THE CUBA REV IE W 



View of Library, University of Havana 



or scientific course were eligible to certificates of surveyors or mechanical or chemical 

 experts, according to their proficiency in the special studies provided. 



Following the institutes came the University of Havana with law, medicine and 

 pharmacy, philosophy and belles lettres and the exact sciences, though no provision was 

 made for the higher education of engineers in the industrial arts, belles lettres and 

 diplomacy, for which the official schools of Spain were supposed to provide. The law 

 also provided for a school of sculpture, painting and engraving in Havana, one for the 

 education of notaries, for an industrial college, a veterinary school, a commercial college 

 and a nautical school, and one for master workmen, overseers and surveyors. Of these, 

 however, only the art school, the professional school, the normal school and the school 

 of arts and trades were carried on. The law authorized all Spaniards to establish private 

 schools, the privilege of inspection, however, being reserved by the Government. As a 

 result of this, many private preliminary elementary schools and a number of colleges had 

 been established, the latter being incorporated with the institutes for which they prepared 

 their pupils. In others of still higher grade, the students could qualify for the university. 

 Among such institutions were the Jesuit College of Belen in Havana, the Colegio de 

 Escuelas Pias in Guanabacoa and Camagiiey, and the Catholic Institute of Santiago, 

 Santiago de Cuba, while a large number of others situated in Havana, Cienfuegos, Sagua 

 and Matanzas prepared pupils solely for the Institutes of Secondary Instruction. 



That the laws providing for and calculating instruction in Cuba were well intended 

 there is no doubt, but the investigations carried on by the United States Government at 

 the beginning of the period of the intervention in Cuba showed only too plainly that the 

 laws had not been carried into effect. While beyond a doubt the ten years of war and 

 the War of Independence had obstructed seriously the carrying out of the educational 

 program as defined in these laws, there is no doubt that the rural districts were still 



