The governing powers embody the executive, the legislative and the judicial; the president and his cabinet, national congress of two chambers, and a supreme tribunal. Ministers with portfolios are generally those of Foreign Affairs, Finance, Agriculture, Industry and Commerce, Communications and Public Works, War and Marine, to which is frequently added a _Ministro de Fomento_, after the Spanish model, a department which concerns itself with the development of new industries and means of transport, land concessions, and so forth, the word meaning "encouragement" or "fostering." A considerable bureaucracy naturally exists under this regimen, and there is a strong tendency among the educated folk to seek Government employ. On the whole, however, the system of government, with its ramifications, must be regarded as efficient and competent, and the machinery works smoothly. It is not necessarily thrown out of gear altogether by the sudden revolution or _golpe de estado_, which so frequently occurs, unless this be more than ordinarily severe. But the _caudillo_, the political leader or "boss" (to use an American equivalent) is often a corrupting and disturbing element. With regard to the religious system, the regimen and machinery of the Romish Church is, too, well organized, from arch-bishop down to village _cura_ or priest. But the education and character of this last often leaves a good deal to be desired. As with government, so is it with education in the Latin American countries. The theory is excellent, and education is everywhere extolled, but in practice the proportion of literates, indeed of folk who can but read and write alone, is exceedingly small, amounting perhaps to ten or fifteen per cent. of the population, rising to fifty per cent. in the most advanced land, Argentina. Education is everywhere free and compulsory, and the Latin American youth can reach the universities with little cost. The conditions of civic life in Spanish American lands are often pleasing in some essentials, and students of sociology and economics might well find matters of utility here. It might not be an exaggeration to say that there is more public spirit, of a kind, in a small Spanish American town than in its English or United States equivalent. More interest is taken in local government; there is more discussion in local matters. The inhabitant, if he has any grade of education and knowledge, thinks it natural to assert his opinion as a unit of his habitat, and public opinion is a strong factor. It is a good augury for the future. Indeed, in the connection, it is to be noted that Spanish American people--even in circles where it would be supposed that such matters would be beyond their ken--think much and talk profoundly on questions of government, polity, economics and so forth. They display a wider range of intelligence than--for example--the lower middle-class English folk in such matters.