There are always two or three daily papers in Panama and an indefinite number of weeklies. An immemorial custom exists by which when any citizen has anything on his mind that he feels he should unload to the profit or otherwise of the public, a printed pronunciamento is issued and circulated about the streets by boys, handed out freely to everybody in sight. This really effective method is sometimes used for important matters of state. [Illustration: EIGHTH-GRADE ROOM, PANAMA] The educational system is modeled upon the best Latin-American standards, with primary schools of four grades throughout the Republic. Provincial centers have schools with two, and in a few cases four years more. The National Institute, at the foot of Ancon Hill, maintains a normal school for men and a liceo which grants the degree of Bachelor of Arts upon the completion of about the equivalent of the American college freshman year. The young women are given a normal course in the Women's Normal School at the Exposition grounds. There is no coeducation above the primary grades. The Agricultural Experimental Farm and School, abandoned as an experiment station, is used as a reform school. Taboga Island lies off shore and furnishes a point of much interest. It is the week-end Mecca of the Zone people and also of many of the Panamanians. There are a good American hotel, several fair native hotels, good fishing, tramping, an interesting native village, a healthful climate, and a fine view--and all within ten miles of Panama. If the prowler is looking for real adventure, he can seek for it on Gocos Island, three hundred miles south of Panama. Here are said to lie hidden somewhere ten millions of dollars' worth of treasure, stolen from Callao and other points between 1820 and 1830. Harvey Montmorency wrote it up in a book entitled On the Track of the Treasure, and so well did he tell the story that four large expeditions have been organized and sent to find it. One man is said to have found a little gold for his pains, but the others went home poorer than they came. And if these are too easy destinations, there lie the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Peru, said to contain many possibilities, of many kinds. Peru is supposed to have the islands on the market, and anybody with the money can purchase one, all his own. CHAPTER IV A CITY OF GHOSTS No one has ever satisfactorily explained the existence of ghosts in an enlightened world, but I have a theory that they survive because they render a real service. They lend interest to life and at least keep us from forgetting the super (or sub) natural. Likewise ruins have high value as a link with the past, and with neither ruins nor ghosts life would become a very flat affair. And if ever a spot, by history, tradition, situation, and present condition, was marked for rendezvous purposes by all the tribe that gibber and squeak and wander at night in the dark of the moon, that place is Old Panama.