But the towns where there is a school are not really much better off, educationally, than those that have none. Save in very exceptional cases, no attempt is made to enforce school attendance, and though some of the parents send their children to school, the careless and indifferent do not. The Alcalde, whose business it is to see that the law is carried out, probably is--except in the larger towns--entirely uneducated himself, and is not going to stir up possible ill-feeling by enforcing a law which does not benefit him personally, and of which he does not see the necessity. The Civil Governor, who is over the Alcalde, and whose duty it is to see that the education laws are carried out, probably is equally indifferent, and in any case has not the time to supervise all the Alcaldes of the scores of towns and villages in his province. The schoolmaster naturally does not trouble himself; his salary does not depend on the number of his pupils, but on the population of the school district. And, lastly, any attempt to enforce the attendance required by law, were it made, must necessarily fail, simply for lack of school accommodation, for already most if not all of the elementary schools have many more children on the register than there is room for. Thus school attendance, although nominally compulsory, is in fact purely voluntary, with the usual results. The supply of school material is the duty of the Central Government, as already stated. This duty the Government delegates, not to the local authority, but to the schoolmaster, who receives, in addition to his salary, an allowance to scale for providing books, &c. The natural result is that he looks on this allowance as an augmentation of salary, and reduces the supply of books to the barest minimum, or to zero. It is not to be expected that the schools should be liberally or even decently supplied with these necessaries when every penny that can be saved on them is so much clear profit to the teacher. The consequence--seeing that books cannot be altogether dispensed with--is that the children have to pay for them, and the intention of the law, that schooling should be free to the poor, is frustrated.