suited to the country and people, that the Government had done better than my own Government in the North, and if the results were not in every case all that could be desired, it was not the fault of schools or teachers. I have examined both public and private schools, containing both ladino and Indian children, and have found many well-instructed boys and girls, but never the execrable system of cramming so much in vogue at the North. I did not see the sallow, pimply, stooping, weak-eyed boys that form so large a minority of the public-school children at home. I am sure that if fewer “branches” are taught here, less ill-health results; and I am quite ready to honor good health before mere book-learning.