only six secondary schools, including the institute of law and
medicine and the training-school for teachers at San Jose. The state
grants scholarships tenable at European universities to promising
pupils, and there are three important public libraries.

_Defence._--Military service in time of war is compulsory for all
able-bodied citizens aged 18-50. There are a permanent army, of about
600; a militia, comprising an active service branch to which all under
40 belong, with a reserve for those between 40 and 50; and a national
guard, including all males under 18 and over 50 who are capable of
bearing arms. On a war footing these forces would number about 36,000. A
gunboat and a torpedo boat constitute the navy, which, however, requires
the services of an admiral, subordinate to the ministry of marine.

_History._--The origin of the name _Costa Rica_ (Spanish for "Rich
Coast") has been much disputed. It is often stated that the territories
to which the name is now applied were first known as _Nueva Cartago_,
while _Costa Rica_ was used in a wider sense to designate the whole
south-western coast of the Caribbean Sea, from the supposed mineral
wealth of this region. Then, in 1540, the name was restricted to an area
approximately equal to that of modern Costa Rica. In such a case it must
have been bestowed ironically, for the country proved very unprofitable
to the gold-seekers, who were its earliest European settlers. Col.
Church, in the paper cited below, derives it from _Costa de Oreja_,
"Earring Coast," in allusion to the earrings worn by the Indians and
remarked by their conquerors. He quotes evidence to show that this name
was known to 16th-century cartographers.

With the rest of Central America, Costa Rica remained a province of the
Spanish captaincy-general of Guatemala until 1821. Its conquest was
completed by 1530, and ten years later it was made a separate province,
the limits of which were fixed, by order of Philip II., between 1560 and
1573. This task was principally executed by Juan Vazquez de Coronado (or
Vasquez de Coronada), an able and humane governor appointed in 1562,
whose civilizing work was undone by the almost uninterrupted
maladministration of his fifty-eight successors. The Indians were
enslaved, and their welfare was wholly subordinated to the quest for
gold. From 1666 onwards both coasts were ravaged by pirates, who
completed the ruin of the country. Diego de la Haya y Fernandez,
governor in 17