At the beginning of the 19th century, the town had an elementary school for boys with an annual endowment of 4,400 reales and one for girls with 1,500 reales. About 100 boys attended the first school. The teacher lived in the house adjacent to the royal palace on the main square. By the mid-century, a second girls’ school was established in the Marina district, without any endowment. Serapio Múgica describes the state of education at the beginning of the 20th century:
“In the town center, there is a complete co-educational school, in a fine building constructed at the expense of the Guipuscoan philanthropist Pedro de Viteri; in the Marina district, there is a nursery school run by a female teacher, and another co-educational school also managed by a female teacher in the Jaizubía district. In Gurutze and Gaintxurizketa, two other private co-educational schools operate” (...). Apart from three religious orders — the Capuchin Fathers, the Betharramites, and the Sacred Hearts — who instruct numerous students and prepare them for their sacred mission, there are four colleges run by nuns: the Daughters of the Cross, the Servants of Mary, the Ursulines of Pau, who have occupied for years the magnificent building of the former Hotel Miramar, and the Ladies of Saint Maur” (...). “All the communities of the mentioned convents and colleges, except for the Capuchin Fathers, are French and settled in Fuenterrabía following the expulsion decreed in the neighboring nation by Waldeck-Rousseau in July 1901.”