and graded school for the current year is given in the Appendix, and the revised course of study will be found on another page of this report. INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. There is no more important forward step in the educational work in Porto Rico than the recent attempt to establish industrial and training schools. The last legislature passed an act in which it authorized the commissioner of education to Establish, construct, and equip and maintain with any funds allotted or appropriated to the use of the department of education in Porto Rico, and not required for other purposes, at least three industrial or manual-training schools for the education of the youth of Porto Rico. The law further provides that- Said schools shall be designed and equipped to afford a practical education for the pupils, both male and female, who shall be received therein in some occupation or trade of a mechanical or industrial character. Competent teachers who shall be practical mechanics, artisans, thoroughly equipped by education to instruct the pupils of said schools in such mechanical or industrial branches as shall be taught in said schools shall be from time to time employed by the commissioner of education as the needs and necessities of said schools and the means at his disposal for said purpose shall require and permit. The law then specifies that the schools shall be located in the cities of San Juan, Ponce, and Mayaguez, respectively, and gives the commissioner full power to promulgate the course of study and to maintain the schools as a part of the general educational system of Porto Rico; and also to provide such rules and regulations as he may deem proper for the admission of boys and girls to these courses. No specific appropriation was made to carry out the intent of this law, but in pursuance of its provisions the unused balance from the regular appropriation for the department of education, which at the close of the last fiscal year would have lapsed into the treasury, was made available, and this amounted to the sum of $40,521.33. From the school-extension fund there has been set aside $25,000 in addition for the erection of a suitable industrial-school building in the city of Ponce, and that building is now under contract and will be completed during the present school year. In San Juan a large office building, formerly used by the French Railroad Company for its offices, has been rented for the period of one year, subject to renewal, and the San Juan industrial school was opened in this building on Monday, October 27. In the city of Mayaguez a building formerly used as a warehouse has been rented and is now being remodeled in order to provide suitable quarters for an industrial school there. The following course of study has been prescribed for the first year in the industrial school. It is in the nature of preparatory work in view of the fact that more applicants did not possess the necessary elementary education to be admitted to shopwork. Furthermore, it has been found necessary to begin with pupils at the age of 14, although in the San Juan school of the 59 pupils admitted during the first week the ages range from 14 to 20. Few, however, were much beyond the average of 14 in intellectual development. OUTLINE FOR COURSE OF STUDY IN INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. FIRST YEAR. I. Language. (Ten periods per week.) Reading and writing Spanish and English. Dictation and composition of business forms and letters in both languages. Exercises in English, with special practice in conversation. Elementary Spanish and English grammar. II. Mathematics. (Five periods per week.) Arithmetic: Review as rapidly as possible the fundamental operations and processes. Teach thoroughly common and decimal fractions, giving ample opportunity for practical exercises on the fundamental processes. Thorough drill, with practical problems in English and metric systems of weights and measures. Elementary business accounts; methods of rendering bills, keeping records, and making payments. Mensuration: Plane figures and surface measurement of cube, prism, and square pyramid. III. Science. (Five periods per week.) Geography: (a) Physical and political geography of North America, West Indies, Central and South America. (b) Elementary commercial and industrial geography of United States and West Indies, paying special attention to crops, products, manufactures, sources of raw material, and routes of trade and travel. IV. History. (Three periods per week.) (a) Reading: Stories of exploration and discovery in North and South America and the West Indies. (b) Study: Early colonial life in United States and Porto Rico, touching upon the relations of the Indians with the Europeans, and the struggles for occupation. V. Drawing. (Ten periods per week.) (a) Free-hand drawing from geometric objects, simple plants, and fruits. (b) Mechanical drawing, with attention to scale, accuracy, and neatness of execution. Floor plans: Models for tools and machinery. VI. Hand work. (a) Sloyd-for boys. (Five periods per week.) Use of tools in wook working. Construction of simple models, teaching and requiring accuracy of hand and eye. Construction of articles of household use, brackets, frames, and light furniture. (b) Cooking-for girls. (Three periods per week.) Preparation of common articles of food, with special attention to dietetic and hygenic principles. Methods of cooking meats, vegetables, etc., and dishes usually eaten in Porto Rican homes. (c) Sewing-for girls. (Three periods per week.) Work in cutting from patterns, fitting, basting and sewing, buttonhole making, etc. (d) Needlework-for girls. (Two periods per week.) making, knitting, darning, embroidery, etc. Drawn work and lace The plans for the subsequent years contemplate the establishment of a carpenter shop, a plumbing shop, a printing shop, a tailor shop, a shoe shop, a harness shop, and more elaborate training for girls in cooking, dressmaking, basketry, and sewing. The equipment for these shops will be obtained between now and the 1st of next October, and with the beginning of the second year all of the students will be required to enter one of these shops, devoting the bulk of each day to work in the shop he chooses, and one or two hours each day to classroom work in general studies. The wish of every man and woman, no matter how highly educated, to have some means of earning a livelihood and to be thorough master of some trade, has become apparent in all countries, and Porto Rican boys and girls must not be left without some help in this direction. These schools will help to establish trades and industries on the island for the making of things which are now imported, but which could be just as well made here, thus giving employment to home labor and new incentive to home skill. It will not be possible for these industrial schools to turn out full-fledged mechanics, but it is intended to keep them on a practical basis and to enable boys and girls who have had three or four years' training in one of these schools to go out with a modicum of general education and with a new and higher training for industrial work, and with a knowledge and experience which will enable the pupil to enter a business house or trade shop prepared to become an efficient independent worker in a very much shorter period of time than the average apprentice. Trades which will be taught in the new industrial and trade schools will be selected, after careful conference with representative business men of the island, with a view to selecting those for which the people are adapted and in which there is immediate demand for skilled labor at the present time in Porto Rico. This is especially true of plumbing, harness making, hat and straw weaving, printing, and certain forms of cabinet and wood work. To these can be added from time to time, as funds and equipment of the schools will permit, training in other branches of industrial activity. The aim will be to make the work simple and practical, and to combine with mechanical work instruction in the most elementary subjects now taught in the public schools as the basis of a good general education. SPECIAL SCHOOLS. In addition to the rural, agricultural, graded, and high schools we have already in successful operation a number of special schools. First in importance are the night schools, for which ample provision has been made in the school law. Two thousand seven hundred and sixtyseven pupils have been enrolled in the night schools during the past school year, with 64.7 per cent of the pupils in actual attendance during the year, which is a remarkable showing when we consider the fact that most of these are persons of adult years occupied at hard work during the day and making many sacrifices to attend school in the evening. Within the past few weeks we have made some modifications in the course of the night schools with a view to making them as practical as possible. The plan is to give the best instruction in these schools in the most elementary and practical subjects. Arithmetic, language work in both English and Spanish, writing, and a little elementary instruction in geography and history comprises the course. In San Juan, Ponce, and Mayaguez we have begun the experiment of offering to those who have made satisfactory progress in the subjects just mentioned the privilege of entering a special class of typewriting, stenography, and bookkeeping, for which there is considerable demand. The recent action of the cigar makers' union in demanding of its members the ability to read and write has brought applications for many more persons employed during the day for admission to the night schools, in order that they may learn to read and write; and we have in most of our night schools a waiting list of those anxious to enter as soon as there is room for them. We opened one night school recently in Ponce, notice being given at 2 p. m. that pupils would be matriculated at 8 p. m. the same day. At that hour, on only six hours' notice, 172 pupils presented themselves. The building would hold no more, and as many more persons were left standing in the street unable to gain admission to the building. We could take only 108 of the 172 who managed to enter the rooms where pupils were examined. Of the other special schools, the work of the kindergartens has perhaps aroused the greatest enthusiasm in the community. While the resources at the command of the department are not sufficient, and perhaps the time is not ripe to introduce the regular kindergarten in connection with all of our graded schools, the experimental kindergartens that have been established in San Juan and Ponce are doing a splendid work and are developing an interest among parents in the welfare of the smaller children, showing them the value of early systematic training. These classes constitute a splendid object lesson and |