December 2, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



75: 



Whether vce view the progress of the island 

 from an industrial, political or social standpoint, 

 the conditions are singularly favorable for the 

 successful solution of the new problems presented 

 by our Spanish-American possession in the Carib- 

 bean. The lessons that we are learning will be of 

 service to us in the larger tasks that are before 

 us. Future generations will look upon the experi- 

 ence acquired in the administration of civil affairs 

 in Porto Rico as a period of training and prepara- 

 tion for the problems involved in our relations 

 with the Spanish-speaking peoples of the Ameri- 

 can continent. 



The chapter on ' The People ' is most in- 

 structive. Of the population two fifths are 

 colored, the island having a larger proportion 

 of whites than most of the southern states. 

 Three fifths of the people are engaged in agri- 

 culture, and the average area per farm is 45 

 acres compared with 146.2 acres in conti- 

 nental United States. Illiterates constitute 

 22.7 per cent, of the population, excluding all 

 under ten years. An educational test, if ap- 

 plied to suffrage, would have excluded 76 per 

 cent, of the males. The island's revenue is 

 $2,500,000 (1903). Of the total income, local 

 and insular, 28 per cent., or over one fourth, is 

 applied to public education — an unusually 

 large proportion, probably larger than that of 

 any other community. 



' Problems of the Present South, or a Dis- 

 cussion of Certain of the Educational, In- 

 dustrial and Political Issues in the Southern 

 States,' by Edgar Gardner Murphy, of Mont- 

 gomery, Alabama, is a statement of the 

 rationale of the southern policy in relation 

 to the great pivotal questions of modern so- 

 ciety, such as democracy, education, national- 

 ism, industrialism, culture and the race ques- 

 tion. Mr. Murphy succeeds well in his task. 

 He has done good service in bringing thought- 

 ful people back to the idea that the south is 

 not attempting to solve its great social prob- 

 lems in a way which is out of line with 

 national aspiration. 



The chapters on the ' Schools and the 

 People ' and ' Constructive Statesmanship,' as 

 well as that on ' Culture and Democracy,' must 

 convince the reader that here is one at least 

 who interprets southern life in the light of its 

 faith in the progress of the people as a whole. 



The author seems to have made good vise of 

 statistical resources generally. There is some 

 doubt, however, as to the value of the statistics 

 of the census of 1870, many of which are con- 

 fessedly unsatisfactory, so far as they relate 

 to the southern states. Nor is it quite right 

 to charge up the loss of private property 

 through emancipation as a total loss to the 

 south as a whole. The value of the slave . 

 population to the community was transferred 

 from private account to public account, though 

 the transfer caused a considerable depreciation 

 in value, it is true, especially at the start. The 

 great loss in economic resources came through 

 the destruction of war and not through 

 emancipation. 



An instructive part of the exposition here 

 given is that which relates to the growth of 

 cities in the south. The author speaks very 

 appropriately of the population of the south- 

 ern states as being under-municipalized. The 

 fact that the population of the south is pre- 

 dominantly rural, renders all the more formid- 

 able the problem of illiteracy. As he points 

 out, however, the schools, in spite of all their 

 difficulties, are gaining on illiteracy. There 

 is not a state in the south which is not largely 

 reducing its illiteracy. Within the years 1880 

 to 1900 there was a marked progress in 

 this respect. In New York and Pennsylvania 

 and Massachusetts the total number of male 

 illiterates increased perceptibly within this 

 period. Illiteracy, therefore, is not a sectional, 

 but a national problem; more than six millions 

 of our people can not read and write. In the 

 chapter on ' Industrial Revival and Child 

 Labor ' the author cuts the ground out from 

 under the opponents of constructive legisla- 

 tion by regarding children as an educational 

 rather than as an industrial asset. 



Wolf von Schierbrand's volume on ' Russia, 

 Her Strength and Weakness,' is a vivid de- 

 scription of economic and social conditions, 

 studied from the standpoint of Russia as an 

 expanding world power. While the work is 

 highly instructive, in fact one of the best 

 short volumes on this most interesting people, 

 some of its statements evidently need quali- 

 fication. It is a mistake, for instance, to 

 say that there has not been any industrial 



