CHAPTER XXXIV
PUBLIC INSTRUCTION
THINKING men and women, the world over, realize that the hope, security and well being of the future lies in properly educating the children of the present. From an educated community we have nothing to fear. Mistakes in government policies may occur, but where intelligence dwells, right and justice will soon prevail over wrong. Education to-day is universally recognized as the most efficient and potent safeguard against crime and lawlessness of all kind, and in no section of the world is the need of general education more gravely manifest than in the Latin-American Republics of the Western Hemisphere.
Education in all of these countries, from the beginning of their existence as colonies of Spain, has been, unfortunately under the control of the Church, and with the exception of Cuba, largely so remains to-day. Even in this progressive little Republic, the clerical influence on tuition, from the kindergarten to the university, is more or less prevalent. The influence of the priest and the prelate, exerted in the home, usually through the mother, still casts its shadow over true educational progress, especially among those of the gentler sex. There are, of course, many well educated women in Cuba, but they are women whose intellectual longings and aspirations could not be held in check.
True, some of the most brilliant men in Cuba have been pupils of church institutions, but men of this stamp and minds of this calibre held from birth all the promise and potency of greatness. Their intellectual lights could not be hidden under the proverbial bushel.
In 1896 the population of the Island was 1,572,791, of whom 1,400,884 were unable to read, 33,003 knew how to read but not to write, while 19,158 had received the advantages of what was termed higher education. Even this paucity of true knowledge was frequently superficial and sadly warped by obsolete tradition.
When, at the beginning of American intervention, that generous and able group of American officers under General Wood took charge of affairs in Cuba, the need of even a rudimentary education among the untutored masses was painfully apparent. A report of conditions prevailing was forwarded to Washington. Secretary Root referred the matter to President Eliot of Harvard, and as a result Mr. Alexis E. Frye was sent to Havana to establish in Cuba the American school system, or one as nearly like that in vogue in the United States as conditions would permit.
The selection of Mr. Frye was a wise one, and the people have never ceased to be grateful for the admirable and unselfish efforts of that remarkably clever teacher to place public instruction on a firm foundation in Cuba. After going carefully over the ground and studying the situation thoroughly Mr. Frye, working by candle light in a backroom of the Hotel Pasaje, drafted the school law and wrote the rules and regulations that today form the base of public instruction in the island. Soon after, Mr. Frye was appointed Superintendent of Schools. His salary was $400 a month, but every month’s pay check was divided into eight parts and distributed among those schools where it would do the most good. He would accept no recompense whatever for himself.
In the work of establishing a modern system of education in Cuba Mr. Frye received valuable aid from a remarkably gifted and brilliant young Cuban named Lincoln de Zayas. Dr. de Zayas was a descendant of one of the most prominent families in Havana. He had been educated in the United States, was graduated from the school of medicine of Columbia University in New York, was a master of some five or six languages, and knew the character of his own people. He assisted Mr. Frye in solving many delicate problems and in overcoming troublesome obstacles, many of which resulted from the former ecclesiastical control of everything pertaining to education. Dr. Francisco Barrero, a writer, student and poet, was made assistant director of education.
During the second year of American intervention, Mr. Frye interested Harvard University in the subject of Cuban education. This finally resulted in an invitation from that institution to a large body of potential Cuban teachers to come to Boston and enjoy during the summer months special instruction provided for them by the president and faculty of the University. Through Mr. Frye’s efforts and those of General Wood, then Military Governor of the Island, the Washington government became interested in the school problem in Cuba, and through the War Department furnished passage in one of the large American transports for all teachers who cared to visit the United States in the interest of Cuban education. Some 1600 teachers, mostly young ladies, were selected from applicants in various parts of the Island, and conveyed on the U.S. transport General McClellan to the city of Boston, where they were comfortably lodged and cared for during a period of three months as guests of Harvard University.
The direct educational benefit derived by these young Cuban teachers was almost incalculable. A great majority of them had no knowledge whatever of the English language, and knew but little of the outside world. The press of Cuba in those days was limited in its fund of general information or other matter that might be of educational value to the reading public. Nor had education, especially among women, been encouraged during the days of Spain’s control over the island.