succeeded by Dr. George G. Groff, a member of the board, who served until the advent of civil government, May 1, 1900. The enrollment of pupils during this school year and the cost of administration may be summarized as follows: The number of schools open varied from 529 on November 1, 1899, to 587 on April 30, 1900, the latter being the maximum number for the year 1899–1900. The maximum number of pupils enrolled during the year 1899-1900 was 28,969 and the maximum attendance 20,103. General Davis reports the attendance on private schools as amounting to only a few hundred, and not worthy of consideration. He also tells us that 5,000 children were refused admission for lack of room in the public schools, and that 15,496 of those enrolled were doing the work of the first primary grade, that 3,000 received all of their instruction under American teachers, and that 8,000 received English instruction from English-speaking teachers.

Preparations were also made during this school year for the construction of a suitable normal school building for the training of teachers, which was to be located some miles from the capital city. The English supervisor in San Juan established a model and training school, which, in January, 1900, was housed in the first schoolhouse ever erected in Porto Rico, a wooden structure located just outside the city wall on the military road leading out of San Juan. This building was burned down during the summer of 1900. No well-devised system of centralization in the financial support of the schools seems to have been put in operation under the military government, although General Davis recommended this and asked Congress to appropriate $1,000,000 a year for ten years for the support of education, and, in addition to this, the expenditure of $1,500,000 at once for the erection of schoolhouses,"

The actual expenditure under the military government for public instruction during the year 1899-1900, or rather from July 1, 1899, to April 30, 1900, amounted to $212,485.92, and that of the municipalities in addition thereto to $30,693.66. The original appropriations were somewhat larger, but had to be reduced by reason of the lack of resources, and the actual expenditures were well within the amounts after the reduction had been made. The per capita cost was high, but the difficulties of the situation which confronted the military authorities were proportionately great, and the results were somewhat discouraging. No great enthusiasm for the schools was shown in that early period, because the educated class was indifferent to everything done by Americans and the uneducated peon class was not yet fully convinced of the realities of the changes going on about them or the possibilities of education as a lever in their own advancement. The peon was very largely without ambition, and it required a more highly centralized system to place an efficient school before him in the light of a real opportunity. The reports of General Davis, which I have examined with great care and parts of which I have reread many times, contain the results of probably the keenest and most far-reaching study that has been made by any American official of Porto Rican problems as a whole. I hesitate to disagree with his conclusions in any particular, and yet I believe that a careful and conservative estimate of the results of five years of civil government completely refute the pessimistic conclusions, I may almost say predictions, contained in his final report as military governor, in which he says (pp. 133–134) :

The census of 1899 indicates that over one-third of the population of Porto Rico consists of children between 5 and 17 years. In other words, there are over 322,000 children of school age. Heretofore 94 per cent of the children attending school have been between the ages of 5 and 14 years. There are over

See testimony of General Davis in hearings before Committee on Porto Rico of the United States Senate, on Senate bill 2264, pp. 64 ff.

Pacific Islands and
Washington, 1900.

266,000 between these ages. The present school laws provide for one teacher to each 50 pupils. This would mean that to afford school accommodation to all children of school age in Porto Rico there would have to be about 6,400 teachers, while to provide only for the children between the ages in which attendance is most common would require about 5,300 teachers. Take 6.000 and 5,000 as the respective numbers, and assuming the salary of each teacher the lowest salary paid any teacher in 1900 ($270 for school year), we have, respectively, for salary lists alone, $1,620,000 and $1,431,000. It needs no argument to convince anyone at all familiar with economic conditions in Porto Rico that the maintenance of an educational system on any such plan as this will be out of the question for years to come unless Federal aid be extended on a large scale, a rather improbable contingency.

As to the advisability of the immediate expansion of the system of public instruction to such an extent as to offer educational advantages to the entire school population of Porto Rico, the following, written by the author of this report in February, 1900, after nearly a year's study of the question, expresses the views then and now held by him :

"If to-day the means were at hand for supporting the 6,000 schools which would be required to accommodate all the children, and if suitable schoolrooms with necessary equipment existed, I am of the opinion that the attendance would be meager and the result unsatisfactory. The anæmic, half-starved, and often naked children would not or could not attend. But supposing the attendance was full and universal, would the result be satisfactory? Would any solid advantage to society and to the pupils themselves result from the instruction? For six or more hours each day they would be under the control of their instructors, and then they would return to their homes of squalor and filth, indecency and vice, their parents indifferent or unable to satisfy the natural cravings of hunger, and what the children had learned would make them unhappy and discontented. They would learn of wants that could not be supplied, and their miserable surroundings would have added horrors. *

*

"After most careful consideration of the question presented, and basing my opinion on the existing conditions, I am forced to be convinced that the true and wisest policy will be at first to direct the principal efforts to educate and elevate the youth of Porto Rico in those centers of population where there is a state of living and existing social, industrial, and economic conditions that would justify the confident belief, not only that the efforts will be supported by public opinion, but that standards and models would be established and copied throughout the island in the rural districts."

It is difficult for a resident of the United States to understand the indifference in regard to schools that is manifested by the people of Porto Rico as a whole. The population consists of two classes-one a small element possessing considerable wealth, the other a considerable mass of ignorant people in abject poverty. Between these two classes there has always been a great gulf of separation, social as well as economical, and this fact has had an important influence on attempts at educational progress in Porto Rico. Eliminating a very few farsighted and public-spirited men, it is a well-known fact that the wealthy class have never favored general education or the establishment of a good system of public schools. The reasons for this are not hard to find. Among them may be mentioned the realization that any direct tax for educational purposes must ultimately be collected from them; the fear of loss of social and financial prestige should education become general; the reluctance to have their children attend the same school as the children of their laborers, and probably most powerful of all, the idea, latent throughout a very large part of the world, that the education of the masses is generally undesirable, if not dangerous. The existence of this idea was at the bottom of a large part of the passive opposition and obstruction that nullified the decree of General Messina and made that of General Despujol ineffective. Later, during the military government, it made itself felt in many ways, especially in the passive resistance, or apathy, or neglect that characterized the local school boards. Wherever any essential link of the chain of acts necessary to open and support a school was under the control of a local board, the school was more or less of a failure. If the board supplied buildings, the buildings were not suitable and were not ready on time. If it elected the teacher, political animosities and local prejudices often led to nonappointment or to frequent changes and poor attendance when the school was opened. If the municipality was supposed to provide furniture, paper, and text-books, these were not forthcoming. To assure the opening of public schools on time, and with proper facilities, it was

found that the control must lie in a central department responsible to the governor himself.

Lack of school funds, lack of a school plant, the want of a sufficient number of efficient teachers-these are the great material obstacles that confront the educator in Porto Rico to-day. His task will be made barder by race and caste antagonism, by political prejudices, by the inability of parents to properly feed and clothe their children, by the deep-rooted aversion to coeducation of the sexes, and by the confusion of tongues.

These difficulties can ultimately be evaded or overcome; but that any substantial good to Porto Rico may result they must, in the opinion of the writer, be surmounted not merely through the expenditure of money and energy, but through the gradual working of a leaven that will require many years to appreciably affect the entire mass. The development of an educational system, to be of real value, must be based upon the desire of the people for broader advantages and upon the sacrifices that they are willing to make to that end.

Porto Rico may be dotted over with well-equipped schoolhouses and plentifully supplied with efficient teachers, but until education comes to occupy in the public mind a more important place than petty jealousies or political animosities; until the wealthier classes are willing to cooperate in the effort to raise up the 800,000 illiterates by whom they are surrounded, and the latter can be awakened to the fact of their own ignorance and a desire to advance; in short, until the stimulus from without that now maintains any usefulness in the school system can be replaced by a force acting from within, attempts at anything like universal education in Porto Rico must be unsatisfactory and the expenditure connected therewith be largely wasted.

Those words were written five years ago. The change in public sentiment within that period has been remarkable. To-day no one could speak of indifference to the schools on the part of the Porto Rican population as a whole, because there is absolutely none. A good beginning in the programme outlined by General Davis has already been made, and the result will be discussed in another section of this paper.

III. THE ADVENT OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

The temporary character of the military government, so recognized from the start, made it difficult for it to do more than it did do in the matter of education, namely, inspect and modify slightly in the direction of Americanizing the schools that were found in the island and instill a spirit of security and respect for authority in the minds of the teachers and officials who administered them. Plans based upon the results of such experience as the military officials obtained led to suggestions, and many of them very pertinent suggestions, concerning the school system of the future, but the lack of the necessary authority to devise ways and means for the support of the schools and the uncertain attitude of the United States Government on the question of Federal aid to such a project caused further development to be held in abeyance until Congress established civil government.

Civil government was ushered in with some pomp and ceremony on the 1st of May, 1900, and the task of reorganization along lines of permanence and development in harmony with the fundamental law enacted by Congress for the island, known as the Foraker law or organic act, was begun energetically and prosecuted vigorously in all the departments of government, and not least in that of education. The organic act made the department of education a department coordinate with that of state, treasury, interior, and judiciary, and centralized all power in the hands of a commissioner of education. Under the Government of Spain teachers had been appointed in the schools practically at the dictation of the governor-general and their salaries paid by the central or insular government, while the municipalities paid only such local expenses as the rent of buildings, wages of janitors, and purchase of minor supplies. Doctor Groff, who was president of the insular board of education

for the last two months of military government, was made acting commissioner of education under the civil government and served in that capacity until August 6, when the new commissioner, Dr. Martin G. Brumbaugh, took charge of the department. After a brief survey of the field the new commissioner decided that the school law in operation under military orders was entirely unsuited to the conditions of a progressive development along American lines and set about the task of formulating a new and comprehensive law, and presented it to the insular legislature at its first session in January, 1901. In the meantime preparations had to be made for the opening of the schools for the first academic year under civil government, that of 1900-1901. A new department had to be organized, as a destructive fire had destroyed not only the model training school, the first school building erected since the beginning of American occupation, but also the offices and records of the department of education, which were housed in that building. The new department was organized, regulations adopted, teachers engaged, buildings rented and equipped, and about 800 teachers with 38,000 pupils were put at work before the end of the first month (October) of the new school year.

The statistics for the entire year showed that the total number of teachers employed during the year was 812, with an average number of schools open each month of 698, and an average number of pupils enrolled each month during the year of 31,172. When these figures are compared with the preceding year's statistics for the first term, which are given by Doctor Clark, as follows: Number of teachers employed 582, total enrollment 24,694, it will be seen that a new era of progress had already begun. With the adoption of a new school law by a legislature made up in its lower house of representatives elected by the people, which unanimously passed a comprehensive school law January 3, 1901, and with an insular appropriation for schools at least 25 per cent larger than for the previous year, and with the beginning already made in the construction of schoolhouses on a large scale (by the use of funds made available through the generosity of the Federal Government of the United States in returning to the island about $2,000,000 collected in customs receipts on Porto Rican products sent to the United States), a new enthusiasm for education made itself felt among the people. That inner force, of which General Davis spoke, began to assert itself. It has grown steadily and continuously from the beginning of civil government until the present day. The results of this continuous development will be estimated in another section of this paper. Many changes have taken place in the educational laws and in their administration, as new experience has dictated wise modification, but throughout there has been a continuous and uninterrupted development. The unsettled and somewhat chaotic conditions which characterized the several changes in policy from the breaking up of the Spanish régime until the beginning of civil government, have not prevailed at any time since that beginning was made. Doctor Brumbaugh served from August 6, 1900, until February 8, 1902, at which time the present writer qualified as commissioner, and remained in charge of the department until October 1, 1904, when the present commissioner, Dr. Roland P. Falkner, qualified. These successive changes have not interrupted the continuous and progressive development of the school system, although emphasis perhaps has been laid by the different commissioners upon quite different departments of the school work.

It is now necessary to examine somewhat more in detail the various types or kinds of schools organized to meet the educational needs of the island. In all

"See p. 40, Report of President of the Board of Education. Fifty-sixth Congress, first session. Washington, 1900.

Senate Document 393,

of the newer rural schools, where buildings have been constructed, the department has carefully arranged to have at least an acre of ground surrounding the school, which can be used as a garden for purposes of instruction in elementary agriculture. In some rural schools such instruction is now given with considerable success, and in a few cases it has been given by a visiting teacher of agriculture, who took charge of the work for a half day twice each week, and whose work was followed up by the regular teacher in charge of the school. The importance of agriculture in a country whose destiny undoubtedly makes agriculture its chief resource for all time to come can not be overestimated. The schools must find a way of training the country boy and the country girl for greater efficiency in this direction, and of correlating the experiences of their brief school life with the things to which they must devote their attention in after years. More will be said on this point in discussing the present plans of the agricultural department of the University of Porto Rico, which aims to train special teachers for this work. It is worthy of note, however, that where well-trained teachers have undertaken it in the very lowest grades of the primary school and in the most unpromising ungraded rural schools, considerable success in agricultural work, as a part of the rural school programme, has already been attained.

IV. THE PRIMARY SCHOOLS.

The age structure of the population; the peculiar conditions of a tropical climate, producing somewhat more rapid growth in the earlier years, and the fact that so few school facilities were enjoyed by the people made it necessary to put the entire emphasis at the outset on the development of the primary school. Doctor Clark estimated that during the period of military government over 15,000 children who entered the schools, and constituted more than one-half of their total enrollment, did not know how to read or write, and that 96 per cent of the total enrollment belonged in the lowest three grades. Doctor Brumbaugh makes no estimates on this point; but in my report for 1903 I had a careful estimate made, and found that it was the opinion of school superintendents and teachers in a position to observe the results of our grading that less than 25 per cent of the pupils in the town schools were to be found above the fifth grade and less than 25 per cent of the pupils in the rural schools were to be found above the third grade. The primary school therefore, as the beginning of a graded school in the towns and as a rural school in the country districts, became the chief object of our planning. In a few of the large towns an attempt was made to establish kindergartens to take children at the age of 4, and in a few other cases the first grade of the primary school did some kindergarten work, although not regularly · equipped as a kindergarten. The people were very much interested in this form of education and were desirous of having it conducted on a larger scale, but it had to be curtailed rather than expanded because of the greater demand for the opening of first-grade schools, two of which could usually be established for what one well-equipped kindergarten school would cost. I may say that throughout this discussion I shall use, except where otherwise noted, the term "school" to mean a teacher and a class. A large school building in one of the cities may have eight or more teachers and classes, and if so, it would be recorded in our statistics as eight schools.

A different course of study was laid down for those primary schools in towns where they were all graded. This course has been modified many times, always in the direction of simplification. At the outset it was deemed best not to specify particular text-books or the exact ground to be covered in