n 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