Some Impressions of Porto Rico and Her Schools
IT was less than a week after receiving an invitation from Dr. Lindsay to join him in an inspection of Porto Rican schools that I found myself on the tidy little steamer Caracas, bound for San Juan. She was as pretty as a yacht, white and trim, but so small — only three thousand tons — that she suggested large possibilities in the way of pitching and tossing. These possibilities were all realized, but on the morning of the fifth day, when Porto Rico, in all her beauty of color and form and foliage, loomed up over the bow, the discomforts of the voyage seemed as nothing, and I felt the thrill that a man must feel on first entering the tropics. In the far east rose the picturesque summit of Yunque (the Anvil), the highest mountain on the island, nearly five thousand feet above the sea. Smaller billows of green surged around its base and made an effective setting. Directly in front, the long mountainous backbone of the island presented a highly varied skyline, and stretched off into the mists of the west. Everything was intensely, vividly green, an emerald isle if ever there was one. As we drew nearer, the white line of surf and sandy beaches began to show itself, with here and there a bold and rocky headland. Slowly the rocks immediately ahead resolved themselves into a castle and beyond that into a city. We were pushing toward Morro Castle and San Juan. The castle seems an integral part of nature; it grows out of the rock, and the rock out of the sea. The walls are a warm pinkish yellow, turning in places to brown and reddish brown, with occasional splashes of vivid green moss. Coming still nearer, the foliage begins to show its texture. One sees a fringe of cocoanut palms, their drooping leaves and bending trunks giving that aspect of melancholy so characteristic of tropical scenery. It is an ever present minor chord, and finds its human counterpart in the eyes of her people, — large, beautiful, even happy eyes, but with the suggestion of sadness and tragedy under their brightest smiles.
The sea was magnificently beautiful in its blue and green and turquoise. The sweeping tide that carried us through the narrow and at times dangerous channel between Morro Castle and the low-lying leper island to the west bore an enthusiastic set of voyagers. The castle and city lie on a narrow island presenting its broader sides to the sea on the north and the harbor on the south. One passes almost completely around the castle and half around the city before coming to anchor. From the harbor, the city has a most hospitable look. It rises from the water to the rocky rampart turned seaward, and seems to express a cordial welcome. From the governor’s seventy-two room palace to the smallest shack, the sunlight comes streaming back from the fully illuminated walls, and proclaims that, for the moment at least, you are in a land of sunshine. The flat roofs, projecting eaves, narrow balconies, walls of white and blue and pink, great shuttered windows, all suggest the architecture of southern Europe. The palm trees add to the foreign aspect. But the most striking, not to say startling object in all this gay scene is our own American flag. To see it floating from the shipping, from Morro and San Cristobal, from school and public building, fills the heart with mixed emotions. The flag is much in evidence all over the island. It is displayed, paraded, and loved with an enthusiasm quite unknown in Pennsylvania or Massachusetts. To the younger generation it is the symbol of a new era.
San Juan is the principal shipping port on the north, as Ponce is on the south, and is the largest city on the island. It has with the islanders the reputation of being very densely populated, but I saw no evidence of it myself. The narrow streets are not unduly crowded. The plaza and marina show only scattered handfuls of people. Those who know say that in some sections of the city as many as four families live in one room, — a family to each corner, — and get on very happily unless one of them tries to take boarders. To the outward eye the city is clean, attractive, and progressive. There are good restaurants and hotels, and such modern devices as trolleys, electric lights, and telephones. The centre of city life is the Plaza Alfonso XII. One finds here many lively shops, the Alcaldia, and the substantial Intendencia Building, which gives excellent quarters for both the departments of education and of the interior.
It was our own pleasure not to stop directly in San Juan, but at Santurce, just outside the city, at the garden-begirt Hotel Olimpo. As the trolley runs from the plaza directly to the hotel in twenty minutes, the arrangement proved entirely convenient. The Olimpo consists of a series of large one-story cottages, connected by a long porch. Each cottage contains about eight bedrooms, a common drawing-room, and very complete toilet and bathing arrangements. The rooms are furnished with European simplicity, — bare floors, iron bedsteads, a dressing bureau, washstand, and a couple of chairs, — and this appears to be the custom throughout the island in both hotels and private houses. The furniture is all European and mostly Viennese. One sees more bent-wood rockers and ebonized cane furniture than in the ordinary course of a lifetime.
The day after our arrival we visited the Normal School at Rio Piedras, some seven miles from San Juan, and reached by the same convenient trolley that passes Olimpo. At present the school is held in the old summer palace of the governor, — charming, dilapidated, and picturesque ; and backed by one of the most beautiful of gardens. The palace is of wood and visibly near its end, but its proportions are so good, and its setting so fine, that it seemed to me one of the most attractive buildings on the island. The young people in attendance were equally attractive, bright-eyed, intelligent boys and girls, with a keen enthusiasm for education, and evidently going in for it heart and soul. They were very well dressed, too; the boys for the most part in neat white linen suits, the girls in pretty wash dresses. One is apt to gather a wrong impression of the dress from reading that the small children are quite naked. One sees these toddling nudities on all sides, even in the cities, and sometimes they are distinctly funny, as the little brown cherub I saw one Sunday afternoon sporting a pair of red kid shoes and wearing nothing else. But, on the whole, the people of Porto Rico are more tastefully dressed than our own people. The linen suits of the boys and men are singularly neat and clean, while the wash dresses of the women are not only pretty, but seem, to masculine eyes at least, to be very skillfully made. I noticed, for example, that when insertion was used around the neck and sleeves, the lines were straight, and that there were no untidy gaps between belt and skirt. I leave it to the women if these are not sure signs of being well gowned! At any rate, I do not always discover these signs at home.
At Rio Piedras I had my first experience in speaking through an interpreter, and at the start it was difficult. The audience was typical of the seventeen that followed, — attentive, courteous, and patient. As many of the students knew both English and Spanish, they had to listen to the address twice, and that piece by piece,—a heavy tax on the good intention. The instruction at Rio Piedras, so far as could be gathered from a single visit, seemed naturally inferior to the best that we have in the states, hut it was distinctly in advance of much that we are doing. Considering the newness of the school, the absence of adequate preparation on the part of the students, and the difficulties that always attend two-language enterprises not fully equipped with well-trained teachers, the outlook is full of large promise. It must be remembered that the Spanish government believed very feebly in popular education, and was entirely opposed to coeducation. At the time of the American occupation there was, I believe, but one building on the whole island especially erected for school purposes, and that was the gift of a private citizen, a lady. The Americans have had to build from the very foundations.
It is a short distance from the beautiful old summer palace to the new Normal School, if you measure it in yards, but in the matter of attractiveness the distance is tremendous. The building stands on a bare, staring hill, and looks quite as if a cyclone had brought it from the most unemotional of our newest frontier towns. In general, all the new school buildings are needlessly ugly. There will soon be a marked improvement in this particular, — unless, indeed, the guests of the commissioner lost their cause by too much speaking.
In the afternoon we went to the English High School at San Juan. It is in the old Beneficencia building, on the very crown of the rocky sea wall built by nature, and from the windows one has the most enchanting views of sea and harbor and vividly green hills beyond. Across the narrow entrance channel lies the low island of the lepers, the Isla de Cabras, and the thought turns to Robert Louis and the strong, gentle face of Father Damien. The sun is shining brightly. The whole scene is fairly aglow with color. And yet one’s heart aches, for the contrast is so cruel, —over at the Isla de Cabras, hopelessness and death; here at the High School, abundant life and hope.
The building is old and charming. One thinks unwillingly of the approaching day when, unless Minerva intervene, it will give place to another architectural aberration like the one at Rio Piedras. The rooms are grouped around a large central court, an eminently suitable arrangement for this climate, and quite worth copying. We went into one of the large, cool rooms where the seniors, boys and girls, were having their Friday afternoon debate. They were a pleasant-looking set of children. One lad, a serious, handsome boy, spoke with much eloquence. He was describing a personal experience, — his first going away from home, — and spoke so touchingly that he and several of his hearers were moved to tears. When he sat down, his comrades hurried to congratulate him, but he could only bury his face in his hands, and it was several moments before he recovered himself. Then another lad played very sweetly on the violin, a selection from II Trovatore. It was now the turn of the commissioner and his guests to do some speaking. It was less difficult than in the morning, and there was the same courteous attention, even from the smaller children brought in from the graded school. The color-line is not drawn in Porto Rico, and it is most fortunate that this is the case, for it would be a matter so delicate as to be impossible. Between pure Castilian and pure negro there are all proportions of admixture.
The official course of study seemed to me somewhat over-ambitious. The second year, in addition to the humanities, drawing, music, and calisthenics, was freighted in mathematics with algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, and in science with biology and physics. The better practice is much simpler than this.
Trigonometry is thrown to the fourth year and is made elective, and but one branch of mathematics and of science is offered at a time. I am glad to hear that the course has since been revised along the line of this more wholesome simplicity.
On the following day, and early enough in the day to make an impression, the commissioner’s party, accompanied by our excellent interpreters, Mr. Martinez and the Rev. Mr. McCormick, started out on a tour of the island. The circuit occupied eight days, and was a most unique and interesting experience. Travel in Porto Rico is varied. There was a French scheme to girdle the island with a narrow-gauge railway, but it was never carried to completion. At the present time there are three small stretches of road : one on the north, from San Juan to Camuy ; one on the west, from Aguadilla to Hormigueros; and one on the south, from Yuaco to Ponce. On the map, they look like remnants of a partly destroyed system, rather than the beginning of anything. The first-class carriages are comfortable, but the fares are high, something like seven cents a mile, I believe. Most of the travel, that is of the quality, is by post coaches. These are low, double phaetons drawn by two horses so phenomenally small and so shabby that they hardly look like horses. But these tiny animals tear along at a full gallop, and make better time than our larger steeds at home. At first, one’s sympathies are so played upon that the journey is genuinely distressing, but later, one feels better about it on noticing that the horses are frequently changed and on hearing that they are only taken out once in three or four days. The country people use saddle-horses where they can afford them, but the majority walk. It is a populous land, and the people seem always astir. One never has a sense of being in the wilderness, but rather of moving about in an unbroken community. Even in crossing the island, and looking out over what seems to be unbroken forest, one soon learns that the forest is simply the shade needed for the coffee bushes, and really teems with tiny homesteads. There are, indeed, about a million people on the island, and this in a territory a little smaller than Connecticut means considerable neighborliness.
Porto Rico has the enthusiasm for politics and political activity characteristic of most Latin countries. Her public men are ready speakers and understand the art of touching an audience. To an outsider, however, it would seem that the first duty of her patriots is to go in less for politics and more for social work. As a Pennsylvanian, I make the suggestion with all modesty and certainly in no spirit of more-righteous-than-thou !
At present there are two political parties, the Federalists and the Republicans. The Federalists are aristocratic, are opposed in general to American ways and means, and represent the old régime. The Republicans are strongly American in their sympathies, and democratic in their ideals. It is needless to say that virtue does not reside exclusively in either party. The American who wishes to know the island and to serve it must be prepared to sympathize with both parties, and to understand their point of view. While I believe most genuinely myself that both destiny and advantage are on the side of American affiliation, I quite sympathize with the Federalists. It must be remembered that their first impressions of America and Americans were gathered from the more doubtful part of our fellow citizens, in many cases from persons whom we ourselves should be unwilling to associate with at home, — adventurers, rolling-stones, army hangers-on, carpetbaggers, and the whole list of undesirable and less desirable Americans. From what I heard, and in smaller measure from what I saw, I judge the first importation of Americans to have been a curious lot. Happily all this is rapidly changing. Men like the present governor and the present commissioner, and others of their stamp, are representing America with dignity and worth. But our task now is not the simple one of making a good impression ; it is the more difficult task of overcoming an unfavorable impression. The five thousand men who swore allegiance to the Spanish flag within the two years prescribed by law are among the best people on the island, and are quite the type of people we should like to win over to the new order of things. Furthermore we must also remember that for the moment we have taken from these upper classes more than we have given them. They had practically achieved autonomy, with due representation in the Cortes. This was all swept away by the American occupation, and in return we have given them nothing politically. They are more truly a subject people, a mere colony, under the United States than they were under Spain. They have not even citizenship. They are inhabitants of an island but citizens of no sovereign state. If they journey abroad, they may not even secure a passport. The real power on the island is vested in the President, and is exercised through the governor and the Executive Council, both of which he appoints. The electoral House of Delegates has large freedom but no final powers.
If the Porto Ricans were inferior to the rank and file in America, there might be some excuse for this course. But they are a superior people, and I maintain that it is cavalier treatment to leave them without political status in the great world of nations. The grievance may seem trivial and theoretical to bread and butter folk, but the more high-spirited a people, the more sensitive they are to just these spiritual slights. We must not forget our own colonial experience, and with what little grace we could stomach indignities even from people of our own race.
Arecibo is the Federalist headquarters, the most “ disaffected ” city on the island. A few months ago the feeling ran so strong that it was openly threatened that the governor could not safely enter the city. Yet when he did go, in February, he received a courteous welcome, and left many friends behind him. The welcome given our own little party was entirely courteous, but also somewhat chilly. It was not so much what they did, as what they omitted to do. The evening meeting at the Teatro was very well attended, and the speeches were listened to with close attention. When any of the speakers touched upon political matters there was a general sense of skating on pretty thin ice abroad, — if such an expression is applicable in the tropics. The local speaker quite outdid us. He was both eloquent and impassioned. He reviewed the substance of the American addresses most ably, touched upon the political questions of the hour, and sat down amid a storm of applause. Indeed, there were few occasions in Porto Rico where the natives spoke at the same meetings as ourselves that I did not feel that we were well beaten at our own game. They are born orators, — it is the Latin blood, I suppose, — and their oratory is unique. Paragraph succeeds paragraph, each full, fervid, flowery, leading up to some rhetorical outburst that is a fitting prelude to the ample applause which separates the paragraphs into so many little speeches. In time, this fervor might grow wearisome, but for popular occasions it is highly effective, and made our own attempts seem Anglo-Saxon.
We were quartered at the hotel, and my own room opened on a roof terrace. Night in the tropics, and especially when the moon shines, is an affair of enchantment. In the north, my old friend the Dipper spoke of home, but the Pole Star was much nearer the horizon than I had ever seen it before. In the south, the Southern Cross, albeit the false one, touched the emotions with a sense of wonder. Below, lay the sleeping, flat-roofed city, the graceful plaster façade of the cathedral rising white and magnificent in the moonlight, while the straight lines of the buildings were broken by the attractive, melancholy outlines of the palms. As a background to it all, a background of impressive sound, came the constant boom of the northern ocean, like the swelling notes of a universal organ.
The following day was Sunday. I hope we did not desecrate it, but this is how we spent it. We got up early and drove with the supervisor of the district to the Jefferson graded school, six-roomed, substantial and ugly, but made pretty within by cheap, well-chosen pictures. A short railroad ride took us to Camuy, still on the north coast, where we spoke to the school-children out in the open air. Many of them were barefooted, but they were very neat and clean. They made a pretty sight, gathered into lines on the little plaza and carrying large American flags. They gave us good coin for our speeches, — they sang the national hymns in English. A short westward drive brought us to the straggling town of Quebradillas in time for dinner. It was my good fortune to dine with the Quaker teacher, and to breathe in his home an air of Sunday peace so unmistakable that had I been tired it would have rested me. In the afternoon came the dedication of the Horace Mann Agricultural School. The children were out in full force, gayly dressed, carrying beautiful flags, and singing not only our American airs, but also the Borinquen, that plaintive national air of Porto Rico, full of the minor chords of the tropics.
It is a long and intensely beautiful drive around the northwestern part of the island to Aguadilla. The villages are back from the sea, so placed for greater security against the Carib pirates who not so many years gone mixed picturesqueness and wickedness with the life of these southern waters. In point of beauty the drive is comparable with the Cornice and the famous coast drives of southern Italy. The sea is as blue, the surf as dazzling, the sky as impenetrable, the earth as fair. Sometimes a river breaks through the hills and makes its way to the sea, its broad savannas a tender green with new-grown sugar cane. We met a group of well-mounted teachers under the captaincy of the agreeable young supervisor, Mr. Wells, and attended by this cavalcade we swept over the beauty-covered hills down toward the sea, the sunset, and Aguadilla. My heart fairly sang within me. A shadow island rose against the sunset much as Capri and Ischia and the Galli rise from out the western sea. Nor was the evening less charming. The little plaza is well set in the heart of the city, and at its upper end rises the cathedral, beautiful in its simplicity and fine proportion. The cathedral was open and I went inside. The walls are a pleasing light blue, the columns and arches white, while the flat timbered roof is white, chamfered with black. A sermon was in progress, but appeared to require no very close thinking, for the people came and went, and paid scant attention to what the poor old priest was saying. As it was Lent, the image of the Virgin, to which he so constantly appealed, was in mourning. I was much struck with the gentle, well-bred appearance of the women, they were so tidily gowned and had such pleasant, attractive faces. These were becomingly set off by the tiny scarf or dainty handkerchief which kept them from the offense of appearing in church with uncovered head.
Outside, the plaza quite swarmed with life, and a very pleasant social life it seemed to be, happy, abundant, frankly joyous, but without any touch of rudeness. Taking them by the hundred, the Porto Ricans are a better-mannered people than ourselves. At the hotel, the alcalde and the school board were waiting for the honorable commissioner, so I stopped with them until he could be found. Then I made my way to the Protestant church. Late as it now was, the service still continued, for it happened to be communion, and there were, I believe, between two and three hundred communicants. A roll was called, and nearly every member responded. It was a quite remarkable church, made up almost exclusively of native members, and entirely self-supporting. I saw for the first time individual communion cups in use, a custom no doubt hygienic and proper, but taking off a trifle from the oldtime sense of brotherhood. The whole scene was very earnest, and in strong contrast with the more sensuous beauty at the cathedral.
It was still too charming to go to bed. Mr. McCormick and I walked down on the beach. Some of the better houses had balconies overhanging the sands. The lamplight shining through the great open windows looked warm and yellow as against the pale moonlight. The music of softly spoken Spanish told of pleasant family groups. The sea added its solemn undertone. Then we walked on to the great spring which gives name to the city, and back again to the plaza, where we sat on the benches and talked philosophy with Mr. Wells until much later than was proper. If ever I live in Porto Rico I hope it may be at Aguadilla!
Our route continued southward along the western coast through the friendly and beautiful city of Mayaguez, and the little town of Cabo-rojo, where the fine straw hats are made, and landed us one evening after dark at a small city among the hills. The word was passed that we were to be entertained singly by the natives. I was somewhat appalled at the prospect of being without an interpreter, but my host, a tall, well-dressed, well-bred man, greeted me most hospitably in broken English and better French, and not only said, “ Our house is yours,” but quite lived up to it. The house was typical, — the ground floor given over to store-rooms and offices, the first floor containing all the living rooms. The staircase led to a roomy reception hall, opening into the drawing-room, a large, cool apartment, with ceilings fourteen or fifteen feet high, clean bare floor, comfortable Vienna furniture, and two large French windows leading on to the balcony overhanging the street. The atmosphere of the room was good, suggesting serenity and the high mind. On one side, the room opened into the family bedrooms ; on the other side, into the large and exquisitely neat guest chamber assigned to me.
At the entrance to the drawing-room I was presented to my hostess. I have seldom met either in America or Europe so charming and beautiful a woman. She had not only the beauty of regular feature, fine eyes and hair and teeth, —anatomical beauty, — but the rare beauty of the inner spirit. She spoke excellent English, and greeted me with a sweet comradeship that quite won my heart. An elaborate dinner had been prepared, but the hour was already so late that we could only touch the meal, and hurry off to the Teatro. The building was crowded with children and teachers, and the friends of education generally. A little girl presented the commissioner with a bunch of flowers, and did it very prettily. When we reached the house again it was after eleven, but a supper was waiting for us, and meanwhile the baby had wakened. He was only six months old, but much more precocious than our home youngsters. He said “ Mamma,” came to me without the least hesitation, laughed delightfully, and put two and two together in a most surprising way. Moreover, he omitted to cry. In spite of a man’s traditional dread of babies as somewhat amorphous creatures, I think I should like to have run off with this little chap. The father and mother thought none the less of me for this.
The following morning, my host took me to see the old church, and then to good vantage ground for a glimpse of the surrounding hills. Later, we went to the new schoolhouse to be dedicated, — the Longfellow School. I wondered how much the name meant to these children of another tongue, and so to give it more human meaning I ventured to tell them, before speaking of handicraft, that I had the pleasure of knowing the poet’s family, and that two of his grandsons were in my own summer school. On the way home, my host said to me with the simple courtesy of a child, “ The people liked very much what you said.”
When I told the señora good-by, she begged me to give her kind regards to my sister, — I had mentioned, apropos of the baby, that I had a sister and a scrap of a nephew, — and then she excused herself for a moment. When she came back she brought an elaborate, handworked handkerchief, and said to me, “ Will you give this to your sister for me ? ” It seemed to me singularly gracious, this sending of a message and a token to a lady she had never seen, the one bond that of motherhood. Besides name and address, the card, inclosed by request, with the handkerchief, carried very proudly “ (U. S. A.).” It was also significant of their spirit that the boy was presented to me as an American citizen, since he had been born subsequent to the American occupation.
I do not wish to present these delightful people as typical Porto Ricans. It is too evident that they would be rare and unusual persons in any community, perhaps even in Massachusetts, but that I should stumble upon them out of the darkness gave added promise to the multitudes I had no chance of meeting. And neither of these gentlefolk had ever had the inestimable advantage of visiting the United States. When they do come may some friendly hand give them greeting and good cheer ! The señora had never been off the island ; the señor had been educated at Madrid, and, I believe, had been in Paris.
And I recall so many other friendly touches, — the afternoon luncheon at remote Cabo-rojo, where the beer bottles (from Cincinnati) were made to spell Salud, — Health ; the impassioned address of welcome delivered from the balcony by Señorita Lopez as we entered Sabana Grande; the hundred would-be school-children who planned to parade there, asking that they might be provided with a school, but who gave over the plan lest it seem discourteous and lacking in appreciation of what the commissioner and department are already doing; the girl in pink who sang so lustily, and who afterwards came and talked with us so unaffectedly, and in such excellent English, while we were being banqueted at the Alcaldia ; the dignified old colored alcalde who presided with so much selfrespect, and who proved such an admirable toastmaster ; the two gentlemen who took me to drive at Ponce, and who gave me glimpses of charming rose gardens, fancy pigeons, well-regulated hospitals, beautiful scenery, and a faultless courtesy.
One other instance I cannot pass over. It was on the great military road coming back from Ponce, at a primitive country store. We were hunting native products, and came, I fear, as an interruption. The shopkeeper was doing up rice, not in a bag, but in a simple square of paper, a most exacting operation. He was doing it with great skill and speed, but the packages were not rectangular. One of our party attempted to show him better, and after much time and labor produced a somewhat neater bundle that would not carry the rice across the street, much less over the mountain. He had to confess himself beaten, and got somewhat laughed at for his pains. The shopkeeper only smiled, and said, with what seemed to me truly Chesterfieldian courtesy, “We have learned so much from the Americans, I am glad if we can teach them even so small a thing as this.”
In Porto Rico one finds an astonishing enthusiasm for education. The school is recognized as the open door to better things. The commissioner of education and the secretary of the interior, between them, would absorb the whole insular budget, the secretary maintaining that it is not worth while to have schools unless you have roads to get to them, and the commissioner retorting that no road is good unless it lead to a good school. This popular enthusiasm is a direct result of American influence, and too much praise cannot be given to the former commissioner, Dr, Brumbaugh and his colleagues for having created so ravenous and so healthy an educational appetite.
Four years have brought about a great change, not only in sentiment, but in method. Under the old regime each child was encouraged to study at the top of his voice, so that the alcalde might know that the school was open ; and it is even reported that when this babble failed to reach him, he would send a policeman to inquire why the school was closed. The boy who studied the loudest and made the most noise was consequently the best scholar. It can readily be surmised that what little learning was accomplished under such conditions was entirely by rote, and almost worthless educationally.
In general, the Porto Rican children are bright and quick, and have excellent memories. They are better penmen than are American children, and are much quicker at languages. I heard little fellows of ten and twelve reading English very creditably after only a few months’ study. I wish our own boys were as clever with their French and German. Of course, the incentive in Porto Rico is stronger than with us, for so many direct and material benefits follow upon a knowledge of English. The particular bête noire of the Porto Rican children is arithmetic. They have not been taught to reason, and consequently find all mathematics difficult.
As a rule, the children are fully as handsome as the children of the states, perhaps handsomer, but they are less sturdy. I think this defect is not due to the climate. Aside from certain fever districts, the constant trade-winds keep things sweet and wholesome. In March, at least, the climate is ideal, and though less favorable during the two seasons of the year when the sun is directly overhead, I am disposed to believe that there is less suffering from heat than in our own northern summer. The causes for this physical inferiority are mostly removable, — poor and insufficient food, absence of ventilation in the sleepingrooms, and lack of adequate exercise and baths. The first recommendation in my own report was for the appointment of a qualified instructor in physical culture. This was done in June. A graduate of the Posse Gymnasium in Boston was chosen to instruct the teachers in attendance at the summer normal school at Rio Piedras, and to remain throughout the year, a wandering apostle of good health, organizing the physical work in the sixteen school districts.
The great difficulty in establishing good schools has naturally been the absence of qualified teachers. Some of the native teachers had rather lax ideas of both discipline and morals. The solicitude of the old alcaldes was not entirely without foundation. But the personnel of the service is being constantly improved. Boys and girls now being educated in the states will soon return as teachers. The summer normal schools have also proved a tremendous help. In 1901, 800 candidates enrolled (maestros and aspirantes), and the present year saw a similar enthusiasm.
At the present time there are nearly 1000 schools on the island, with about 55,000 children on the rolls, — 55,000 out of 250,000 children of school age. The Normal School is the one institution of higher grade. I cannot help wishing that there might be at least one thorough, first-rate college. The other schools are divided into high, graded, rural, and agricultural. Of the latter, I can only say that they are “ well-meant,” yet in time they will doubtless teach the children to make two blades of grass grow where one grew before. All the schools remain open during nine months of the year, and may have a session of ten months if the municipality, the ayuntamiento, cares to meet the added expense. In general, it may be said that the children in Porto Rico who do go to school are better provided for in every way than the children in the rural districts at home.
As a result of the recent interest, three manual training and industrial schools are now being established. There is large need of mechanical training. The great staples of the island are sugar, coffee, and tobacco, and when one of these crops fails there is widespread hardship. Local industries and diversified agriculture would be a great boon. At present nearly everything manufactured is imported. When I tried to collect samples of Porto Rican handicraft, I found a meagre showing, — the roughest sort of pottery ; water-bottles which turned out afterwards to have been made, the one in Spain and the other in Germany ; woodcarving so crude as hardly to deserve the name ; drawn-work distinctly inferior to the Mexican ; decorated gourds and cocoanut dippers. These, with the straw hats of Cabo-rojo, and a rough fibre belt, constituted my entire find. Yet the people must have large aptitude for handwork. Their superior penmanship, their neat clothing, the surprising dexterity of the country shopkeeper, all indicate latent talent.
In Porto Rico, school and state go hand in hand. While the ayuntamientos are expected to look after such local matters as school buildings and teachers’ salaries, the control is vested in the central department of education. The commissioner occupies a position similar to that of the minister of instruction in France. He is a member of the Executive Council, the real governing power on the island, and has consequently the two sides to his activities, educational and political.
The Sandwich Islands form a territory, the Philippines an uncertainty, but Porto Rico occupies a unique political position, — she is our one colony, and our treatment of her seems to me, as an American, wholly without precedent and reason. If we take the ground that she is still a child, and needs the tutelage of our own more mature civilization before she may aspire to territorial organization and subsequent statehood, we must, to be consistent, remember that a child is never self-supporting; we must dip deep into the national, paternal pocket to make this period of tutelage profitable. We must build schoolhouses and railways and wagon roads, and otherwise look after the spiritual and material well-being of our child. Such a theory and practice would at least be understandable. But to do as we are now doing, to step in and spend the insular revenue as we think best, is a bit of paternalism which we ourselves, with our strong AngloSaxon bent for self-government, would never tolerate. Either Porto Rico ought to be immediately organized into a territory, with the prospect of speedy statehood, or else her period of preparation for these responsibilities ought to be made effective and fruitful by more adequate national aid.
At the end of a fortnight the Caracas came back from Venezuela and carried us home. Porto Rico sank below the southern horizon, and in her stead there remained an agreeable and beautiful memory.
C. Hanford Henderson.