In furtherance of the awakened national interest in physical education, the executive has appointed departmental commissions in various departments for the immediate provision of adequate playgrounds and the acquisition of apparatus for games to be installed in town and village plazas. These have cooperated with the National Commission for Physical Education, the latter having decreed the establishment, upon application of residents, of neighborhood and community playing centers. All games, especially those of North America, which are adapted to the climate and environment have been systematically encouraged. In localities where it was required by law the executive has authorized the municipal authorities, with the consent of the national commission, to negotiate such loans as were necessary for the financial carrying out of this nation-wide scheme. These are steps of very great significance in a country of South America not by tradition or racial inheritance addicted to outdoor sports. SECONDARY EDUCATION. By executive message of February 14, 1918, the work of certain of the departmental liceos in discovering boys of talent in the higher elementary schools who were without means of continuing their education, and giving them opportunities to pursue their studies by means of a system of scholarships, was highly commended, especially as a beginning of bridging the chasm between elementary and secondary education. In response to popular demand, courses in Italian and Portuguese were incorporated by decree of the secondary education division of public instruction in 1917. With the object of making known to teachers in secondary education the international progress in this field, a journal entitled “Revista de Enseñanza Secundaria” was established by executive decree under the direction of the secretary of this division. All reports and public business concerning this division are to be published in this journal. By executive decree of November, 1917, all courses for the training of primary-school teachers maintained since April, 1916, in the liceos of the outlying departments were discontinued. They had been originally instituted by way of experiment for supplying teachers for the rural schools, and were not regarded as serving this purpose. Furthermore, in view of the agitation for improved rural schools, it was regarded as useless to continue a system of training which had proved, because of its environment, impracticable to harmonize with modern schools. COMMERCIAL EDUCATION.