The evening times., 1900-03-06
PORTO RICAN EDUCATION
Prominent Islanders Hold a Confer
ence in This City.
The English Institutions Pronounced
n Failure Because of the IncOm-
p1ete Methods i'm Nogue-Text-
Books Without Spanish References.
Effort to Establish school Gardens.

Ramon Latimer Fernandez, Delegate
of the Porto Rico Republican party to the
! United States conferred last night with
| George T. Finlay, also a member of the
Porto Rican Commission, at the Arlington
| Hotel in regard TO a measure for introduc-
! ing school gardens into the island, and
modifying the present system of English
education.
The Porto Rican Tariff bill lately passed
/ by the House provides that the $500, 900
already collected in customs shall be ex-
| pended for schools and public works in the
island. This sum is at present in the
| hands OF Gen, George W. Davis. Military
Governor of Porto Rico, awaiting disposal
for the purposes specified by the bill, If it
becomes a law.
A letter from General Davis in answer
to proposal for modifying and improving
the present school system and for intro
ducng school gardens was read last night
Portions of this letter are as follows:
Your proposal to teach the people of this
island something of the dignity of labor
is much more practicable suggestion
than that put forth by Mr.. Buell.. Up
till 1898 the efforts of the sovereign power
seemed to have been centred in the direc-
lion OF educating a few to compose the
governing class. In the past not over D.,
600 youths were taught anything, where
there are in Porto Rico of school age
almost 3O0, 600 children.
The Spanish educational system seems
to have justified the theory that when a
persons mental endowments were cult =
waited. there was no reason why he should
work. Education then meant immunity
from manual TOLL and the well taught lad
taken to some other arena than the field
for his career and failing to find remuner-
ative ease, was unhappy and restless. He
was willing to become clerk or to accept
any sedentary employment that would per-
nit him to live in some comfort with idle
ness and gentility-anything, indeed that
would spare him from the drudgery OF
manual labor.
That a cultivation OF this instinct or in
clination will take . long time to eradicate
is patent. Men and women are not easily
unmade The reform will be slow: and
unless Americans succeed better than they
have in New Mexico and among the ne
groes of the Southern States. it will be
very long time before We shall see decid-
ed Improvement here.
The Anglo-Saxo and the Teutonic
races are unlike these Porto Ricans who
ere proud of their ancestry. The mixture
Of the blood of the Gauls. the Basques. the
Romans. and the Moors with a tinge of
the African. has produced a race which af-
ter a thousand years of arbitrary govern
menJ does not live and move and have its
being in the same way that the Teutons
donor is this strange. The influence OF
our association with them will be slowly
felt, and the road of the educator will be
long and difficult.
Il am afraid TO make a prediction as to
the success you would attain in establish
ing school gardens in Porto Rico. II you
wrought only to the end that the pupils
would graduate with sedentary positions
permitting much leisure and little work.
| am sure you would find throngs of pupils.
If. however. the ultimate result involved
the following of the plow or other heavy
work. fear the success would be less evi-
dent.
The industrial future of Porto Rico de-
pends on agriculture. and the laborers must
consist of those who will endure the most
severe toll. They cannot hope to receive
more than 80 cents a day for cane and
coffee culture. IL is not easy to see how a
father can now support and educate fam
lily on 30 cents a day but tropical sugar
and coffee are nowhere grown under con-
ditiOn permitting a better wage.
Il hope to establish model farms and
experiment stations so as to improve agri-
cultural methods. I have to begin at the
bottom. however. for there is nc founda-
tion to build upon"
Mr.. Fernandez said today that the Eng
lish schools now being established in Porto
Rico are complete failures. While the
system and textbooks, said he "are far
superior TO those we had under Spanish
rule the latter are written and expounded
in English without the proper and neces-
saTy explanation in Spanish and with alb
solutely no benefit 10 the students. We are
pained and shocked at the inconsiderate
and inadequate methods in vogue in the
schools which are as unjust to the teach
ers as TO the students.
Young lady teachers from the United /
States are sent into the interior of the 1
with everything foreign and |
strange about them. and then left to theif |
own devices without help or assistance OF |
any kind.
The school garden is admirably adapted |
10 the interests of the people of Ports |
Rico. and, upon my return | will submit /
the very compete reports issued by tbs /
Bureau Of Education upon the results OF |
school gardens in Europe to the proper |
authorities. / shall do all in my power
to further this most beautiful and useful
system of education among the people OF
Porto Rico"