Evening star., 1900-08-17
RESCUED.

while almost any ones own observation OF
twenty Americans who set out to learn
French or German or Spanish will enable
him to count on his fingers those who keep
at It, One morning in leaving Havana for
Cardenas 1 had as a travelling companion
an old Cuban, who spoke English with the
precision and ease of a Harvard professor
1 supposed he had lived most of his life in
some college community in the United
States. incidentally he remarked that he
had spent in his boyhood one winter at
school in Hartford. 1t was a very cold
winter, too, he recalled. and was as far
back as 1S41. On my compimenting him
on his English. he replied that he never
had been back to the United States, but for
nifty years had practiced talking with every
educated American and Englishman whom
he could meet in Cuba. After half a CEN
tury he was beginning to feel that he knew
English, and he never lost an opportunity
to converse in that language.
Wants to BE Dentist.
This was one example of persistence.
Last winter, in Porto Principe, l saw an
other instance A young fellow of seven
teen or eighteen, who had been a lieuten-
ant under Gomez, was working as a labor
er in the railroad yard. Before the insur-
rection he had lived in the interior and had
no chance to learn English. When l met
him he had a kind of primer and knew a
dozen sentences. He wanted to get ac-
quainted with the army officers, because he
thought their language was a little better
than that OF the priVateS. He was given
the opportunity, and, as one of them after
ward told me, he almost bored them out of
their good nature: but in three months he
could read the American newspapers and
could act as interpreter with fair satisfac-
ton. His ambition was to be dentist and
he was preparing himself to attend a dem
tai college in Phiiade, khia: but had decided
TO teach for while, as many young men
in the United States have done in the same
circumstances. When | left Porto Principe
he was still loading lumber and working
around the railroad yards, but by this time
l have no doubt that the American officers
ceeded in getting him a place to teach;
they all liked his persistence.
There are other individual instances which
nave come under my own notice, and which
perhaps have given me more faith in the
ablllty OF the Cubans to work out their
own destiny than the generality of Ameri-
cans; but they need not be recited here
only one further suggestion occurs to me.
am wondering whether some of the Young
Cubans In Santa Clara province have learn
ed English thoroughly enough to translate
a Spanish saying 1t was during the period
Just after the Maine explosion when some
Well-dlsposed people were opposing war
with Spain on the ground that war would
increase the distress among the people
whom 1t was sought to relieve These peo-
pie OF Santa Clara wanted to send mes
sage to President Mckinley and wanted II
put into English. but none of them was
able to do this. Whether the message ever
reached the President / do not know. but
mere 1t is: Let US be as the sandal wood
which perfumes the ak that cleaves it" In
the original Spanish 1t is a significant saw
ing put that time 1t had a special mean
ing. CHARLES NJ. PEPPER