Uruguay has a good public school system, which was established some twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is copied after the educational system of the United States, and corresponds to the primary and grammar school grades only. The high school exists in the form of the National University, as it is called. In an enrolment of some fifteen hundred students only forty or fifty are girls. A campaign was started four or five years ago for the establishment by Congress of a women's university. There were many opponents of higher education for women and the measure was fought hard, but the President of the republic was in favor of such action and eventually a law was passed. In 1913 the women's section of the National University opened its doors. It was predicted that there would not be sufficient enrolment to warrant the continuance of the open door, but in the first year the enrolment reached close to the hundred mark.

The sale of public lands in the rural sections of Porto Rico to laborers for dwelling and farming purposes, provided for by an act at the last session of the Insular Legislature, gives some hope of providing better opportunities for the extremely dense population. Under the same act public lands in or near towns are to be sold for dwelling purposes only. There are approximately eight hundred thousand people, representing more than one hundred and fifty thousand families, who belong to the landless class, two thirds of the whole population. There are two classes of land that it is held can and should be placed within the reach of deserving laborers who now belong to the landless class. The first is the unused lane, mostly in the interior, which is owned largely by non-residents, and the second is that portion of the land owned by the Government which is not needed for Government purposes.

By proclamation of its mayor, Newark, N. J., took a holiday a few days ago to celebrate the first public inspection of the great municipal work which is being done to reclaim thousands of acres of the Newark meadows. The day was celebrated as Port Newark Terminal day, for the city authorities, the members of the Board of Trade, the Traffic Club, and other business organizations plan to make the one time meadows one of the busiest shipping marts in the world, as well as a manufacturing and industrial center. The section now being developed includes nearly four thousand acres. Over three hundred acres have been filled in, and a channel 200 feet wide and 20 feet deep at low water has been dredged from the Government channel. The work has been in progress a little over a year, and the cost to date has been nearly two million five hundred thousand dollars.

From a Government resolution which has just been issued at Simla, it appears that the legislation introduced by the Government of India with respect to insurance companies operating in that country has been attended with the best results. The legislation in question was prompted by the growth of hundreds of insurance companies without governmental supervision, started practically without capital, and run by people who were ignorant of the rudiments of insurance business knowledge. Legislation of a fairly drastic order was therefore brought in, providing among other things for the deposit of all insurance companies of a considerable sum with the Government before they would be permitted to carry on business at all, and also insuring a rigorous official scrutiny of accounts.

Motorists of the United States will this year spend a total of $1,325,865,000 for their cars, the maintenance of them and expenses incidental to the use of them, according to a compilation made for the Automobile Trade Journal. On June 1, 1915, the number of automobiles in use in the United States for pleasure car purposes reached the 2,000,000 mark. This number is being increased at the rate of 700,000 cars a year, so that at present there are undoubtedly in use in the United States in the neighborhood of 2,235,000 automobiles. This does not take into consideration the 200,000 or more trucks.

At Arrowrock on the Boise River in Idaho there has been completed by the Government a dam 1,100 feet long, 348.5 feet high, 240 feet wide at the base, and 16 feet wide at the top. The time taken in construction was four years, and the cost $5,000,000. The dam impounds 244,300 acre feet of water. From thirty to sixty miles below the dam lie a quarter of a million acres of valley lands whose reclamation it has made possible.

Details of the Silver Lake (Vt.) power development plan, which is being backed by millions of dollars and is said by experts to be the greatest proposition of its kind in New England, have just been announced. The plan will allow the using of waters of approximately eighteen square miles of drainage area under a static head of 259 to 291 feet, and the waters of twenty-three square miles drainage area under a static head of 675 to 700 feet.

Formal recognition by the United States of the de facto Carranza Government resulted in all the morning newspapers of Mexico City being printed in American colors and containing extremely laudatory articles on President Wilson and the American nation. On all sides and in all circles cheers and praise for the American executive and for the people were heard.

Boston is to study Chicago's system of municipal labor efficiency to see if it would be advisable to incorporate any of its features into the working out of local problems. The action comes as an aftermath of a statement made by the president of the National Reform Association, to the effect that the Chicago system shows how Boston may in four years save $10,000,000 through the exercise of efficiency in utilizing city labor.

Seven communities of the South Shore of Massachusetts—Cohasset, Braintree, Hingham, Hull, Milton, Quincy, and Weymouth—have been chosen as a prospective site for the model city proposed in celebration of the three hundredth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1620, according to an announcement by the sponsor of the plan. The plan provides for a canal from Weymouth to Fall River, and the development of the long water-front and the residential and business portions along intelligent constructive lines, in anticipation of a population of at least one million by 1940.

Since 1879 Montevideo, Uruguay, has had a water-supply system that is regarded as one of the best in South America. It is adequate for all wants, and equipped with modern methods of filtration, purification, storage, and distribution. The works, operated by a company formed with English capital and under English management, supply water free of charge to the city for its parks, streets, and fountains, and to various public institutions. The water-mains have been extended to every part of the city. Montevideo is a city of some four hundred thousand inhabitants, and consumes about twenty-two million liters of water a day.

The voice of an experimenter in Washington, D. C., was carried from the naval radio towers at Arlington, Oct. 21, by a wireless telephone, and was heard by listeners in Paris and Honolulu 8,000 miles apart. Telephone talks with the Orient without a relay at Honolulu are declared to be practically certain. The distance of about eleven thousand miles, it is believed, can be bridged eventually, although it is expected that considerable difficulty will be met, and considerable time required for machinery adjustments.

The organization committee for the congress of social sciences, which next year is to be in Tucuman, Argentine Republic, in connection with the national centennial celebration, has agreed upon the questions to be discussed by the various sections. These questions cover many topics in economics and finance, civil, commercial, and international law, immigration, education, politics, the press, and administration.

Some early paintings of Antonio Allegri, called Correggio (1494-1534), have been discovered in Mantua behind a framework covering a wall in the vestibule of the basilica of S. Andrea. They are not in good condition, but the subjects can be traced as representing a Pieta, Ascension, and Virgin and Saints.

Two national reforms, a permanent tariff commission and a national budget, are to be urged by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States through its seven hundred constituent organizations. These questions were submitted to the various bodies by referendum, and indorsement was practically unanimous.

Heavy travel by motorists going to and from the Pacific coast for the world's fair, or touring America, has caused Missouri to decide on the construction of two good cross-state highways. The routes selected are from St. Louis to Kansas City in one case, and from Hannibal to Kansas City in the other.

The seventy-six beet factories of the United States, located in seventeen states, represent an investment of about one hundred million dollars and require a thousand square miles planted to sugar-beets for their average season's operations.