The total number of illegitimate children, of all ages, was 185,030; a discreditably high number, attributed largely to the former expensive marriage system. The statistics of education were distressing. The number of children under ten years of age who were attending or had attended school was only 40,559, and the number who had not attended was 316,428. The number of persons ten years old and over who could read and write[{156}] was only 443,670; those who could neither read nor write were 690,565—an appalling proportion of illiteracy, reflecting most discreditably upon the Spanish government of the island. The number of persons of "superior education" in the whole island was only 19,158.
Nor were the statistics of industry much more satisfactory. The following were the totals for the island:
| Agriculture, fisheries and mining | 299,197 |
| Trade and transportation | 79,427 |
| Manufactures and mechanics | 93,074 |
| Professional | 8,736 |
| Domestic and personal | 141,936 |
| No gainful occupation | 950,467 |
Another supremely important measure which was adopted during the closing weeks of General Brooke's administration, though its complete working out was reserved for his successor, was suggested by some of the census figures which we have just quoted. It was realized that the need of education was of all Cuban popular needs the most urgent. Accordingly on November 2, 1899, General Brooke ordered the organization of a new bureau in the Department of Justice and Public Instruction, at the head of which should be a Superintendent of Schools. The first incumbent of that office was Alexis E. Frye, who drafted another order, promulgated by General Brooke on December 6 and practically constituting a new school law for Cuba. It provided for the formation of Boards of Education and the opening of primary and grammar schools in all communities by December 11, 1899, or as soon thereafter as possible. That was the beginning of the popular education of the Cuban people.
After these things, General Brooke was on December[{157}] 20 relieved of his command in Cuba. He issued a brief farewell proclamation to the people, calling attention to the progress which had been made in good government, and toward complete self-government and independence; every word of which was amply justified by facts. He was a soldier rather than an administrator, and he was nearing the age of retirement from active service. His administration had been beset with difficulties; it had made some mistakes, and it had done much good work. He was charged by some with having entrusted the powers of government too largely to his Cuban Secretaries; while others commended him for that very circumstance. His inclination was toward a bureaucracy, but it was a Cuban and not an alien bureaucracy. It cannot be denied that he laid much of the foundation of subsequent achievements and of successful Cuban government. It was under his governorship that General Ludlow cleansed the city of Havana, that the Customs service and the treasury were reorganized, and that provision was made for a comprehensive system of public schools.[{158}]
CHAPTER X
General Brooke was succeeded by General Leonard Wood. He had also in a measure been preceded by him. General Wood had at Santiago been the real pioneer in American administration in Cuba. He laid the first foundations there. General Brooke at Havana enlarged upon those foundations. Then came General Wood to Havana to complete the structure. It was with the fame and prestige of his great victory over pestilence at Santiago, and of all his other achievements in Oriente, that he came to Havana on December 20, 1899, to be Military Governor of all Cuba. He was received not alone with the fullest measure of formal ceremony and official salutation, from both Cubans and Americans, but also with such an outpouring of popular welcome as few men have received anywhere and as nobody save perhaps Maximo Gomez had ever received at Havana. The attitude and sentiment of the people toward him were well expressed by an editorial writer in the Havana journal La Lucha, who said:
LEONARD WOOD
Soldier, scientist, statesman, administrator, it has been the fortune of Leonard Wood to render invaluable services to two nations. Born at Winchester, New Hampshire, on October 9, 1860, and educated in medicine at Harvard University, he became first a surgeon and then an officer of the United States army. After a brilliant career in Indian fighting in the Southwest he went to Cuba in 1898 as colonel of the cavalry regiment of "Rough Riders" and did notable work in the battles around Santiago. He was Military Governor of Santiago and Oriente, and later Military Governor of Cuba, in which places he transformed the sanitary, economic and political conditions of the island, and ushered it into its career of independent self-government. Since then he has served the United States with great distinction in the Philippines, and as the foremost officer of the army at home; not the least of his benefactions to the nation being his great campaign of education and awakening in preparation for what he saw to be America's inevitable participation in the World War.
