BoletiÌn mercantil de Puerto Rico. (San Juan, P.R.) 18??-1918, 1905-10-07

Examining the official Report, we
have confirmed our gloomy present
iment of the failure of public e.!ucat-
ion in Porto Rico.
Figures speak with striking eloq-
|uence.
The money spent on education
might as we'll be thrown into the
street so far as the Obtaining OF satisf
actorv results is concerned, results
which it was perfectly natural to look
for from the sum spent and from the
pompous claims made by the super
numeraries who swell the chorous OF
the redemptionists.
Nearly a million dollars are spent
by the Department of Education.
It spends nearly the above mention,
ed sum, because to the amount used
for the purchase of teaching material,
for salaries of teachers and employees
of the Department, should be added
the sum used for the erection of
school houses.
And at least half of that sum, as can
readily be seen, is mis- spent or vast
ed, because the number Of pupils that
attend the public schools today does
not exceed by much that which att-
ended during the former sovereignty,
nor are the results obtained now diff
erent from those which were observed
then.
The present school population is
calculated at three hundred and ninety
thousand children.
Of these three hundred and ninety
thousand, sixty eight thousand, appox-
imately, are enrolled. This is lam
entable failure; and 1t appears all the
gre ater if is taken into account the
fact that of this sixty eight thousand
children enrolled, only forty FIVE
thousand pupils attend school.
The same number, precisely the sa-
me number, that attended during the
former notwithstanding to the re-
port of General Dsvis-and at which
time there was spent on Public Edit
cation the modest sum Of trif1e mo-
re than three hundred thousand pesos
provincial money.
Also, from the forty Eve thousand
children in attendance, should be de-
Quoted the pupils attending the night
schools, who to great extent are
not children, and we have to add to
the item of charges that the instruct
ion which the pupils of the High Sc
hool receive costs individually three
hundred dollars per annum and that
only fifteen per cent of the enrolled
children bolong to the. rnral popula-
tion: that is to say, thct instruction is
given to those children who least need
it, that it is monopolized in the great
cities, while the rural inhabitants are
deprived-unjustly deprived-of this
right and of this benefit.
The Americans profess a, great res
pect for statistics. They admire and
acknowledge the eloquence of arlth-
metical exhibits, they permit them
selves to become fascinated by an
array of figures and by mathema-
tical disquisitions. Well then, let them
examine the report Of the Department
ofEducation; they cannot senslbly be-
come enthusiastic in"the presence of the
beautiful paradox that, whereas a
million dollars are allowed in the
budget for education, there are no
tangible and satisfactory results OBJ
tained from the money spent; there
>urely is no occasion for our tutors
becoming Joyous over the sum which
is apparently wasted; they might bet
ter mediate on what might be obtain
ed, what there is legitimate right to
look for; there is no begrudging the
thousa uds and thousands of dollars as
ked for under the august pretence of