6. The programs of study for the rural schools occupied the greater part of the commission’s time. The subjects of instruction as reported covered three years, and were reading, language work, writing, arithmetic, drawing, agriculture, domestic economy, elements of applied geometry, geography and history (local, national, and universal), singing, and gymnastics. In the view of the commission itself, the feature which peculiarly differentiates these new programs is the complete application of practical methods and aims to each of these subjects, the elimination of abstract and memory teaching, and, above all, the development of the subjects of drawing, agriculture, and domestic economy. The fundamental aim throughout was to correlate instruction with the conditions and occupations of life in the several communities and to lead the pupil to see each subject as related to practical utility. Following the promulgation of the report of the commission, lively interest was manifested by the nation at large in the initiation of such rural schools. Practical difficulties, however, were foreseen in securing funds for their launching upon the nation-wide scale hoped for, and restlessness in certain quarters was manifested, though the Chamber of Deputies promptly voted the funds necessary. The National Rural Congress of Uruguay, in session in August, 1917, addressed to the minister of public instruction an urgent plea for carrying out the terms of the report in time for the opening of at least a part of such schools with the new school year. MEDICAL INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS. The medical inspection of schools has been favorably regarded in Uruguay for a number of years. It was initiated by law in 1913 with the examination of the pupils of the normal schools in Montevideo and the division of urban and rural schools into five groups. Since then popular approval of its application to the schools of the nation has steadily grown. Under the present law individual inspection of the physical condition of pupils concerns itself only with those who enter for the first time. Naturally the law is applied with varying degrees of rigor, the schools of the capital being visited regularly by the medical inspectors, while those of the outlying departments are dependent upon the energy and faithfulness of the individual inspector. The law assigns to each a certain number of schools to visit. Capable medical inspectors have served their nation well in pointing out the grave disadvantages from the use of primary schools for night schools for adults, especially the danger of tuberculosis. Medical inspectors are also required by law to include in their tri-monthly reports recommendations for repairs, alterations, etc., of school buildings and grounds called for by sanitary or hygienic considerations.