Secondary instruction, in its turn, has lacked and still lacks a law to fix it in definite form and to define its real character in accordance with constitutional precepts and the nature of our political institutions. It has existed subject to the continual change of plans and regulations, harassed by the application of widely varying educational conceptions, in a state of continuous instability, and therefore reduced to a mere administrative mechanism without power of initiative relative to its immediate needs and without sufficient social influence to realize its true aims. To remedy these evils and to fill these gaps is one of the purposes of this law, in which the attempt has been made to include only that which ought to be general and permanent. The primary aim of secondary education should be to spread education among the towns and cities in such a way that in all the country there shall be trained, educated citizens fitted to play their part in the future civilization of the country. Preparatory instruction has therefore been kept under the control of the universities, which will fix their courses of study, their duration, and their extension both general and special. Both the plans of the preparatory courses, as well as those of the professions taught in the faculties of the university, have been projected along the lines already mentioned. The programs of the normal schools have been formulated in accordance with the technical ideas which should distinguish them, separating the general studies from those properly called pedagogical or professional, arranging them so that the former shall precede and the latter be intensified toward the end of the course. As regards practical subjects of instruction, the project outlines only the general features according to which they must be taught. Instruction will be imparted in accordance with the necessities of the immediate field of each school, with special regard to natural production, commerce, industries, and aptitudes of the population, all with the purpose of adjusting anew the activities of the Argentine youth, which has hitherto been by preference inclined toward the more speculative studies rather than those of practical and of immediate application. It is left to the authorities of technical education to prepare plans and courses of study adapted to each class of institutions. Enrollment in all schools has been made absolutely free, a logical consequence of compulsory education, which has as yet never been effective, but which is an indispensible condition to placing all upon the same plane of equality, a thing inherent in the principles of republican institutions.