Since the American occupation of the island, four public libraries have been established. Two of them are exclusively Spanish, the Circulating Scholastic Library, inaugurated in San Juan on February 22, 1901, by Don Pedro Carlos Timothe, and the Circulating Scholastic Library of Yauco, established a month later under the auspices of S. Egózene of that town. The two others are, one, largely English, the Pedagogical Library, established under the auspices of the Commissioner of Education, and the San Juan Free Library, to which Mr. Andrew Carnegie has given $100,000, and which is polyglot, and was formally opened to the public April 20, 1901. There is also a growing number of libraries in the public schools. From the above data it appears that, owing to the peculiar conditions that obtained in this island, the people of Puerto Rico were very slow in joining the movement of intellectual expansion which began in Spanish America in the eighteenth century. They did so at last, unaided and with their own limited resources, even before the obstacles placed in their way by the Government were removed. If they have not achieved more, it is because within the last few decades the island has been unfortunate in more than one respect. Now that a new era has dawned, it may reasonably be expected that the increased opportunities for intellectual development afforded them will be duly appreciated and taken advantage of by the people, and if we may judge from the eagerness with which the youth of the capital reads the books of the San Juan Free Library, it seems clear that the seed so recently sown has fallen in fruitful soil.
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The history of the Press in Puerto Rico is short. The first printing machine was introduced by the Government in 1807 for the purpose of publishing the Official Gazette. No serious attempt at publication of any periodical for the people was made till the commencement of the second constitutional period (1820-'23), when, for the first time in the island's history, public affairs could be discussed without the risk of imprisonment or banishment. The right of association was also recognized. The Society of Liberal Lovers of the Country and the Society of Lovers of Science were formed about this time. The Investigator and the Constitutional Gazette were published and gave food for nightly discussions on political and social questions in the coffee-house on the Marina.
The period of freedom of spoken and written thought was short, but an impulse had been given which could not be arrested. In 1865 there were eight periodicals published in the island. On September 29th of that year a law regulating the publication of newspapers indirectly suppressed half of them. It contained twenty articles, each more stringent than the other. To obtain a license to publish or to continue publishing a paper, a deposit of 2,000 crowns had to be made to cover the fines that were almost sure to be imposed. The publications were subject to the strictest censorship. They could not appear till the proofs of each article had been signed by the censor, and the whole process of printing and publishing was fenced in by such minute and annoying regulations, the smallest infraction of which was punished by such heavy fines that it was a marvel how any paper could be published under such conditions. These conditions were relaxed a decade or two later, and a number of publications sprang into existence at once. When the United States Government took possession of the island, there were 9 periodicals published in San Juan, 5 in Ponce, 3 in Mayaguez, 1 in Humacáo, and a few others in different towns of the interior.
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE REGULAR AND SECULAR CLERGY
In Catholic countries the monastic orders constitute the regular clergy. The secular clergy is not bound by monastic rules. Both classes exercise their functions independently, the former under the authority of their respective superiors or generals, the latter under the bishops.
When, after the return of Columbus from his first voyage, the existence of a new world was demonstrated and preparations for occupying it were made, the Pope, to assure the Christianization of the inhabitants, gave to the monks of all orders who wished to go the privilege, pertaining till then to the secular clergy exclusively, of administering parishes and collecting tithes without subjection to the authority of the bishops.
The Dominicans and the Franciscans availed themselves of this privilege at once. There was rivalry for power and influence between these two orders from the time of their first installation, and they carried their quarrels with them to America, where their differences of opinion regarding the enslaving and treatment of the Indians embittered them still more. The Dominicans secured a footing in Santo Domingo and in Puerto Rico almost to the exclusion of their rivals, notwithstanding the king's recommendation to Ceron in 1511 to build a monastery for Franciscans, whose doctrines he considered "salutary."
[Illustration: San Francisco Church, San Juan; the oldest church in the city.]