The Ministry of the Interior (_Nei-chêng Pu_) forms the apex to China's constitutional system of provincial and local governments. In accordance with Sun Yat-sen's teaching, the National Government has consistently sought to reduce the importance of the provinces and to foster direct local-central intergovernmental relationships. The importance of this ministry is reduced somewhat by the fact that other agencies possess their own field services, and are therefore not obliged to route policy through it, but it remains significant because of its control and supervision of China-wide administrative development. The National Health Administration (_Wei-shêng Shu_), formerly separate, is now a department of this Ministry. SOCIAL AND CULTURAL AGENCIES The Ministry of Education (_Chiao-yü Pu_) has continued active despite the war. The heroic marches of the Chinese universities to their new homes in the West have become a world-famous epic. Students, faculty, and staffs moved out of the sinister zones of enemy occupation, usually travelling on foot, until they found new homes hundreds or even thousands of miles from their original locations. Some colleges have found homes in old temples or in caves where, with a minimum of equipment and library material, they continue their work. Others, more fortunate, have become guests of West China institutions. West China Union University in Chengtu has four other universities on its campus, all using the same facilities for the duration of the war. Still other institutions have been consolidated. The Ministry of Education has subsidized education as generously as possible, and fosters progress despite the war and because of it. In spite of all handicaps, institutions of higher learning have risen in number from 91 in 1937-38 to 102 in 1939-40, with a corresponding rise in enrollment of 31,188 to 41,494.[12] The entering class for 1940-41 was about 12,000, indicating a continued rise.[13] [Footnote 12: _China at War_, Vol. V, No. 2 (October 1940), p. 37.] [Footnote 13: The same, Vol. V, No. 4 (November 1940), p. 78. See also Wu Yi-fang and Price, Frank W., _China Rediscovers Her West_, New York, 1940; Chapter VII, "Holding the Educational Front" (p. 69-76) is by Y. G. Chen, President of the University of Nanking. The entire work edited by Messrs. Wu and Price is of value; written from the missionary point of view, it presents first-hand statements of affairs on Western China, and continues with liberal and socially conscious appraisals of the needs of Christian work.]