Female education had all along received even less attention than the education of boys. Alexander Infiesta, in an article on the subject published in the Revista in February, 1888, states, that according to the latest census there were 399,674 females in the island, of whom 293,247 could neither read nor write, 158,528 of them being white women and girls. The number of schools for boys was 408, with an attendance of 18,194, and that for girls 127, with 7,183 pupils.

From the memorial published by the Director of the Provincial Institute for Secondary Education, regarding the courses of study in that establishment during the year 1888-'89, we learn that the number of primary schools in the island had increased to 600, but, according to Mr. Coll y Toste's Resena, published in 1899, there were, among a total population of 894,302 souls, only 497 primary schools in the island at the time of the American occupation. The total attendance was 22,265 pupils, 15,108 boys and 7,157 girls.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 77: See Franco del Valle Atiles, Causas del atras Intellectual del campesino Puertoriqueno. Revista Puertoriquena, Ano II, tomo II, p. 7.]

[Footnote 78: Letter to Dr. Rufo Fernandez from Fray Angel de la Concepcion Vazquez. See Acosta's notes to Abbad's history, pp. 412, 413, foot note.]

CHAPTER XXXVI

LIBRARIES AND THE PRESS

Books for the people were considered by the Spanish colonial authorities to be of the nature of inflammable or explosive substances, which it was not safe to introduce freely.

From their point of view, they were right. The Droits de l'homme of Jean Jacques Rousseau, for example, translated into every European language, had added more volunteers of all nationalities to the ranks of the Spanish-American patriots than was generally supposed--and so, books and printing material were subjected to the payment of high import duties, and a series of annoying formalities, among which the passing of the political and ecclesiastical censors was the most formidable.

The result among the poorer classes of natives was blank illiteracy. A pall of profound ignorance hung over the island, and although, with the revival of letters in the seventeenth century the light of intellect dawned over western Europe, not a ray of it was permitted to reach the Spanish colonies.

The ruling class, every individual of whom came from the Peninsula, kept what books each individual possessed to themselves. To the people all learning, except such as it was considered safe to impart, was forbidden fruit.

Under these conditions it is not strange that the idea of founding public libraries did not germinate in the minds of the more intelligent among the Puerto Ricans till the middle of the nineteenth century; whereas, the other colonies that had shaken off their allegiance to the mother country, had long since entered upon the road of intellectual progress with resolute step.

Collegiate libraries, however, had existed in the capital of the island as early as the sixteenth century. The first of which we have any tradition was founded by the Dominican friars in their convent. It contained works on art, literature, and theology.

The next library was formed in the episcopal palace, or "casa parochial," by Bishop Don Bernardo de Valbuena, poet and author of a pastoral novel entitled the Golden Age, and other works of literary merit. This library, together with that of the Dominicans, and the respective episcopal and conventual archives were burned by the Hollanders during the siege of San Juan in 1625.

The Franciscan friars also had a library in their convent (1660). The books disappeared at the time of the community's dissolution in 1835.

Bishop Pedro Gutierres de Cos, who founded the San Juan Conciliar Seminary in 1832, established a library in connection with it, the remains of which are still extant in the old seminary building, but much neglected and worm-eaten.

A library of a semipublic character was founded by royal order dated June 19, 1831, shortly after the installation of the Audiencia in San Juan. It was a large and valuable collection of books on juridical subjects, which remained under the care of a salaried librarian till 1899, when it was amalgamated with the library of the College of Lawyers.

This last is a rich collection of works on jurisprudence, and the exclusive property of the college, but accessible to professional men.

The library is in the former Audiencia building, now occupied by the insular courts.

The period from 1830 to 1850 appears to have been one of greatest intellectual activity in Puerto Rico. Toward its close Juan de la Pezuela, the governor, founded the Royal Academy of Belles-Lettres, an institution of literary and pedagogical character, with the functions of a normal school. It was endowed with a modest library, but it only lived till the year 1860, when, in consequence of disagreement between the founder and the professors, the school was closed and the library passed into the possession of the Economic Society of Friends of the Country.

This, and the library of the Royal Academy, which the society had also acquired, formed a small but excellent nucleus, and with, the produce of the public subscription of 1884 it was enabled to stock its library with many of the best standard works of the time in Spanish and French, and open to the Puerto Ricans of all classes the doors of the first long-wished-for public library.

Since then it has contributed in no small degree to the enlightenment of the better part of the laboring classes in the capital, till it was closed at the commencement of the war.

During the transition period the books were transferred from one locality to another, and in the process the best works disappeared, until the island's first civil governor, Charles H. Allen, at the suggestion of Commissioner of Education Martin G. Brumbaugh, rescued the remainder and made it the nucleus of the first _American_ free library.

The second Puerto Rican public library was opened by Don Ramon Santaella, October 15, 1880, in the basement of the Town Hall. It began with 400 volumes, and possesses to-day 6,361 literary and didactic books in different languages.

The Puerto Rican Atheneum Library was established in 1876. Its collection of books, consisting principally of Spanish and French literature, is an important one, both in numbers and quality. It has been enriched by accessions of books from the library of the extinct Society of Friends of the Country. It is open to members of the Atheneum only, or to visitors introduced by them.

The Casino Espanol possesses a small but select library with a comfortable reading-room. Its collection of books and periodicals is said to be the richest and most varied in the island. It was founded in 1871.

The religious association known under the name of Conferences of St.

Vincent de Paul had a small circulating library of religious works duly approved by the censors. The congregation was broken up in 1887 and the library disappeared.

The Provincial Institute of Secondary Education, which was located in the building now occupied by the free library and legislature, possessed a small pedagogical library which shared the same fate as that of the Society of Friends of the Country.

The Spanish Public Works Department possessed another valuable collection of books, mostly on technical and scientific subjects. A number of books on other than technical subjects, probably from the extinct libraries just referred to, have been added to the original collection, and the whole, to the number of 1,544 volumes in excellent condition, exist under the care of the chief of the Public Works Department.

Besides the above specified libraries of a public and collegiate character, there are some private collections of books in the principal towns of the island. Chief among these is the collection of Don Fernando Juncos, of San Juan, which contains 15,000 volumes of classic and preceptive literature and social and economic science, 1,200 volumes of which bear the author's autographs.

The desire for intellectual improvement began to manifest itself in the interior of the island a few years after the establishment of the first public library in the capital. The municipality of Ponce founded a library in 1894. It contains 809 bound volumes and 669 pamphlets in English, German, French, and Spanish, many of them duplicates. The general condition of the books is bad, and the location of the library altogether unsuitable. There was a municipal appropriation of 350 pesos per annum for library purposes, but since 1898 it has not been available.

Mayaguez founded its public library in 1872. It possesses over 5,000 volumes, with a small archeological and natural history museum attached to it.

Some of the smaller towns also felt the need of intellectual expansion, and tried to supply it by the establishment of reading-rooms. Arecibo, Vega-Baja, Toa-Alta, Yauco, Cabo-Rojo, Aguadilla, Humacao, and others made efforts in this direction either through their municipalities or private initiative. A few only succeeded, but they did not outlive the critical times that commenced with the war, aggravated by the hurricane of August, 1898.

Since the American occupation of the island, four public libraries have been established. Two of them are exclusively Spanish, the Circulating Scholastic Library, inaugurated in San Juan on February 22, 1901, by Don Pedro Carlos Timothe, and the Circulating Scholastic Library of Yauco, established a month later under the auspices of S.

Egozene of that town. The two others are, one, largely English, the Pedagogical Library, established under the auspices of the Commissioner of Education, and the San Juan Free Library, to which Mr.

Andrew Carnegie has given $100,000, and which is polyglot, and was formally opened to the public April 20, 1901. There is also a growing number of libraries in the public schools. From the above data it appears that, owing to the peculiar conditions that obtained in this island, the people of Puerto Rico were very slow in joining the movement of intellectual expansion which began in Spanish America in the eighteenth century. They did so at last, unaided and with their own limited resources, even before the obstacles placed in their way by the Government were removed. If they have not achieved more, it is because within the last few decades the island has been unfortunate in more than one respect. Now that a new era has dawned, it may reasonably be expected that the increased opportunities for intellectual development afforded them will be duly appreciated and taken advantage of by the people, and if we may judge from the eagerness with which the youth of the capital reads the books of the San Juan Free Library, it seems clear that the seed so recently sown has fallen in fruitful soil.

The history of the Press in Puerto Rico is short. The first printing machine was introduced by the Government in 1807 for the purpose of publishing the Official Gazette. No serious attempt at publication of any periodical for the people was made till the commencement of the second constitutional period (1820-'23), when, for the first time in the island's history, public affairs could be discussed without the risk of imprisonment or banishment. The right of association was also recognized. The Society of Liberal Lovers of the Country and the Society of Lovers of Science were formed about this time. The Investigator and the Constitutional Gazette were published and gave food for nightly discussions on political and social questions in the coffee-house on the Marina.

The period of freedom of spoken and written thought was short, but an impulse had been given which could not be arrested. In 1865 there were eight periodicals published in the island. On September 29th of that year a law regulating the publication of newspapers indirectly suppressed half of them. It contained twenty articles, each more stringent than the other. To obtain a license to publish or to continue publishing a paper, a deposit of 2,000 crowns had to be made to cover the fines that were almost sure to be imposed. The publications were subject to the strictest censorship. They could not appear till the proofs of each article had been signed by the censor, and the whole process of printing and publishing was fenced in by such minute and annoying regulations, the smallest infraction of which was punished by such heavy fines that it was a marvel how any paper could be published under such conditions. These conditions were relaxed a decade or two later, and a number of publications sprang into existence at once. When the United States Government took possession of the island, there were 9 periodicals published in San Juan, 5 in Ponce, 3 in Mayaguez, 1 in Humacao, and a few others in different towns of the interior.

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE REGULAR AND SECULAR CLERGY

In Catholic countries the monastic orders constitute the regular clergy. The secular clergy is not bound by monastic rules. Both classes exercise their functions independently, the former under the authority of their respective superiors or generals, the latter under the bishops.

When, after the return of Columbus from his first voyage, the existence of a new world was demonstrated and preparations for occupying it were made, the Pope, to assure the Christianization of the inhabitants, gave to the monks of all orders who wished to go the privilege, pertaining till then to the secular clergy exclusively, of administering parishes and collecting tithes without subjection to the authority of the bishops.

The Dominicans and the Franciscans availed themselves of this privilege at once. There was rivalry for power and influence between these two orders from the time of their first installation, and they carried their quarrels with them to America, where their differences of opinion regarding the enslaving and treatment of the Indians embittered them still more. The Dominicans secured a footing in Santo Domingo and in Puerto Rico almost to the exclusion of their rivals, notwithstanding the king's recommendation to Ceron in 1511 to build a monastery for Franciscans, whose doctrines he considered "salutary."

[Illustration: San Francisco Church, San Juan; the oldest church in the city.]

Puerto Rico was scantily provided with priests till the year 1518, when the treasurer, Haro, wrote to Cardinal Cisneros: "There are no priests in the granges as has been commanded; only one in Caparra, and one in San German. The island is badly served. Send us a goodly number of priests or permission to pay them out of the produce of the tithes."