With the exception of a few private schools, primary education is in the hands of the municipalities, which are assisted by small subventions from the national government. In the municipalities there is more enthusiasm for education than in Congress, if we judge from the figures presented by the budgets. Every little town takes pride in making its budget for education as large as possible, year after year. The total amount spent for educational purposes, however, including salaries, rent, supplies, subventions and teachers' pensions, is only in the neighborhood of $500,000, contributed about in equal shares by the state and the municipalities.
The total number of scholars enrolled is only about 20,000. The schools are generally located in rented houses, there being no buildings erected expressly for school purposes. Their equipment is as a rule deficient. The teaching force is handicapped by lack of facilities and training. The salaries of the elementary teachers are very small, and while some municipalities are prompt in their payments, others lag far behind, and the Spanish saying "as hungry as a schoolmaster" has not lost all its meaning.
If the amounts expended for education are not large, it is due to lack of money and not to lack of realization of the advantages of learning. The interest manifested in education and the eagerness of parents to furnish their children as much schooling as possible, are among the most hopeful signs for the future. In the towns and villages where the schools are located, most children learn at least to read and write, but out in the country illiteracy and ignorance reign supreme. In the absence of statistics it is not possible to determine the proportion of illiterates; there is no doubt, however, that it is very large, and I have heard it estimated at all the way from seventy to ninety per cent of the population over ten years of age.
Some of the best schools are private institutions, one of the best known being the institute for girls and young ladies, founded by Santo Domingo's foremost woman poet, Salomé Ureña de Henriquez. It is the custom also for well-to-do families to send their children abroad for study and to travel themselves, and the Dominicans are not few who, besides their native Spanish, speak other languages, acquired abroad. Within the country, too, there is a predilection among the upper class for the study of foreign tongues, and many learn English and French in the family circle or by association with persons speaking these languages.
As a result of the educational limitations, the population of the country may be divided into three groups: first, a number of persons, small in comparison with the whole number of inhabitants, who compare in culture, education and accomplishments with members of the best society in any country; second, a much larger group of persons who possess knowledge more or less rudimentary; and third, the great majority of the inhabitants, who are unlettered and unlearned.
One obstacle to the spread of information is the lack of public libraries. There is a public library in Puerto Plata, and various clubs in the larger towns have libraries, for their members or the public, but they are all very small and limited. The newspapers, therefore, furnish the only source of reading for the majority. Practically all the papers are published in the cities of Santo Domingo, Santiago and Puerto Plata, and all are of modest dimensions. Many newspapers have been founded in the Republic and after leading an ephemeral existence have succumbed, some because their editors were persuaded by threats or rewards on the part of the government to cease publication, and the greater portion because of financial embarrassment. Notwithstanding the constitutional precept guaranteeing free speech, editors of the opposition have generally found it more healthy to withdraw to the neighboring countries and conduct their campaigns at long range. On the other hand, it must be said that several governments have honestly endeavored to allow the press full liberty, but that the privilege has always been abused. The principal daily newspaper of the Republic, and the one having the largest circulation is the "Listin Diario" of Santo Domingo. It is a four-page sheet and its daily edition is about 10,000 copies. It is the only paper having a cable service, and it receives its cablegrams from the French cable company, whose line crosses the island. It is also one of the oldest of the existing newspapers, having been founded in 1889, and maintained itself by constantly observing a prudent attitude. In the capital there also appear the "Gaceta Oficial," in which the laws and governmental decisions and announcements are published; the "Boletín Municipal," containing municipal announcements; several reviews whose character is indicated by their title: "Revista Médica," "Revista de Agricultura," "Revista Judicial," "Boletín Masónico"; two small humorous papers; two commercial sheets; an illustrated paper, "Blanco y Negro," and a well-known literary monthly, "Cuna de América" (Cradle of America). Santiago also boasts a daily paper, "El Diario," as also several smaller papers and literary periodicals. In Puerto Plata "El Porvenir," the oldest of existing Dominican newspapers, is published, as well as three less important sheets.
Especially interesting among these publications are the "Cuna de América" and others devoted to belles-lettres. They constitute a reflection of current Dominican literature, being given over to poems, lyric compositions, biographic, historical, philosophic and other articles, and extracts from new plays and books. In these periodicals most of the poems which have brought fame to Santo Domingo have appeared.
Before the intellectual awakening incident to the labors of Hostos the number of Dominican writers was small. Little was done in colonial times. In the turbulent period following the cessation of Spanish sovereignty at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the situation of the country was not favorable for the cultivation of the muses, but scions of the families who then emigrated have made their names immortal in the literature of Cuba and other neighboring countries. Juan Pablo Duarte, the liberator, Antonio Delmonte y Tejada, the historian, and a small group of others who flourished shortly before or at the time of the establishment of the Republic, may be said to initiate the literature of the country, but their fame is mostly local. The first generation of Dominican citizens furnished a somewhat larger proportion of literary men, among whom may be mentioned the venerable Emiliano Tejera, the late Archbishop Fernando A. de Meriño, Francisco X. Amiama, Francisco Gregorio Billini, Mariano A. Cestero, the historian Jose G. Garcia and the novelist Manuel de J. Galvan, though it is significant that the best productions of some of these appeared after 1880. It is since that year that literature has really flourished. So fecund have Dominican writers been, and so excellent their productions, that Santo Domingo occupies a proud place in the beautiful field of Latin-American literature, where only a few years ago it was practically unknown. There is an abundance of poets, essayists, historians and novelists worthy of mention, and an attempt to single out a few might lead to unjust distinctions. A number of the best writers are women, and all prominent newspaper men are also distinguished in literature.
In poetry, especially lyric poetry, the Dominican writers excel. They show great depth of feeling and a full command of the sonorous Castilian tongue. A favorite theme is, of course, the old story which is ever new. The civil wars have inspired many pathetic compositions, and poems like Salomé Ureña's apostrophe to the ruins of colonial times, Bienvenido S. Nouel's elegy on the ruins left by the late revolutions, and Enrique Henriquez' "Miserere!", gems of verse, are veritable cries of anguish at the desolation wrought by fratricidal strife. Perhaps it is the poets' sorrow at the misfortunes of their country which is the cause of the note of sadness so often to be remarked in Dominican writings. Some writers are classed as poets though they have versified little or not at all; of these Tulio M. Cestero, one of the most popular of the younger writers, is an example, it being said of him that "he writes his poetry in prose."
The love of poetry is by no means confined to persons of higher education, but is general throughout the country. It has been said that if there were one engineer in Santo Domingo for every hundred poets, there would be fewer mudholes in the roads. The productions of some poetasters are characterized by an abundance of rare adjectives, which are introduced as well to give an impression of depth of thought as to advertise the author's erudition. However, there are so many good poets that forgiveness is readily extended to the others.