CHAPTER XV. INAUGURATION OF THE AMERICAN SCHOOL SYSTEM IN PORTO RICO. By SAMUEL MCCUNE LINDSAY, Ph. D., Professor of Sociology in the University of Pennsylvania; former Commissioner of Education in Porto Rico (1902 to 1904); Secretary of National Child Labor Committee. CONTENTS. 1. The educational problem at the beginning of American occupation_ 2. The period of military government. 3. The advent of civil government. 4. The primary schools 5. The town graded schools__ 6. Special schools: Normal school, high schools, industrial schools, rural agricultural schools, and night schools---. 7. The University of Porto Rico-- 293 299 304 306 307 313 321 327 330 8. Porto Rican and American teachers. 9. Porto Rican students in the United States_. 10. Insular legislation for education, financial resources, cost of schools-- 11. The present policy-Results of five years' work-The outlook for the future__ 332 339 I. THE EDUCATIONAL PROBLEM AT THE BEGINNING OF AMERICAN OCCUPATION. On the 25th day of July, 1898, the transports conveying the troops of the United States destined for the conquest of Porto Rico landed and the Army took possession of the town of Guanica on the south coast of the island, and by the 12th of August, when the armistice was declared, one-third of the area of the island had been forcibly occupied by the American troops, with practically no resistance. Everywhere outside of the capital city of San Juan, which was the residence of the few persons in the island of decided Spanish proclivities, this military force was received with open arms as a liberator and a long-expected friend who was to usher in a day of political and religious liberty and new opportunity. The control of the United States became effective on the 18th of October, 1898, and from that date until May 1, 1900, the island was under the military rule of the United States. The provision for education is a fair index of the civilization of any people. It measures the social value they put on the future and it measures the resources of the present. To understand, however, the educational system and possibilities of a country it is necessary to know something of its general, social, and economic conditions. Briefly, those conditions which confronted our Government of military occupation were as follows: We had taken possession of an island in the Tropics lying about 18° above the equator, but so situated as to have the benefit of the trade winds for at least ten months of the year, and therefore enjoying a delightful climate, which can best be appreciated by the people of the North when we speak of it as perpetual June as that month is known in the States bordering on the North Atlantic seaboard. The variations in temperature are very slight throughout the year, the average mean daily temperature not varying over 4°. The climate is healthful, and every foot of the soil is practically capable of cultivation. There are no forests in the island. It is almost rectangular in shape, about 100 miles long and 40 miles across, containing an area of about 3,600 square miles. The interior of the island is rugged and mountainous, the mountains attaining an altitude of 4,000 feet, but the roads crossing through the various passages rarely ascend more than 3,000 feet. There are a great many valuable trees in the island, but they are scattered, and, with the exception of the small reservation that has been made for forest purposes by the United States Government, the mountains are cultivated to the very top. The interests of the island are wholly agricultural, the usual tropical products found being coffee, sugar, tobacco, and small fruits, especially the banana and orange-a very fine variety of which is produced in its wild state, the lime, and the pineapple. These are the chief products in the order named. Formerly this order indicated the value of the products, but since the destructive hurricane of August, 1899, coffee, which still gives employment to the largest number of persons, has fallen to third place; and sugar, which now occupies a commercial advantage by reason of the free trade relations with the United States, which are not enjoyed by the Spanish planters in the other islands of the West Indies, holds the first place in the products of the island. Tobacco, which has also had a boom by reason of American sovereignty, finds a ready market in the United States, while Porto Rican coffee, on the other hand, a high-grade article not appreciated by the American consumer, has its natural market in Europe, where the commercial relations of Spain gave it preference, and those of the United States operate to its disadvantage. There is practically no manufacturing and no fuel on the island, hence manufacturing will necessarily occupy a minor place. There is some water power, which will ultimately be used for the furnishing of light and transportation. There is considerable iron ore, but otherwise little mineral wealth in the island. For a tropical garden, however, the United States could not have selected a more beautiful spot. Nature has been lavish and the productivity of the island is marvelous. Little skill has been devoted to agriculture as yet, and the population for four hundred years has been kept in ignorance through a mistaken economy. We found in Porto Rico a population of nearly 1,000,000 people, of whom only about one-third were blacks or mulattoes. Little or no race feeling prevailed, and the mulattoes together with the two-thirds white population constituted almost an entire white labor force, giving conditions unlike those in the other islands of the West Indies. The native stock, as it is called, is predominately a mixture of Spanish and Indian blood, and while there are no pure Indians left, the Indian type is still noticeable in many of the children of the island. This population is also more largely a population of young persons than is to be found in any country of the North. The so-called median age line, according to the war census of 1899, was found to be 18.1, while that of the United States was 21.9; that is, in Porto Rico one-half of the population is less than 18.1 years of age. Nearly 31 per cent is under 10 years of age, and only 16.5 per cent is over 40 years of age. Corresponding figures for the United States would show a very different age structure. The proportion of the sexes is about normal, in a population of 953,000 there being an excess of 8,700 females. The population of school age is, therefore, very large, and the educational conditions revealed by the census of 1899 showed a deplorable condition of illiteracy. The total number of persons under 5 and over 17 reported as attending school was only 414, and as the period of 5 to 18-i. e., from 5 to 17, inclusiveis the usual one recorded in the United States as the period of school age, we must take the number of persons found in that period as the school population. This in 1899 was 322,393, and the estimated school population for 1904, based on the calculation of the normal increase computed from the censuses of 1883 and 1899, was 393,786. Of the 322,393 persons of school age reported in the census of 1899, 25,798 (or just 8 per cent) were reported as attending school, 15,273 (or 9.3 per cent) of the male population of school age, and 10,525 (or 6.5 per cent) of the female population of school age. This showed that there was less desire to have women educated than men, and that fact is further brought out in the statistics of illiteracy, which were very discouraging even for a tropical country. Of the total population of 10 years of age and over, 22.7 per cent were able to read; of the male population, however, 25.7 per cent and of the female only 19.9 per cent. In Cuba, at the same time, 44.6 per cent of the male population 10 years of age and over were able to read, and 41.7 of the female population; and in the United States 87.6 of the male population and 85.6 of the female population. Going still further, and taking the entire population of Porto Rico, assuming that the children under 10 years of age not in attendance at school are not able to read, and assuming, as the census does, that those under 10 years in attendance at school are able to read and write, we have the following statistics in reply to the census inquiries answered for 951,836 persons out of a total population of 953,243. Five-tenths of 1 per cent had enjoyed the advantages of higher education; 15 per cent were able to read and write; 16.6 per cent were able to read. The percentage of illiteracy for the colored population was a little higher than that for the white, while the proportion of negroes in school was greater than the proportion of whites. This is confirmed by later experience in school administration. I usually found that the negro population was more ambitious than the white population for the advantages of the primary school where these advantages were free for both races. The physical condition of the population is an important element in estimating the educational problem. On this point there is a vast difference of opinion among those entitled to speak. The notion prevalent in this country that the population is idle, lazy, and diseased is not correct. Certain characteristics of the Tropics are, of course, in evidence. There is what a distinguished Porto Rican has humorously called a "negative inclination to labor," but this phase of tropical life is likely to be exaggerated by the more energetic worker from the North, because he does not understand or sympathize with conditions under which physical labor is performed in the Tropics. I think it is well within the bounds of reason to say that the average Porto Rican peon, or workingman, can and does cheerfully put forth an amount of physical exertion and expends in a day labor which, if measured in units of muscular physical force, would compare favorably with similar grades of labor in the United States. Such effort is not as intelligently expended or directed, and hence is not as productive. The worker has never had the strong incentive that comes from the full enjoyment of a reasonable share in the productivity of his labor; but the peon grasps at education eagerly under the new conditions, doubtless thinking that it may relieve him of the disadvantages of his old position, perhaps also in many cases associating the idea of relief from phys ical toil. But if such education is properly directed, I believe that in the peon's rise is the hope of the future for Porto Rico, and that he will not shun physical toil, but will see in it the basis of greater prosperity and happiness in proportion as his tasks are lightened by intelligent direction, and his returns increased where the rights of free men are defended by those who are intelligent enough to know their rights and to meet their obligations. Physically, the people of Porto Rico are smaller in stature than those of the United States. They have a high birth rate combined with a high death rate. Moreover, both of these significant indexes of social vitality are higher than the relatively high records reported, by reason of faulty registration of both births and deaths. The census of 1899 states that the true birth rate must be as high as 40 per annum per 1,000 of population, and that the true death rate must be nearly 40. The phenomena underlying both of these indexes are undergoing a great change. The birth rate has not yet shown that it is affected by the recent increased cost of living or by any change in the economic standards of the people, but the death rate has responded in a very marked manner to the improved sanitary conditions since the beginning of the American occupation. The people are fond of children. A family rejoices in every addition to its numbers, and parents are usually so proud of the number of children they have that in reporting that fact, even to a.stranger, they will sometimes include a child whose birth is expected at any time within the next six months. Parental affection, or, more than that, universal affection bestowed upon children is noticeable everywhere. The physical heredity of the present population leaves much to be desired. For a long time Porto Rico was apparently regarded as a penal colony. The evils incident to slavery were there until its abolition in 1873, and then there was a great gulf between the small highly educated and propertied class and the great mass of ignorant tillers of the soil, for whom little was done in the way of sanitation or direction as to wholesome living. Strange as it may seem, however, the relations of the sexes, as clearly shown in the very able reports of General Davis, were no less continent than in most civilized countries. Marriages, it is true, were rare and were deemed unnecessary, and families lived together fulfilling the same obligations and respecting the same rights of individuals as though the marriage tie existed. At least such is the opinion of many observers, and such is the testimony before a committee of the United States Senate from one who was probably the bestinformed American who studied the situation at the outset of the American occupation. I am inclined to think that the standards of sexual intercourse have been, however, quite different from what this statement would lead us to expect. I do not believe that there was more prostitution or illegitimacy, as we use these terms, than would be found among the social population of our large cities; but the conditions of family living were such, and are such to-day, that in addition to the somewhat laxer views prevalent in tropical countries, there is probably a greater amount of incest and of sexual excesses that have a marked effect upon the physical vitality of the children. An unusually large percentage of the children presented for enrollment in the public schools have shown signs of syphilitic affection in some form. The anæmic condition of so large a portion of the population, especially noticed in the case of children, has recently been shown to be a preventable disease, and the progress of public sanitation may soon cure that abnormality, as it has done away with many of the diseases, such as yellow fever and smallpox, which formerly worked such havoc in the island. For fuller information on child life in Porto Rico, see an article by the writer in the Sunday School Times, 1902. |