Without the aid of science, the arts of active life cannot duly advance in the career of improvement, and thus society remains a stranger to the higher refinements of civilization: hence, as the prefect of Junin well observes, the education of youth becomes a leading object of national interest and desire. But though in the department of Junin there are three colleges, that of Huanuco alone fulfils its purpose of instruction to a limited number of pupils; and there is reason to fear that it will soon share the fate of the other colleges in Huaras and Jauja, and be shut up for want of the necessary funds to defray its very moderate expenses. We are assured that the masters and professors of this recent institution, upon the foundation of which such bright hopes have been raised, are badly remunerated for their services; and have to contend against the perverseness of young persons whose early habits of self-indulgence while under the parental roof, ill prepared them to submit to the necessary restraints of a college, where the conscientiousness of the teacher, less pliant than parental fondness, will not sacrifice useful education to idle or vicious amusement, by imprudently winking at the errors and misdemeanors of the scholar. Such being the inauspicious account of the only college of the department at present in exercise, the schools of elementary instruction do not seem to be in a more flattering position, though official measures have been taken to diffuse instruction among every class of the community. To the credit of the chief of the department, commands were issued by him for the erection of schools of elementary instruction in all the provinces, with orders that proper reports concerning their condition should be regularly forwarded to the prefectorate at Pasco. To these important subjects the prefect in the _mensage_, or report, to which we have already alluded, endeavoured to awaken the attention of the departmental junta assembled in the city of Huanuco; when it was declared that the method of _mutual instruction_, adopted in that capital of local jurisdiction, in no way corresponded in its advantages or results to the time devoted to it by the pupils, or to the hopes at first entertained of its higher practical utility as a system.