unorganized and unarmed.
The strength of the army is fixed in each year's budget. That for 1903
consisted of 2933 officers and men, of which 275 were commissioned and
558 non-commissioned officers, 181 musicians, and only 1906 rank and
file. A conscription law of 1894 provides for a compulsory military
service between the ages of twenty-one and fifty years, with two years'
actual service in the regulars for those between twenty-one and
twenty-five, but the law is practically a dead letter. There is a
military school with 60 cadets, and an arsenal at La Paz.

_Education._--Although Bolivia has a free and compulsory school system,
education and the provision for education have made little progress.
Only a small percentage of the people can read and write. Although
Spanish is the language of the dominant minority, Quichua, Aymara and
Guarani are the languages of the natives, who form a majority of the
population. A considerable percentage of the Indians do not understand
Spanish at all, and they even resist every effort to force it upon them.
Even the _cholos_ (mestizos) are more familiar with the native idioms
than with Spanish, as is the case in some parts of Argentina and
Paraguay. According to official estimates for 1901, the total number of
primary schools in the republic was 733, with 938 teachers and 41,587
pupils--the total cost of their maintenance being estimated at 585,365
bolivianos, or only 14.07 bolivianos per pupil (about L1:4:6). The
school enrolment was only one in 43.7 of population, compared with one
in 10 for Argentina. The schools are largely under the control of the
municipalities, though nearly half of them are maintained by the
national government, by the Church and by private means. There were in
the same year 13 institutions of secondary and 14 of superior
instruction. The latter include so-called universities at Sucre
(Chuquisaca), La Paz, Cochabamba, Tarija, Potosi, Santa Cruz and
Oruro--all of which give instruction in law, the first three in medicine
and the first four in theology. The university at Sucre, which dates
from colonial times, and that at La Paz, are the only ones on the list
sufficiently well equipped to merit the title. Secondary instruction is
under the control of the universities, and public instruction in general
is under the direction of a cabinet minister. All educational matters,
however, are practically under the supervision of the Church. The total
appropriation for educa