TABLE 5.-Number of school buildings in each municipality during the school years 1900-1901 and 1901–2. 1. Adjuntas. 2. Aguada 3. Aguadilla 4. Aguas Buenas.. 5. Aibonito 6. Anasco 7. Arecibo 8. Barros.. 9. Bayamon. 10. Cabo Rojo. 11. Caguas 12. Camuy 13. Carolina. 14. Cayey 15. Ciales 16. Coamo. 17. Comerio. 18. Fajardo 19. Guayama.. 20. Humacao 21. Isabela 22. Juana Diaz. 23. Lajas.. 24. Lares. 25. Las Marias 26. Manatı 27. Maricao 28. Mayaguez. 29. Morovis 30. Naguabo 31. Patillas... 32. Ponce. 33. Rio Grande 34. Rio Piedras 35. Sabana Grande. 36. San German. 37. San Juan 38. San Lorenzo.. 39. San Sebastian 40. Santa Isabel. 41. Toa Alta 42. Utuado. 43. Vega Baja. 44. Vieques. 45. Yabucoa Municipality. 46. Yauco.... Total... San Juan High School. Normal School.......... TABLE 6.— Population, number of schools, supervisors, and supervisors' districts, 1902–3. REPORTS OF SUPERVISORS. SAN JUAN, P. R., June 9, 1902. SIR: I have the honor to submit to you the following report as field supervisor of the public schools of Porto Rico for the year ending June 30, 1902: The work throughout the island has been on the whole satisfactory, and, in my opinion, we have achieved more than we had any right to expect. If you take into consideration the different education which the people of Porto Rico had-their ways, habits, etc.—you will find that to implant a new system is a question of time, labor, and perseverance; therefore, I think that the work that has been accomplished is more than satisfactory, and I am glad to say our teachers and pupils have begun to accustom themselves to our public school system, which, undoubtedly, is far better than the one they had. I do not think I need to mention the increase in number of schools and in the number of children attending them to-day. This matter you know perfectly well. As I have not been able to visit the whole 16 districts of the island, I regret that I can not give you a thorough report on each of them, but I beg to say that the districts that I have visited I have found in quite a flourishing condition. During the year we have had a few little troubles that have been settled quietly. Of these cases you have separate reports on the office file of the department. Since April 1, I have had charge of district No. 1, as acting supervisor, in the place of Mr. William H. Armstrong, resigned. Although the former supervisor will no doubt give you a report of the district for the time that he had it under his charge, I respectfully submit to you the following: In taking charge of the district, I am glad to state that the local school board, composed of very good men, was willing to assist the department in everything pertaining to the advancement of education. It expects to better the condition of the schools for the coming year by opening several new grades, and making some repairs to the buildings now used for school purposes. The teachers fulfilled their duties satisfactorily, and the general work gives good results. I am also glad to report that the local board has met all its financial obligations, and that for the next year it will have a budget of about $30,000, with which amount the public schools of the district of San Juan should be greatly improved. On the 7th day of June English examinations were held in this district. About 90 per cent of the teachers were examined, and although some of them, perhaps, were weak in their knowledge of English, yet they showed a very decided interest in acquiring it, and the department will find that next year these examinations will give greater results. All the difficulties mentioned in the last report about the schoolhouses, and the need of furniture and sanitary arrangements, etc., will no doubt be obliterated during the coming year, as the finances of the school board are in a quite prosperous condition. Respectfully submitted. Dr. SAMUEL M. LINDSAY, ALBERT F. MARTINEZ, Field Supervisor. Commissioner of Education, San Juan, P. R. SCHOOL DISTRICT No. 1. SAN JUAN, P. R., July 1, 1902. DEAR SIR: I have the honor to inclose herewith my second annual report of the public schools of the district of San Juan, P. R. GENERAL OPPOSITION ENCOUNTERED. Notwithstanding all the difficulties that have been met, as foreshadowed by the remarkable figures presented in the United States Government Census taken in 1900 with reference to the intellectual and moral status of the island of Porto Rico, there has been a distinct measure of progress obtained in educational work. As a whole the people are coming to understand that our purpose is to uplift and improve them. Our customs, at many points so opposed to their own, have not always been and are not yet fully understood; and there is a conservatism which can not be expected to yield readily, the old traditions, to new and untried systems and theories. To the free education of the common public schools, it must be frankly admitted that the church does not accord its sanction. While there has not been open opposition, a distinctly unfriendly feeling has been shown, whose influence has been felt to no small extent. Religious schools are popular among the wealthier classes, and those holding close church affiliations are widely patronized. The methods of instruction in these schools are far from being modern except in those schools established under some American system, where the methods of instruction therein pursued are in the main good, though strongly sectarian. In general the Spanish residents of the island, the greater number of whom are located in San Juan, are not friendly to our institutions in an undisguised and pronounced degree. It goes without saying that our schools are not favored by the Peninsularites, and as they are found in such large numbers in San Juan, the opposition met with from this source may be counted as a considerable factor. Among the Porto Rican families there are some whose children have been or are being educated in American schools, and the influence of these has been friendly and very helpful indeed. Among them is a strong and healthy school spirit, a desire to have their children learn, and to aspire to a higher and more fruitful life than they themselves have lived. COEDUCATION. Until the present year coeducation has been entirely contrary to the old Spanish customs; in fact it was regarded as a means to the ruination of the people. To place boys and girls together in the same room without a guardian was an unpardonable crime. At the beginning of the school year I had determined if possible not only to completely reorganize the system, but to break up this objectionable custom at once, regardless of public sentiment; and after laying my plans before the honorable commissioner of education, Dr. M. G. Brumbaugh, I proceeded to carry them out to the best of my ability. I called a meeting of the principals and teachers of the district, laid my plans before them, and instructed them in the duties which they were expected to perform. Courses of study were laid out before them to follow, rules of discipline were explained to them, pertaining not only to the order and conduct of pupils, but the conduct of teachers also. First of all they were instructed to enroll boys as well as girls in all schools, and separate them only in the upper grades. The plan was publicly announced in the newspapers, but objections at once arose from all sides. It became necessary to close my office to all except teachers. Attacks were made upon me in every Spanish paper. The halls of the school buildings were crowded daily with parents and servants who went to protect the innocent ones during school hours. This was very objectionable at first and greatly impeded the work of the classes. In view, however, of the fact that the guardians themselves might learn something of our methods as well as our good intentions, and that they might see our equipments so utterly strange to them, I considered that little harm and perhaps some good might be the result of permitting them to remain in the schools; indeed a general invitation to visit the schools was sent to all parents. It required but a short time for these parents to learn that the American school was a great institution, where their children could get not only a good free education, but be under good moral influences at the same time. At present, sad to relate, it is difficult to get parents to visit the schools at any time. It has now come to be realized that coeducation is indispensable for the future social, moral, and intellectual advancement of the people of the island. Again, it has come to be realized that such association means a higher moral character building through boys, to cherish a higher respect for girls whom they have been hitherto taught to rate as inferior to themselves. Scholarship thus becomes advanced through the healthy competition which leads a boy to keenly dislike being outdone by a girl. That this means much in the social aspect of the future is already seen in the tendency toward the breaking down of old customs, which did not permit a woman to go unattended anywhere, and forced teachers formally calling on the supervisor to do so in company with a greater or less number of companions, but who on business errands now in nearly every instance exercise independence and visit the office unaccompanied. DISCIPLINE. Discipline in the schools and in the homes of Porto Rican children was not known until the latter part of last year. In most of the homes good discipline is still unknown, but in the schoolroom at least good discipline and promptness has been better learned by both teachers and pupils. The magnitude of the task of maintaining effective discipline in the schools of Porto Rico can not be properly appreciated by those not familiar with the peculiar and unusual conditions which obtain in a country where the benefits of education of any sort have hitherto been always denied to the masses, and a life of domestic cruelty attended by the most primitive customs has so dwarfed and stunted the character of the common people as to leave them destitute of the finer and more polished graces of civilized existence. In the rural districts of the island, however, I have observed that better results in this way have been made and much more easily and definitely reached than in the city, as in the former there are fewer diversions to absorb the youthful minds and withdraw their attention from their work, and where, in fact, the school has at once become the chief center of thought and action and opened to dull and remote little communities a welcome source of interest and amusement. The sympathy of parents, while in the main with the purpose of the schools, so far as is understood, is not actively enlisted on behalf of the teachers, and the sentiment has often been antagonistic to the details of our organic work and the maintenance of good discipline. Here as also in the evil influences which flow from the association with the hundreds of children not in the schools-children of prostitute parents-an association unavoidable in the crowded tenement-life district of San Juan, we have encountered a most serious obstacle to material progress. POLITICAL INFLUENCES. Factional political differences which attain to such bitterness among all the Latin races are far from exceptional here, and greatly interfere in many ways with the administration of good government in the schools. In fact the baneful effect of this can not be too much emphasized. The height to which passion here becomes inflamed, especially during election campaigns, is inconceivable to the people of the United States who are unfamiliar with the character of the inhabitants of SpanishAmerican countries. In the United States, neighbors, business partners, and even brothers, may be identified with different party organizations without loss of mutual respect or regard, but here to be opposed in political faith means not alone discord, but too often deep and abiding enmity. This fatal animosity enters into all the relations of life, cankers social intercourse, and penetrates the home. The schools can not and do not escape, and the evil influence does much to counteract and destroy the effect of more conscientious work. A further evil is found in the intimacy which often exists between teacher and parent of the pupil, the effect of which is to render the former averse to the enforcing of effective control through the imposition of proper punishment. Of course most of the native instructors have as yet but misty ideas of good discipline, as they are in quite too frequent instances more or less unqualified for their work in other ways. A large measure of our past troubles has been and is still due to the causes thus briefly outlined, but there is every reason to believe that matters are improving, as before remarked, and to hope that in time, as better public sentiment and general knowledge grows, that these obstructions will be largely eliminated. REFORMATORY SCHOOLS NEEDED. It is unfortunate, in my opinion, that laws have not been enacted providing for compulsory education, for establishing reformatory schools where refractory pupils could be sent, and for providing for reasonable exercise of corporal punishment in the schools. Only one section of the school laws touches on the relations of teachers and pupils under a general clause which provides that teachers shall treat pupils in a humane manner, which is as follows: "SECTION 25. Teachers in the public schools of Porto Rico shall at all times treat their pupils humanely and kindly, and the commissioner of education shall provide such rules and regulations for the discipline of the pupils in the public schools as to enforce the spirit of this act." No right-minded person can desire to do otherwise than obey the spirit of the law. This law, however, allows no protection or power whatever to the teacher, and as a result the teachers or respectable pupils are at the mercy of the street ruffian, who attends school knowing that he will not receive corporal punishment for any of his misdemeanors. The punishment imposed upon him will at most be expulsion from the school. The maintenance of good discipline is impossible if the teacher be not allowed to administer a merited castigation within reasonable bounds, where all other means |