ression in one of his official
communications was the motive for his proceeding in this case, it
would seem that he changed it toward the end of his administration,
for he founded a Royal Academy of Belles-Lettres, and a library which
was provided with books by occasional gifts from the public. He
introduced some useful reforms in the system of primary instruction,
and inaugurated the first prize competitions for poetical compositions
by native authors.

From the returns of the census of 1860 it appears that at that time
only 17-12 per cent of the male population of the island knew how to
read, and only 12-12 per cent of the female population. Four years
later, at the end of 1864 there were, according to official data,
98,817 families in Puerto Rico whose intellectual wants were supplied
by 74 public schools for boys and 48 for girls, besides 16 and 9
private schools for boys and girls respectively.

In 1854 General Norzagery, then governor, assisted by Andres Vina, the
secretary of the Royal Board of Commerce and Industry, had founded a
school of Commerce, Agriculture, and Navigation. After sixteen years
of existence, this establishment was unfavorably reported upon by
Governor Sanz, who wished to suppress it on account of the liberal
ideas and autonomist tendencies of its two principal professors, Jose
Julian Acosta (Abbad's commentator) and Ramon B. Castro. In the
preamble to a secret report sent by this governor to Madrid he says:
"This supreme civil government has always secured professors who, in
addition to the required ability for their position, possess the moral
and political character and qualities to form citizens, lovers of
their country, i.e., lovers of Puerto Rico as a Spanish province, _not
of Puerto Rico as an independent state annexed to North America_."

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 lear