PORTO RICO NOTES.
CHARLES B. SCOTT, SANTURCE, PORTO RICO.
Educational Notes.
Of the 950,000 inhabitants of Porto Rico, only about 100,000 can read or write; 85 per cent. of the adult population are illiterate. Of the 200,000 children from five to sixteen years of age, all the schools, public and private, can accommodate about thirty thousand. The average daily attendance in all the schools of the island during the past year has been not more than twenty to twenty-five thousand.
The school population (five to sixteen years of age) of San Juan is about 6,000. The total seating capacity of all schools in the capital, public and private, is not more than fifteen hundred.
There have been during the past year in the public schools of San Juan nine or ten American teachers; forty more American teachers are scattered through the public schools of the island. About twenty are gentlemen acting as supervisors of districts and superintendents of city schools.
Christian Schools.
The American Missionary Association of the Congregational Churches has had during the past school year seven American teachers in Porto Rico, divided between Santurce, a suburb of San Juan, and Lares. The Presbyterians have had four American missionary teachers at Mayaguez. The Baptist Church has two American ladies devoting part of their time to teaching. The Christian Church has a school at San Juan, with three teachers from the states.
Porto Rico is divided for educational purposes into fifteen districts, each with an American supervisor in charge of from thirty to forty schools. These gentlemen must ride hundreds of miles, largely on native ponies, over poor roads and poorer mountain trails, inspecting the schools and helping, directing and often stirring up the native teachers.
The schools of the American Missionary Association have enrolled over three hundred children. At Lares the pupils have been very regular in attendance. In Santurce the attendance has been somewhat irregular. In both schools the subjects pursued in American schools in the first five grades have been taken up, with much attention to English. The fact that very few children knew any English, and that most of the teachers knew very little Spanish, made the work trying and slow at first. The children proved themselves about as bright as American children, quick in their perceptions, with good memories, weak in arithmetic, not good thinkers or reasoners.
Rarely do American teachers in the States receive so many little tokens of esteem and appreciation. On the other hand, the pupils are quick-tempered, with little power of self control; rather easily offended, and lack in perseverance and stability. They have little idea of attention and little power to study. They are anxious to come to school, and will sacrifice much to get clothes and pay tuition. On the other hand, they will often stay at home for trivial reasons, having no idea of the need of regular attendance. They always come to school well dressed and usually clean; they will not come barefooted, ragged or dirty. The children of the poorer classes roam the streets, before and after school, barefooted and ragged, saving their clothes and shoes for school.
The Christian schools, such as those of the American Missionary Association, do not exist merely to supplement the public schools. From the conditions in Porto Rico the public schools must be entirely and utterly non-religious. Not even religious songs or the Lord's Prayer are allowed. Any teacher discovered teaching any phase of religion forfeits his or her salary for that month.
Bible Study.
In the Christian schools, while the carefully-selected American teachers insure good schools and good teaching of the ordinary branches, there is a place for moral education, for simple religious exercises and for Bible study.
Rural Education.
The great problem in Porto Rico will be rural education. Probably 800,000 of its 950,000 people live in the country or in hamlets. The cities are already providing for teachers' training-schools. The field of greatest usefulness for the A. M. A. lies in giving the young men and women a fair education under Christian influences, and sending them out into the country and village schools.
The people of Lares are deeply interested in the school and willing to help the work; the location is as healthful as any in the island, and Lares, as a great coffee center, promises to thrive and grow.
The education most needed in Porto Rico is practical, industrial education. Santurce, near the capital, with a large, poor population about the school, dependent on their daily work for their support, furnishes an excellent location for an industrial school. The people and children do not know how to do anything. The women are "lavenderas," or washwomen, the children carry water, the men do odd jobs, and all are poorly housed, poorly clothed, poorly fed. The children need manual training, and gardening for the boys and sewing and cooking for the girls. Next year it is proposed to start these lines of work at Santurce. Head and hand and heart can be reached and trained for a better and more useful Christian life.