How can a man be well when he is one hundred dollars away from a doctor? With four doctors located among two hundred thousand people scattered over a radius of forty by a hundred miles, and all fees exorbitantly high, what is a poor man to do when illness overtakes his household? What is he to do? Why, nothing at all, except await the end, either of his illness or of both infirmity and himself. What the missionary needs is no less Bibles than castor oil and quinine and iodine. I think that I would begin with a moving-picture program and a clinic, and when a little physical health appeared, and some sort of interest began to loosen the rusty hinges before what occupies the mental space, I would begin to talk of something to make life worth living. It was the way of the Master to heal and teach and arouse, and the whole program of missionary work might be founded on "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." That is the key to the process. These people are not bad; they are crippled. They are not vicious; they are lifeless. They are not rebels: they are very much untaught, backward children. [Illustration: FIRST-GRADE ROOM, PANAMA] The system of public schools is growing apace, but it has a tremendous task, small support from the parents, and often open opposition from the priests. In one town a citizen remarked that on examination day at the close of the term not a single pupil came to school, but that it made no difference, as they were all promoted and would live just as long whether they were promoted or not. (How I would have enjoyed that, as a boy!) In another town the supervisor had criticized unfavorably the people for certain careless habits, whereupon the teachers took offense, all resigned and closed the schools. The secretary of education siding with the supervisor, all schools remained closed, and the children were happy. There is one safety valve left for people in such lives, and that is the world-old prerogative of talk. In the long evenings, by the roadsides, on the street corners, over the balconies flows an endless stream of talk. Prattle and chatter and gossip and slander flow on and make up the only scenarios the people know. Most of it is harmless. Some of it is aimless, and all of it is fruitless of anything except to save the mind from utter blankness.