there were 5,037 slaves on the island; by 1802 this number had risen to 13,333; and in 1846 the highest number, 51,265, was reached. Thereafter, the slaves diminished in numbers until in 1873, 29,229 negroes were freed in a single day. Under the terms of the act of emancipation, the owners were paid about 300 pesos for each slave; the payment, however, was made in government bonds which later depreciated to only fifteen per cent of their face value. In this connection it may be mentioned that Porto Rico and Cuba possess a much smaller proportion of negroes and mulattoes than any of the other West Indian islands. The census of 1899 indicated in Porto Rico 363,817 colored persons, out of a total population of 953,243, or a proportion of 38 per cent; the Cuban census of the same year showed that the colored population made up 33 per cent of the population of that island. In Jamaica, the Leeward Islands, Barbadoes, and St. Vincent, the proportion of negroes is over ninety per cent of the population, and even in the more northern islands of the Bahamas and the Bermudas, the proportions are respectively 74 and 61 per cent. Following the emancipation of slaves, but not wholly due to that act, the island passed through a period of agricultural and commercial depression, which lasted for a decade and a half. Undoubtedly the derangement of labor conditions by the freeing of the slaves, and the financial evils arising from the depreciation of the bonds given for the slaves, had much to do with this crisis; but the situation of the sugar market under the competition of European beet-sugar was the dominant factor. Antiquated administration, corruption of officials, judicial delays, lack of roads and railways, restrictions upon the coastwise trade reimposed after the early freedom, and other discouragements to the investment of capital all played their part in preventing a return to normal economic conditions. By 1880 the ruling price of sugar had fallen from three cents, the price in 1870, to 1.36 cents. The average annual exports of sugar from 1860 to 1880 were about one hundred thousand short tons; but from 1880 to 1897 the annual exportation reached only sixty thousand tons. Tobacco exports in the decade 1870-1880 were twelve million pounds, while in the following decade they declined to scarcely one-third that amount. The decline in the market for sugar and tobacco turned the Porto Rican's attention to that crop which can be raised with little capital, on a small acreage, and with scarcely any labor. Coffee cultivation is essentially the poor man's agriculture in the tropics, as sugar cultivation is the rich man's. In 1870 the exports of coffee were seventeen million pounds; by 1880 they had risen to forty-eight millions; in 1890 they fell to forty-three millions; but by 1897, they reached the large total of fifty-one millions, and the crop of 1898 was estimated to equal an exportation of sixty-four million pounds. Intellectually, the island had advanced but slowly in the nineteenth century. O'Reilly in 1765 had found but two schools, and as late as 1815, when an inspection of schools was ordered, the visitation was limited to San Juan and San German, owing to the fact that outside those places. there were no schools worthy of the name. If any instruction was given in other places, it was limited to the study of the catechism and simple lessons in reading given by priests or travelling school-teachers. In San Juan a class in philosophy taught by the Dominicans, and private classes in Latin and sacred history under priestly instruction existed at the beginning of the century. The Economic Society of Friends of the Country established a school for girls, and classes in the languages, mathematics, and other branches. Later, in the forties, the society attempted the organization of a college, but its plans were thwarted by the governor. In 1838 the governor directed all the municipalities to establish town and rural schools in which poor children would be educated free of charge. The order was reinforced by others in 1846 and 1849; the order of the latter year adding a proprietary right to the position of school-teacher. A measure of 1865, providing for competitive examinations of teachers, the appointment of graduates of the normal school, and containing many other good features, was rendered largely nugatory by the opposition of the municipal authorities and of the teachers who held by life tenure. Until the close of Spanish rule the instruction was extremely meagre; the proprietary schoolmasters, often receiving no regular salary for years, directed their attention to the scholars whose parents were willing to pay fees; and the rural schools are described as "nothing better than poorly conducted nurseries for children of all ages." An American investigation in 1899 reported teachers holding superior certificates who received a grading of less than twenty-five per cent upon questions in geography and arithmetic such as would be given to young children in the United States. Higher education, except as furnished by private persons, usually in ecclesiastical positions, scarcely existed upon the island. In 1898, there were two so-called normal schools, an orphan asylum trade school in San Juan, which appears to have been one of the most successful schools on the island; some classes held by the Economic Society; and three religious private schools, of which one was open only to girls. An institute, purporting to give collegiate instruction, and having sixty pupils in February, 1899, possessed no building of its own, and in the opinion of the American commissioners, was "as nearly worthless as possible." Under such conditions it is not surprising that the census of 1899 showed a high rate of illiteracy. Eighty-five per cent of the population were unable to read and write, and only one-half of one per cent had received higher education. The enrolled school pupils in 1898, when compulsory education of all children was supposed to be in force, numbered 25,644, or only eight per cent of the children of school age; and the average school attendance was but six per cent of all persons between five and seventeen years of age. In spite of the fact that the proportion of literates had doubled in forty years, yet Porto Rico had a higher |