n
public works of various kinds. It was also pointed out that the average
cost of educating each pupil in the Cuban schools was more than $26,
while the average cost in the whole United States was less than $23, and
in the Southern States, with which it was assumed that Cuba was properly
to be compared, it was less than $9. Of course there was involved in
these criticisms a triple fallacy. One was the notion that public works
were neglected or sacrificed for the schools. That, as we shall see, was
not so; a comparably great system of such works proceeding _pari passu_
with the development of the school system. Another was, that the cost
was too high. Naturally the cost was much higher in the first year
than it would be after the system was well established. It was in fact
much lower than in those parts of the United States where the schools
were efficient and the educational system was creditable. The third
fallacy was in thinking that Cuba was to be compared with the Southern
States, the backward condition of whose school systems had long been
regarded as a reproach and a disgrace. In endowing Cuba with a school
system it would have been indecent for the United States to take for the
standard its own poorest and most discreditable systems. It was
necessary that it should take rather the best that it had as an example
to be emulated. It may be added that these criticisms were made chiefly
by General Wood's American critics, and by those who ignorantly and
arrogantly regarded Cuba as an inferior country for which an inferior
system was good enough. The Cubans themselves with practical unanimity
gave to the work their hearty and grateful approval.

[Illustration: ANTONIO SANCHEZ DE BUSTAMENTE

One of the most eminent jurists and orators of Cuba, Dr. Antonio Sanchez
de Bustamente, was born on April 13, 1865, and was educated at the
University of Havana. He is a Senator, President of the Cuban Society of
International Law; President of the National Academy of Arts and
Letters; Dean of the Havana College of Lawyers, and Professor of
International, Public and Private Law in the University of Havana.]

There was other work to do for the children of Cuba beside that of the
ordinary schools. The war had been disastrous to domesticity. Thousands
of homes had been entirely destroyed, the parents slain, the houses
burned, the children left to wander as waifs. In that genial clime,
amid that profusion of the fruits of nature, thes