The laws make marriage a civil contract with or without a religious ceremony, but in the country districts the people seem to prefer no ceremony at all to one not conducted by a priest; and as the latter are few and their fees often exorbitant, it results that more than two-thirds of the births in any year are (most unjustly) recorded as illegitimate. While sanitation and hygiene have not as yet received sufficient attention to reduce the death rate in what appears to be a naturally healthy country to its possible level (see p. 36), a large number of officials are employed in the departments of public health, and the authorities are now in possession of data which have made them thoroughly alive to the needs of the country in this particular. Arrangements have already been made with a British firm for an up-to-date system of sanitation of the capital. There were, in 1908, 52 philanthropic institutions in the republic under Government control, consisting of the following: 27 hospitals, 2 leper asylums, 2 lunatic asylums, 9 homes for blind and aged persons, and 12 orphanages. The number of inmates at the close of that year was 3,244, but, as might be expected, the remoter regions of the country are absolutely unprovided for, and many parts of the central and western regions are as yet without establishments for public assistance. In a similar manner provision is made, more or less adequately, for education in the central area, and, in fact, throughout the old province of Venezuela; but outside this the number of establishments decreases to nil in the Amazonas territory, while in the 40,000 square miles of the Delta there are only 2 municipal schools. There are in the republic 1,404 elementary schools with 48,869 pupils, 102 institutions for secondary education with 2,189 pupils; and for higher and technical education there are 31 institutions with 2,441 students, including 2 Universities (Carácas and Mérida), 1 school of engineering, 6 seminaries of philosophy and divinity, 8 schools of fine arts, and 14 of arts and crafts. Of all these establishments rather less than nine-tenths are supported by public money, though more than half of the secondary schools are private. The proportion of males to females is in general about as 10 is to 8; but there is no provision for women in the Universities, and save for the schools of fine arts the proportion of females to males in the higher departments is below the average for all classes of instruction.