Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. That is right.

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. And in that part when was the goal of 90 percent reached? In what year did you begin to have 90 percent of the school-age children attend the elementary schools?

Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. 1956-57.

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. Prior to 1956, not even at that early age were all able to get to school?

Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. That is right.

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. So that did limit the teaching facilities, and the facilities of children to learn what they have to learn, including English?

Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. That is right.

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. What did you say was the proportion of the school budget to the general budget of the government?

Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. Exactly almost 30 percent.

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. That is the highest of all departments?

Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. That is right. I think that education and health takes care of half the whole budget.

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. We have quite a number of young men and women who, after they complete senior high school go to the mainland for their college and university education. Are they able to enter the mainland institutions without difficulty, or do they find very much difficulty? That is language difficulty.

Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. Apparently not. The language has not been a barrier in this case.

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. Speaking of the school lunches, you have a Commonwealth appropriation and a matching Federal fund? Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. Yes.

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. Is the formula applied to Puerto Rico in the case of the school lunches the same as in the States, or is it different? Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. It is the same program.

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. On school luncheons?

Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. It is the same.

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. You mean the matching fund ratio is the same? Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. Yes.

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. Are you sure of that?

Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. I have someone here who is in charge of that, but I think so. I think it is the same.

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. Well, I am afraid we do not quite agree there. Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. I will check that.

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. Will you please check it?

Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. Yes.

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. In other words, coming back to the question of English, when the students have been able to complete their high school, they are able to enter colleges and universities. However, a person who may have attended school up to the sixth grade only would have a much lesser knowledge of English; would he not? Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. That is true.

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. And do you think there is a difference between the knowledge of English taught in the schools and the English knowledge necessary to get along in general conversation outside?

Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. Well, this program is a recent program and is based on the oral-audible approach, a conversation. The first thing in a language is to hear. I mean speaking the language.

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. In other words, they are endeavoring to teach English that may be useful on the streets and everywhere else? Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. That is right.

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. And not merely book English, as we might say? Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. Yes.

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. Is that the case?

Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. It was started that way. Mr. Robinett can explain that point.

Mr. ROBINETT. Your question has to do with the level of English taught. I would say the English program is directed toward the teaching of what might be identified as informal standard English and would be useful in matters of study and matters of family conversations, would be useful at any level as opposed to the kind of English which is typical of books and does not reflect usage. In other words, we aim to teach what educated people use.

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. How long has that program been going on?
Mr. ROBINETT. This program was initiated 11 years ago.

Mr. FERNÓS-ISERN. That is all.

Mr. O'BRIEN. The final, and our usual No. 1 question on the "hit parade": Would statehood ease, complicate, or leave unchanged your problems?

Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. Under statehood we would have to close many, many schools.

Mr. O'BRIEN. You would have to close many schools?

Mr. SANCHEZ HIDALGO. Yes; and lose teaching personnel and many of the benefits now given to the school population.

Mr. O'BRIEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.

(Short recess.)

Mr. O'BRIEN. Our final witness this morning is the very distinguished chancellor of the University of Puerto Rico, Dr. Benitez, who will discuss the higher educational program.

STATEMENT OF DR. JAIME BENITEZ, CHANCELLOR, UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO

Dr. BENITEZ. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, the University of Puerto Rico is an institution of higher learning chartered by our legislature in 1903 to foster the development of public instruction and the pursuit of knowledge in Puerto Rico. The university is presently committed to the advancement of learning, research, and understanding in Puerto Rico and outside of Puerto Rico. Its principal source of support is now, and has always been, the Puerto Rican taxpayer. Its principal task is now, and has always been, the training of the young men and women of Puerto Rico in the arts, the sciences, the professions, and perhaps more meaningfully in the appreciation of the rights, the duties, and the challenges facing modern man throughout the world and facing young men and women in Puerto Rico. We do not purport to have the final answers for the problems of the world or for the problems of Puerto Rico. But we endeavor to carry out our task in the spirit of intellectual curiosity, intellectual integrity, and intellectual responsibility associated throughout the Western World with the idea of the university.

Thus, the University of Puerto Rico strives to combine its interest in, and its services to the society where it stands with the basic principles

of academic freedom, independence of judgment and those loyalties to essential university values which transcend all other concerns. The achievement of such a goal is particularly important in emerging communities where conflicting pressures are so great and where objectiveness, tolerance, and the rule of reason are infrequent and indispensable. The efficaciousness of such a program depends upon many things, outstanding among which is the caliber of the faculty.

Fortunately, the great majority of our faculty members are competent, hard working, devoted men and women proudly and efficaciously participating in an educational task of the highest meaning and validity. They constitute the best trained group of teachers, writers, researchers, thinkers ever gathered together as a working staff in Puerto Rico. Amongst them are the island's intellectual and cultural leaders of the present and, even more importantly, of the future. The community sees the daily consequence of the above in the training of our youth and in the fruits of such training.

As a result, the university is trusted, respected, and supported by the community and by the taxpayer. Certainly its best support is nonfinancial and springs from a solidarity of purpose and a respect for effort which honors the university and the community. No authority within or without the institution could have enforced through any sort of imperative control the spontaneous and generous endorsement which has assisted the university throughout the years.

Organized originally as a normal school for the training of primary and secondary schoolteachers, the institution of 1903, with its 12 teachers and 154 students, has grown into a university with more than 18,000 students, with close to 1,200 full-time faculty members and with a program of teaching and research encompassing the principal fields of knowledge. The program of instruction covers the liberal arts and the professions, while the research activities center on agriculture, medicine and nuclear studies in the physical sciences, and on economics, sociology and history in the social studies.

The university stimulates the creative arts and offers programs in music, drama and literature, and assists other institutions similarly engaged. The university operates also a very large extension program. One-third of its total registration is made up of persons who either in the evening, in extramural centers or as part-time students pursue university courses after working hours. Additionally, through its agricultural extension program, its school for cooperatives and its labor relations institute, the university offers nonacademic training at almost all points throughout Puerto Rico.

Like its sister institutions in the United States, the University of Puerto Rico could use twice its present budget to very good advantage. Nothing that I say here may be interpreted in mitigation of that basic position. But given the financial limitations and the many other social needs of the community, it is only fair to say that the university has been generously supported throughout the years by the government of Puerto Rico and by the people of Puerto Rico. It is also fair to add that that support has been and continues to be one of the soundest investments ever made on behalf of Puerto Rico, that the Puerto Rican community understands and appreciates it as such, and that the returns rendered by the university have kept pace with the high hopes that have surrounded and surround the university.

The economic and social program which is transforming the sociological structure of the island by opening up new perspectives, would have been almost impossible of achievement without a university equipped to stimulate the abilities, cultivate the aptitudes, and form the professional groups at a pace in keeping with the process of this growth. The mere fact that there is a steady demand for persons trained in the various university careers, and that there is no unemployment among our graduates-which I may add is one of the outstanding characteristics of this university as against what happens in very many other of the communities in process of development like India, in the Near East, and parts of Latin America. There is, I repeat, no unemployment among our graduates. The fact that our students are accepted by the most exacting institutions of learning for postgraduate work in the United States and in Europe; that the services of our graduates are sought abroad, especially in Spanish American countries; that students from 81 countries and areas have come to our university for training, proves that the standard and quality of our university teaching keep pace with the reality it is called upon to serve, and with the reality which people and areas in a process of development similar to our own are trying to achieve.

Location and programs: The pattern of our principal programs and interests is similar to that prevailing in the great State universities in the United States although there exist significant differences in emphasis springing from our own background, experiences and needs. Outstanding among these are a direct concern and even leadership role in almost all cultural fields, a vast program of financial support for the training of students and faculty members and integration of the liberal and the professional demands within the several programs. All the colleges and degrees of the University of Puerto Rico are accredited by the corresponding academic, professional and regional agencies in the United States and throughout Latin America.

As already stated, the university is an institution with three main campuses. The oldest and still largest campus is located at the city of Rio Piedras, a community which has become the population center of Puerto Rico, half an hour's drive from San Juan. The Rio Piedras campus comprises the colleges of general studies, humanities, natural sciences, social sciences, education, business administration, pharmacy and law. These eight faculties have a total enrollment of 12,082 students. Of these, 8,723 are daytime students carrying a full academic program and 3,359 are evening, extension and other parttime students pursuing university courses after working hours.

The first four colleges mentioned-general studies, humanities, natural sciences and social sciences offer the traditional programs in liberal arts and sciences.

The university has its college of agriculture and mechanical arts on the western coast of the island. That campus includes the faculties of engineering, agriculture and arts and sciences, with a total student body of 2,775 and a full-time faculty of 280.

The Mayaguez campus includes the principal Nuclear Science Laboratory of the Atomic Energy Commission in the Spanish-speaking world, operated by the university as part of the program of Atoms for Peace.

49511-60- -12

The third university campus is located next to the capitol building, and holds the school of medicine and tropical medicine, the school of dentistry, and the school of public health of the university.

The school of medicine was originally a research center on tropical medicine, which was expanded into a school of medicine in 1950. The school of public health as such was added in 1954 and the school of dentistry in 1957. They are very exacting and rigorous schools, have a total regular registration of 425, a full-time staff of 131 and receive every year over a million dollars on research and teaching grants.

Vital statistics: The members of the committee may be interested in glancing over some of the vital statistics of the university. The first table indicates total enrollment throughout the years. It may be noted that the size of our student body has increased continuously and rapidly. Last year School and Society listed the University of Puerto Rico as 19th in size within the American academic circles, both in total registration and in full-time registration. We have been flooded by and have survived already the tidal wave of students which is one of the great fears and apprehensions of American institutions of higher learning. It has been a constant and on occasions a vertiginous growth. Only during the biennium 1951-53 did we experience a recession which duplicated a similar recession in continental universities. This temporary reversal of the growth trend, generally referred to in the academic world as the "Korean dip" was caused both in the continent and here by the same need-military service resulting from the Korean incident. At that time, 43,434 Puerto Rican residents were enlisted into the Army.

We have then the table where you see the extraordinary growth of the university over the years, culminating in our present registration. The Korean incident-probably the greatest understatement in the English language and its predecessor, World War II, resulted inter alia in the several GI bills of rights.

Table 2 refers to veterans enrolled at the university under the benefits of Federal and Commonwealth legislation. It will be noted that we have had on an average over 2,500 veterans throughout and that local legislation provides for educational benefits to veterans who have exhausted their educational support before finishing their university training. They have done excellent work.

And you can see from table No. 2, the flow of veterans both before and after the Korean situation.

Committee members may be interested in the development of our ROTC programs. Table 3 indicates student enrollment and commissions in the Army of the United States granted over the last 19 years. One thousand five hundred commissions have been awarded and over 15,000 students have received the regular 2-year training program.

Visiting inspection teams advise me yearly that both the Army and the Air Force regard the university ROTC programs as outstanding throughout the United States.

Then you have the table of enrollment, total 30,000. But I have divided by two, because these are 2-year programs. Not the ones that list the commissions, which are 4-year basic programs.

Tables 4 and 5 pertain to nonresident students who have received training at the University of Puerto Rico over the last 5 years. It