HIGH SCHOOLS. The second class of special schools is the group of high schools, which have not yet filled any large demand, and consequently have not attained so high a degree of development as the normal school. The first one to receive pupils was that of San Juan, in which two four-year courses, in one of which all the work was done in Spanish and in the other all the work was done in English, were begun in September, 1900, and the first graduating class finished in June, 1904, ready for college. This is the aim of the course, to fit boys and girls for admission to an American college. The standard of graduation does not quite come up as yet to the highest standard of admission in American colleges, but we should expect our graduates to be able to take care of themselves in the average college with very slight, if any, entrance conditions. In Ponce the high school course was begun only in English, and no pupils were ready for high school work in the Ponce high and graded school until September, 1902. The same plan was followed in the Mayaguez high and graded school, where pupils were not ready for high school work until September, 1903. No pupils have been advanced to high school work in the Fajardo high and graded school. The plan which contemplated the four centers for high school work, equally distributed geographically, is a wise one and will be justified in time. The Spanish high school course in San Juan has been abandoned because of too few pupils and the fact that all of the pupils who reach this grade of work are able to take the work in English. A commercial course has been arranged for in its place to meet the special needs of those preparing for business careers rather than for college. In the first term of the year ending June 30, 1904, there were 108 pupils enrolled in high school work, as follows: San Juan, 20 first year of course, 26 second, 8 third, and 5 fourth, total 59; Ponce, 16 first year, 12 second, total 28; Mayaguez, 21 first year. The course of study laid down for the high schools has undergone many modifications from year to year dictated by experience and all in the line of simplification. The course at present is as follows: Course of study for high school grades. NINTH GRADE. I. Literature: The reading of the Standard Fifth Reader and supplemental works on English literature. English grammar, including etymology and syntax, especially the oral analysis of sentences rather than any system of diagrams. Review of Spanish grammar and syntax. Begin Latin. (Fifteen periods a week.) II. Mathematics: A thorough drill in arithmetic, including especially percentage and its applications, to be followed with problems growing out of all the subjects covered during the seventh and eighth grades. Algebra, beginning with the subject, and extending through the fundamental processes, factoring, and simple equations. Applications of arithmetic to business accounts. (Ten periods a week.) III. Complete political geography, with special attention to the Far East, Russia, and South Africa, and include physical and commercial geography. (Five periods a week.) IV. Greek and Roman history. The general study of history, special stress to be laid upon the laws and duties of citizens and officials of nations, together with the bearing of ancient history upon modern times. (Three periods a week.) V. Drawing from object. Study of historic drawing. Simple architectural drawing. Drill in music and calisthenics. (Four periods a week.) ED 1905-VOL 1-24 I. English classics. teen periods a week.) TENTH GRADE. Latin: Cæsar. Spanish composition and rhetoric. (Fif II. Algebra (continued). Plane geometry. (Ten periods a week.) III. Physics, chemistry. (Ten periods a week.) IV. Medieval and modern European history. (Three periods a week.) Constitution of the United States and the organic act of Porto Rico. ( Three periods a week.) V. Drawing, music, and calisthenics. (Four periods a week.) ELEVENTH GRADE. I. English classics. Latin: Virgil. Spanish literature or begin French. (Fifteen periods a week.) II. Geometry: Review plane and begin solid. TWELFTH GRADE. (Five periods a week.) (Three periods a week.) (Four periods a week.) (b) Latin: Cicero. (c) Spanish, (Ten periods a week.) I. (a) English literature and composition. INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. The third class of special schools covers the industrial schools, of which there were four in operation at the close of the academic year 1903-4, with a total enrollment of 486 pupils distributed as follows: San Juan, 115; Ponce, 112; Mayaguez, 143, and Arecibo, 116. Under the Spanish régime considerable money was spent in extensive equipment purchased in Europe for a school of arts and trades, which was established in San Juan in a government building, part of which was used for a poorhouse, insane asylum, and general eleemosynary institution. The school had some connection with these institutions but was short lived, the apparatus for the most part being destroyed in a destructive fire during the summer preceding American occupation. In the second session of the first legislative assembly I presented a bill giving the commissioner of education the custody of all the machinery, apparatus, etc., saved from the fire in the former school of arts and trades, the use of any unoccupied government building in San Juan which the commissioner of the interior could provide, the unused balances from all unexpended appropriations for various educational appropriations during that fiscal year (1901–2), and the authority to establish, equip, and maintain industrial schools wherever the funds at his command would allow. That bill became a law, and I am prouder of it than of any other act in my legislative record, because I believe it struck at the roots of the educational problem in Porto Rico. Under it we began in the academic year 1902-3 with a few students in a rented building situated on the celebrated military road less than one-half a mile from the city proper of San Juan. No public building was then available. Now that same school is housed in the city itself in a fine old Spanish building which was formerly used as a military barracks. The old machinery and apparatus proved for the most part worthless. We got some printers' supplies from the ruins, and with presses that we purchased a printing office that does the government work is operated as a part of the San Juan Industrial School. The unused appropriations gave us about $40,000 as a nest egg to start operations, and the legislature was reasonably liberal with these schools in subsequent years, at least, until the present year. The pupils in the San Juan school were recruited from the fifth grade of the public schools, and that standard of admission was demanded. My plan was to make an industrial school in every town an integral part of the public school system by taking pupils from the public schools who were prepared to enter the sixth grade, give them one year of manual training corresponding to the sixth year of the public school course and as preparatory to a two-year course in one of the several trade shops to be established for instruction in practical trades under the direction of experienced master workmen such as carpentry, blacksmithing, tailoring, printing, plumbing, and harness making for boys, and cooking and laundry work, dressmaking, art needlework, and professional nursing, for the girls. Beginning with the seventh grade the pupils in the industrial schools were to drop their book studies for the most part and spend most of their time in the trade shops of the school, and it was expected that with two years of this work they could graduate with their fellow students in the eighth grade of the public schools, prepared either to earn their own living at house trades or to enter active business on much better terms than the regular apprentice. We had also in mind a graduate course of two years more, which should be established in the industrial schools in time, and give those who could take it the necessary equipment for a master workman in one of the few simple trades which were most needed in the island. The following course of study, as laid down for these schools, will probably show more clearly what has been attempted in carrying out this plan. It has necessarily been modified somewhat in its application to the local conditions in the five towns of San Juan, Ponce, Mayaguez, Arecibo, and Guayama, where these schools have been organized, but a reasonably uniform adherence to its essential features has been secured. An essential feature of the plan was the uniform supervision secured through the appointment of a supervising principal of industrial schools; and we were fortunate in having in Mr. Frank D. Ball, of the Worcester Polytechnic, a man for this work who had had large experience with the varied conditions of industrial school work in the United States at Tougaloo, Miss.; Throop Institute, California; Chicago, and in the New England States. Outline for course of study in industrial schools. FIRST YEAR. I. Language. (Ten periods per week.) Reading and writing Spanish and English; dictation and composition of business forms and letters in both languages; exercises in English, with special practice in conversation; elementary Spanish and English grammar. II. Mathematics. (Five periods per week.) Arithmetic: Review as rapidly as possible the fundamental operations and processes; teach thoroughly common and decimal fractions, giving ample opportunity for practical exercises on the fundamental processes; thorough drill with practical problems in English and metric systems of weights and measures; elementary business accounts, methods of rendering bills, keeping records, and making payments. Mensuration: Plane figures and surface measurement of cube, prism, and square pyramid. III. Science. (Five periods per week.) Geography: (a) Physical and political geography of North America, West Indies, and Central and South America; (b) elementary commercial and industrial geography of the United States and West Indies, paying special attention to crops, products, manufactures, sources of raw material, and routes of trade and travel. IV. History. (Three periods per week.) (a) Reading: Stories of exploration and discovery in North and South America and the West Indies; (b) study early colonial life in the United States and Porto Rico, touching on the relations of the Indians with the Europeans and the struggle for occupation. V. Drawing. (Ten periods per week.) (a) Freehand drawing from geometric objects, simple plants and fruits. (b) Mechanical drawing, with attention to scale, accuracy, and neatness of execution. Floor plans; models for tools and machinery. VI. Hand work. (a) Sloyd, for boys. (Five periods per week.) Use of tools in woodworking. Construction of simple models, teaching and requiring accuracy of hand and eye. Construction of articles for household use-brackets, frames, and light furniture. (b) Cooking, for girls. (Three periods per week.) Preparation of common articles of food, with special attention to dietetic and hygienic principles. Methods of cooking meats, vegetables, etc., and dishes usually eaten in Porto Rican homes. (c) Sewing, for girls. (Three periods per week.) Work in cutting from patterns, fitting, basting, and sewing, buttonhole making, etc. (d) Needlework, for girls. (Two periods per week.) Drawn work and lace making, knitting, darning, embroidery, etc. The Mayaguez school was the second one started (September, 1903), and it is still located in the rented building which was remodeled for the purpose. For the Ponce school, with the aid of the municipality, which paid half the cost, a fine building, costing, with the preliminary equipment, about $25,000, was constructed, and dedicated on February 22, 1904, as the Roosevelt Industrial School. Miss Alice Roosevelt, on the occasion of her visit to Porto Rico in 1903, laid the corner stone of this building. It is a one-story building in the Spanish renaissance style of architecture, built on three sides of a patio, or what will be an interior court, or square, some day when the building is enlarged, and it is so constructed that a second story can be added when the needs of the school require it. It contains an assembly hall, class rooms, bathrooms, shops, and teachers' rooms, and is beautifully situated among the tropical trees of a large tract of land, on another portion of which a high school building is now in process of construction. Next to the normal school building at Rio Piedras, it represents the largest expenditure ever made for a school building in Porto Rico. The Arecibo School was opened in the same academic year in a remodeled government building in that town, and is well equipped for effective work. The Guayama School was opened in a rented building at the beginning of the academic year 1904–5. Plans are being discussed by the department of education and the municipal authorities for the construction of a new building in Guayama. The pupils in all these schools have shown unusual artistic qualifications for craftsmanship, and have been, with few exceptions, industrious. It is too soon to pass final judgment upon this work or to estimate precisely its place in Porto Rican education. The results already attained have made themselves felt in many homes and are full of promise. RURAL AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS. A fourth class of special schools needs but brief mention, because reference has already been made to them in speaking of rural schools, and the problem they present will be discussed briefly when we refer to the agricultural department of the university. I refer to the agricultural rural schools, of which there were 13 in operation in 1903-4, with a total enrollment of nearly 700 pupils. These are regular schools, housed in new, modern, frame buildings, with at least an acre of land to each school, and a tool closet or shed containing equipment for agricultural work. In some cases the class-room work and the garden work are both in charge of the same teacher, but in most cases a regularly qualified rural teacher is employed to do the class-room work, and a visiting teacher of agriculture gives from one-third to one-half his time to one school for the outdoor work. Both boys and girls are required to spend from one to three hours each day at work with hoe or spade or in study or observation of nature work as illustrated in the garden, and under the direction of a specially trained teacher. Very young pupils are taken along with older ones in these agricultral rural schools, but their tasks are proportioned to their years. Each school may matriculate 50 pupils. The object is to instill and cultivate a healthy, intelligent interest in the soil, and to arouse a curiosity in the mind of the child to know more of the mysteries of nature with which he is in so direct association in his home by reason of the agricultural pursuits of his parents. The attempt is also made to introduce slowly the use of improved tools and machinery and methods of cultivation, which often have an even greater interest for the parents in the neighborhood than for the children. In time these buildings should be made neighborhood centers, with Sunday and evening lectures and illustrated talks for adults. NIGHT SCHOOLS. The fifth and last class of special schools which will be discussed here, like the fourth class and also the third up to the present, has to do with primary rather than secondary education. I refer to the night schools. In nearly every town there is at least one night school, and sometimes more. They are usually taught by the day school-teacher, making use of the same schoolroom and equipment, but registering perhaps double the number of pupils, mostly adults or pupils older than the day scholars, and teaching them in groups, according to their attainments, the elements of reading (English and Spanish), writing, and arithmetic. Nothing but the most elementary instruction, restricted to these subjects, is attempted, and when the pupils get beyond this they are requested to give place to others and either attend the day school or go elsewhere for further instruction. There were 18 night schools open during the academic year 1903-4, with an average enrollment of 1,200 pupils. The eagerness with which such opportunities are grasped by people long deprived of educational advantages is pathetic. An incident, only one of many, quoted in one of my annual reports illustrates this and speaks for itself: "We opened one night school recently in Ponce, notice being given at 2 p. m. that pupils would be matriculated at 8 p. m. the same day. At that hour, on only six hours' notice, 172 pupils presented themselves. The building would hold no more, and as many more persons were left standing in the street unable to gain admission to the building. We could take only 108 of the 172 who managed to enter the rooms where pupils were examined." VII. THE UNIVERSITY OF PORTO RICO. It will be readily understood from what has already been said of the limited scope of secondary education in Porto Rico and the peculiar conditions under which the professional classes for a population of 1,000,000 people have been trained that there is an urgent need for professional schools in medicine, including pharmacy, engineering, and law at least, in addition to professional training for teaching. Probably not one in ten of the physicians now practicing in the island have ever seen a well-equipped, modern hospital, not to speak of having served an apprenticeship in one. Yet there are a few who have enjoyed the very best opportunities afforded in Paris, Madrid, or New York in all the professions enumerated. The limited financial resources, so inadequate for the needs of primary education, could not be used for these schools. Private wealth was neither sufficient nor to be found in the hands of those educated to giving by the social standards of a Spanish-American country to endow private colleges or technical |