it usually happens that when the Sierra doctor is called upon to visit a patient, he rises from the card or diceing table; and the sort of prescription given for the cure of the sick will naturally depend on the state of mind in which the gambler happens to be at the time. Having said so much on the state of the medical schools and practice of medicine, it may be expected that we should advert to the interesting subject of schools and education in general. Small schools for reading, on the Lancasterian plan, are very common in the capital, and not unknown in the provincial and inland towns; and all—we think all—the white children are taught to read and write. The Bible too, as translated by Scio, is openly sold by book-dealers, and it is read by individuals in the Spanish language; but no _Mr. Wood_[16] is found among them, to carry forward the instruction of the pupils on the basis of the sacred writings. Close to the public library at St. Pedro’s church, which contains a large and valuable collection of books, there is a Latin academy, which was intended to be a great national school after the declaration of Peruvian independence; but it is not, we believe, now in a flourishing state: and the colleges of San Carlos and San Toribio have dwindled away under the baneful influence of a succession of revolutions, and governments misnamed patriotic, which are as hostile to science, though on a different principle, as was the dark reign of the inquisition under the sway of old Spain. Early in the nineteenth, as we have already shown to have been the case in the sixteenth century, the taste of the natives leaned to scholastic theology, the philosophy of Aristotle, and the civil law of the Romans. Heineccius still preserves his authority within the cloisters of the Lima colleges, which are too often deserted for want of funds for their support,—one of the many evils consequent on frequent political commotions! It has been long a subject of remark and regret, that, in these principal seminaries of learning, scarcely any of the scholars attended to their studies, except those who were sent from remote provinces, and who were not yet wedded to the idle and luxurious habits of the Limenian youth. Indeed, the expression “buen colegial” is proverbial in all Peru as peculiarly characteristic of young gentlemen devoted to gallantry, or who are observed to care more for their loves than their lessons. A new school for law and philosophy was commenced in Lima, a few years ago, by Don Jose Joaquin de Mora, who for some time delivered lectures, and also published a text-book on the Scotch philosophy, which he taught with credit.