Second year: Latin and Spanish grammar, Spanish history.
Third year: Arithmetic and algebra, universal history, rhetoric, French, English, or German.
Fourth year: Geometry and trigonometry, philosophy (logic, ethics, and psychology), and languages (French, English, or German).
Fifth year: Physics, chemistry, natural history, agriculture, physiology.
After being examined in these each year, the student passes the Bachelor of Arts examination, which consists of two oral exercises on the subjects he has studied during the previous five years. To enter the professional courses at the University a candidate must show the title of A. B.
It must be said to the honour of some schools, that, although they have been bound to follow the plan of studies ordered by the Government, they have not confined themselves to it strictly, and other courses have been taught in them in addition. The best schools in Havana are the Jesuits’, the Pious schools, and one or two others of a smaller number of students. There is a class of cheap day-schools both in the city of Havana and throughout the Island which is very objectionable; the instruction given is very bad and the children are so neglected that they acquire in a very short period of time a number of vicious habits and lose all idea of morality and self-respect. Cuban children are generally gifted with remarkable memories, and this is taken advantage of by some of their teachers, who cram their heads with stuff which they cannot understand and which consequently proves utterly useless to them.
The University of Havana is established in the old convent of Saint Dominic in the centre of the city, facing the back of the Governor’s Palace. The building is over three hundred years old and is a typical specimen of the old Spanish monastical architecture; the quadrangles are surrounded by arched cloisters, the stone steps are long and wide, and the walls are six feet thick of solid masonry. All the mortar on the outer wall has long since fallen off, and the building has more the aspect of an old-fashioned fortress than of a peaceful temple of contemplation and learning.
When the old Dominicans owned the convent they instituted a free school for children, and as the requirements of the city became more pressing they extended their teaching to other and higher branches of learning, among which the study of law, medicine, and philosophy was included. They also had an annex school for special instruction.
At present the lectures are given by graduates of Spanish universities who have taken the degree of Doctor in the course they may have followed. The number of students, in some years, has reached two thousand. None of them sleep in the building. To be a professor it is necessary either to have acquired distinction in the vacant chair of the special profession, or to be the best in a public contest against all the others aspiring to the chair, or to be appointed by the Crown.
The students of the Havana University wear no caps and gowns, but the professors on every official occasion appear in their “togas” and caps, which are black, with tassels, lining, and cuffs of the colour of their respective faculties. Medicine is yellow, Law is red, Science is dark blue, Philosophy and Letters, light blue. Pharmacy, purple, and so on.