Fred K. Fleagle

“ The skilled laborer who earns double this amount or more, begins to take a new interest in life, as he can see the results which have come from his directed efforts, and values the benefit to his family; he educates his children, sees to it that they are well clothed and fed, and he himself becomes interested in the life and problems of the community as he becomes gradually a person of some importance in its economic and social life. ”

“ The meaning of the word poverty is relative and depends upon the class of people to whom the word is applied. Poverty, technically, is the lack of an income sufficient to maintain the individual as the society in which he lives demands that he should live. Thus a wealthy man may live in relative poverty if he is in a circle of acquaintances who are much more wealthy than he is. The amount of income necessary to keep one from being classed in the poverty-stricken group decreases with the simplicity of individual, family, and community life. ”

“ A great part of the teacher's work lies outside of his actual teaching, and more and more we are coming to conceive the school as a social as well as an educational institution, and by means of parents' meetings, using the school as a social center and making the schoolhouse a gathering place for the patrons of the district, where they may meet and discuss the problems with which they are confronted, the present-day teacher supplements his actual teaching duties. There are few other ways in which the social needs of the country people can be better met than through the rural school. ”

“ The jíbaro is respectful and obedient, fearful of the law and never defiant of his superiors; he is generous to a fault, sharing with any wayfarer his last plantain; he is devoted to his family and to his friends. Had he been ill treated by the educated and controlling class in the island he would be sullen and savage, but this has not been the case. If it is true that the jíbaro is in many ways differentiated from the upper classes, it is equally true that there is no masonry so strong as that existing among the jíbaros of Porto Rico. ”

“ Eighth.—The teacher in a rural school should have as the aim of rural education "better men, better farming, and better living." The country teacher who appreciates and realizes this is aware of the chief factors in the solution of the farm problem. He must also remember that he is a public servant and that the public has a right to expect him to put his whole soul into the welfare of the community. The schools are held to be largely responsible for ineffective farming and the low ideals of country life. ”

“ The unskilled laborer has for sale a product which the average employer is not anxious to obtain, whereas the skilled worker can find a much more steady and regular market for his labor. The lawless, irresponsible class of citizens in any community is always [60] composed to a great extent of the unskilled laborers, and any country which has an overwhelming proportion of its population composed of this class of people is in constant danger of labor disturbances and conflicts between employers and employees. ”

“ The competitive process between capital and labor, and between industrial organizations, should be controlled so that people should not be compelled to compete on an unfair basis.
The existing conditions in any community are largely responsible for poverty and often for pauperism. They are especially responsible for the attitude of the individual in regard to poverty as to whether he will make a fight to gain a place in society above the poverty-stricken class, or whether he simply resigns himself to his fate and continues to live in a poverty-stricken condition. ”

“ The labor he must perform to enrich the island must be dignified by his employer and by himself, or else the hills will be deserted and the jíbaro will become a vicious hanger-on of towns. Better homes, better means of communication with towns, now becoming an accomplished fact, better food, education, in which remarkable progress is being made at this day, better habits of life, especially in the modern prevention of disease, must form a part of any plan adopted to improve his condition. ”

“ Bound to each other by the most intricate ties of relationship and by a still more potent one, the eternal bond conferred by the title compadre or godfather, they share their troubles and shield each other as though they belonged to one great family. ”

“ The expense of living uses up the daily wage of the ordinary unskilled laborer in Porto Rico, who averages fifty or sixty cents per day for the time that the weather and his physical condition permit him to work. There is also a close relation between sickness and poverty, the average countryman of Porto Rico being only partly as efficient a worker as he should be, due to physical weakness caused by anemia or malaria. Poverty is closely related to degeneration and crime, especially when it descends into pauperism and absolute dependence upon charity. ”

“ There is no great amount of public opinion against the use of alcohol in Porto Rico, and until, through the schools, the press, or some other agency, the people as a whole can be brought to see the disadvantage of its use, there can be but little accomplished in the direction of temperance and prohibition. The prohibition movement in the United States is not a matter of the moment alone, it is a movement which has been growing for years, and at the present time seems to have the majority of the population behind it. ”

“ The Island of Porto Rico is prosperous. In the last fiscal year there was a surplus of about $15,000,000 of exports over the imports into the Island; but the distribution of wealth in Porto Rico is not equalized. It has been estimated that the wealth of the Island is in the hands of about 15 per cent of the population, [72] and that the remaining 85 per cent are practically dependent upon uncertain labor and wage conditions for their maintenance. The per capita wealth of a country determines to a great degree the financial situation as far as the average individual is concerned. ”

“ The teacher should have in mind only the benefits which he may bring to the community, and if he actually and actively takes part in the social movements of the place he will come to learn that human nature is the same in the country as in the town, and he will be able to acquire a sincere liking for the people with whom he works.
Fifth.—The teacher should so conduct himself outside of the school as to win respect for himself and for his profession. The idea that a teacher's duty to the school ends with the closing of the actual school day is a mistaken one. ”

“ Fourth.—The rural teacher should be loyal to his pupils and patrons. The teacher who feels himself an individual superior to the members of the community whom he is serving and allows this feeling to express itself in his attitude toward them, loses the greater part of his influence through this action. The countryman likes to be met on equal terms and does not enjoy a condescending attitude any more than does his brother who lives in the town. ”

“ The French, Italian, and Spanish elements have tended to mix with the descendants of the Indians originally found here, and to this has been added in many cases a mixture of the blood of the colored race, introduced as slaves into the Island. In some cases the races from the north of Europe have also mingled, so that to-day it is inaccurate to speak of the Porto Ricans as a people of one blood, and the characteristics of the people might be called a composite of the various race elements which have entered into the formation of the native population. ”

“ The time of the wife could be occupied in poultry raising and in caring for the family garden, which would also tend to reduce the cost of living for the family and could easily be established, if the landowner were to provide sufficient garden space with each house in addition to the regular wages paid his laborers. Of course, methods of gardening would have to be included in the rural school programs, and the rural teacher should act as a supervisor of these gardens and advisor to the people of the community in which he is employed. ”

“ The strength of children and their ability to withstand disease depends to a great extent upon whether or not they are physically strong at the period of their birth and during the time they are under the direct care of the mother. A mother whose system has been weakened by the debilitating effects of anemia, cannot nourish her child and provide him with the necessary amount of food, and as a result, the child is either anemic, or a victim to malnutrition as a result of introducing solid food into his system before the digestive organs are prepared to take care of such food. ”

“ The average unskilled laborer in the country districts of Porto Rico does not earn a sufficient sum to enable him to maintain his family in comfort. As a result, the wife, and frequently the children, must contribute to the support of the family as much as they can. In some parts of the Island, the tasks of the country women are largely limited to their housework and the cultivation of whatever garden products they may raise, because such crops as sugar cane do not call to any great extent for the use of woman labor. ”

“ No amount of theoretical teaching will improve farming conditions to any great extent, and unless the teacher is able to become a demonstrator of his ideas by actually putting them into practice on the plot of ground which he himself manages, he cannot expect to influence to any great extent the agricultural movements of the community in which he works. The school should aim not only for the education of [121] the children who are actually enrolled, but also for the betterment of the agricultural and social conditions of the community. ”

“ It is estimated that the city of San Juan alone has 500 homeless children and that there are at least 10,000 children in the Island who have absolutely no home and who are entirely without the influence of parental control. Doubtless, a great majority of these children are the result of illegitimate unions. What that means to the future of Porto Rico can very easily be imagined when we consider that they are growing up absolutely without control and without respect for authority of any sort. ”

“ In every community there are many young women and young men who are above the average school age who are compelled to work during the day, and who are fast becoming fixed in the monotonous life that has surrounded the older people of the community, who might easily be interested by the teacher and influenced through the formation of social clubs, so that they would form the nucleus for a better coming generation of citizens. ”

“ Organized charity does not extend material aid so much as it attempts to find work for needy individuals and thus do away with poverty by putting the family on a self-supporting basis. Organized charity would do [71] away with the begging pauper and require him to present his case at the headquarters of the society, where an investigation of the necessities of his particular case could be made and an effort to find suitable employment for him undertaken. The individual who wished to contribute to charity would contribute to the central organization instead of to the wandering beggar. ”

“ The hut of the inland laborer of Porto Rico, the jíbaro, is a striking illustration of the effect of environment upon the type of house in which the poor live.
"The problem of obtaining cheap and durable building materials is a very difficult one for the poor laborers of Porto Rico. Hard woods are extremely scarce, and the poor inland laborer cannot afford to buy imported lumber, and, therefore, he has been obliged to utilize the coarse grasses and the products of the palm trees that are accessible at little or no expense except the labor necessary in their preparation. ”

“ To carry out effectively the mission of the rural school in a community and to make it a center from which there may be spread an influence for social betterment, as well as for intellectual improvement, the teacher is the all-important factor. There are certain duties which a teacher owes to his profession, in case he is working in the country, which cannot be neglected if he is to obtain the results which he should obtain. ”

“ Every knoll is crowned by its hut; every hillside is dotted by them. No two are ever placed together; each family seeks its own free life. It is practically true that one cannot shout in any part of [44] our Island and not be heard by the occupants of one or more of these huts.
"To say that these people are contented and prefer to live as they do, is not true. Customs clinch themselves upon a people so that they appear contented, and these inland laborers have lived under the same conditions for three centuries. Their standards of living are modest, and their desires are few. ”

“ A great many of our rural teachers are not at all in sympathy with rural ideals and rural customs. They regard their position as merely temporary, and express, even though it may be involuntary on their part, the idea that the town is much preferable to the country, and in this way inculcate in the children a distaste for the life of the country, when it should be their duty to present the best features of rural life in order to persuade the children to remain on the farms. ”

“ The rural population of Porto Rico may be roughly divided into the landowners, or planters, and the wage-earning countrymen. The planters are usually people who in many ways closely resemble the country gentleman or squire of England. They are people of considerable importance in their communities, frequently well educated and widely traveled, men who do not hesitate to spend their money freely for their comfort and that of their families when the crops are plentiful and the prices good. ”