by the present
Minister to alter the system by which civil and mechanical engineers are
compulsorily a body appointed and controlled by Government.

Medical science has made great strides during the last ten or twelve
years. The hospitals are reformed, and all sanitary and antiseptical
arrangements are now strictly attended to, and brought into line with
the latest developments of science. A fine new hospital, San Juan de
Dios, has been built in Madrid, on the plan of St. Thomas's in London,
and this is only one of many improvements. The reorganisation of all
scientific teaching is now engaging the attention of the Minister. An
excellent sign of the present state of medical science in Spain--which
only a few years ago was so far behind the age--is the fact that the
International Congress of Medicine is fixed to meet in Madrid, for the
first time, in 1902.

Since the establishment of religious liberty, the Americans seem to have
made themselves very busy in missionary work. Mrs. Gulick, the wife of
the American missionary in San Sebastian, claims to have "proved the
intellectual ability of Spanish girls," and has secured State
examination and recognition of her pupils by the National Institution of
San Sebastian, and a few have even obtained admission to the
examinations of the Madrid University, where they maintained a high
rank. One always has a feeling that missionaries might easily find a
field for their zealous labours in their own country; but if an impulse
was needed from a foreign people for the initiation of a higher
education among the daughters of Spain, they will certainly be able to
carry on the work themselves, with such women as Emelia Pardo Bazan to
lead the way. Mrs. Gulick is said to project a college for women in
Madrid without distinction of creed. The whole affair sounds a little
condescending, as though America were coming to the aid of a nation of
savages; but if the Spaniards themselves do not object, no one else has
any right to do so.

The Protestant movement has made but little progress in Spain. The
religion is scarcely fitted to the genius of the people, and the
Anglican Church has shown no desire to proselytise a nation which has as
much right to its own religious opinions and form of worship as the
English nation. The Americans and English Nonconformists are very busy,
however, and talk somewhat largely of the results of their labours. In
most of the large towns there are English chapel