Charitable institutions of a high character are also prominent, among which are the Hospicio, which includes an asylum for the aged, infirm, blind, deaf and dumb, foundlings and orphans, a primary school for both sexes, and a girls' training school, and the Hospital de San Miguel de Belen, which is a hospital, an insane asylum, and a school for little children.
The former monastery of the Jesuits, now the Jesuit church of Belen (1704), at the corner of Luz and Compostela Streets, is one of the most elegant and richly ornamented in Cuba.
The Jesuit church (Belen) has a large college for boys, laboratories, an observatory, a museum of natural history, and an historical library.