The Government considers that the power wielded by the nation to spread primary education in the Provinces is so ample, in the form established by this projected law, that the regulations in force concerning financial subventions are without reason or justification. Once the Provinces have complied with the duty imposed upon them by the constitution in this regard up to the limit of their capacity the accompanying responsibility of the Federal Government will disappear. The executive, knowing the great value of the teaching profession in the general concert of human activities, seeks every means to establish and dignify the career of teacher, making it a real profession surrounded by all the honors and all the public considerations which it can legitimately claim. It is therefore sought in the reform to fix proper conditions for different categories of teachers, as well as a scale of salaries, and proportional and periodic increase, thus guaranteeing the stability of the profession and assuring it an honorable and tranquil retirement. With such aims in view for the retirement of secondary teachers, the executive has believed it equitable to establish similar lines of financial aid for pensions and for increase of salaries as those offered to the teachers of primary education. SECONDARY EDUCATION. Reference has been made to the establishment of intermediate schools, at first uniform, later differentiated, substituted for the former fifth and sixth years of the primary school and intended to bridge the chasm between the primary and the secondary schools. This marked a further innovation, in that secondary education had always been left in Argentina to the Provinces, the State nationally exercising only a nominal oversight of this division. For financial reasons, as well as because of the necessity of giving uniformity to a type so widely scattered, the intermediate school was from the very first regarded as national in scope. It may be likened in many respects to the junior high school of American cities. It was designed to give instruction of a general and cultural nature in languages, history, geography, and mathematics, combined with experimental studies in the elements of physical and natural science. Much earlier entrance, its advocates claimed, would thus be possible upon subjects of vocational and technical character, which should test the nascent abilities and aptitudes of the pupil. Especial attention was to be given woodworking, typewriting, stenography, linotyping, decorative design, photography, and special arts and crafts favored by local conditions. This experiment, though marking an advance in educational methods, was unsuccessful, and after a year of existence such schools were discontinued. They did, however, affect instruction in secondary education, leaving their impress in the radical requirement of early specialization after the fifth and sixth higher primary grades.