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THE CUBA REVIEW 



University of Havana, General Reading: Room 



order that they be in position to carry on properly those affairs over which they must 

 inevitably have control, and also to give them a slight idea of those things existing 

 beyond the localities in which they live. Thus the rural education at the present time 

 is practically limited to what we call the first four grades of the elementary school. In 

 the smaller towns and cities this elementary education is continued and broadened to 

 cover the scope offered through the eighth grade of the graded schools of the United 

 States. At this point the Provincial Institutes, of which, as we have indicated, there 

 is one in each province known as ''Institutos de Segunda Enseiianza," take up the work 

 of training the pupils for their entry into the higher colleges and universities. These 

 Institutes are well fitted for their work. Their laboratories and classrooms are well 

 provided with the apparatus required, and the teachers are many of them men of 

 broad education who take their work seriously. From these Institutes, the pupil desiring 

 further progress can enter the University of Havana, a summary of whose courses 

 has already been given, though to the curriculum provided in the system established 

 during the American intervention has been added a number of other schools not pro- 

 vided for in the original plans. 



An idea of the progress that has been made since the Island obtained its inde- 

 pendence is shown by the following, these figures being taken from the census of the 

 Island of 1907: The number of children from five to seventeen, inclusive, was 54,445, 

 or 26.4 per cent, of the population, a figure much lower than appeared in the census of 

 1899. Of this number 171,017, or 31.6 per cent., attended school during the year ending 

 the 30th of September, 1907. This compares very favorable with the 15.7 per cent, 

 shown by the census of 1899. Of the total of children of scholastic age, 110,810 lived 

 in cities of more than 25,000 inhabitants, and of these 55,336, or about 50 per cent., 

 attended school, this figure comparing with 33 per cent., while the proportion corre- 



