ey thus earned. Wasn't this better than some
book lessons?

Another lesson in self-respect came from the idea--which the children
gained without a word from us--that those who attended the American
school must be clean and must have clothes and shoes and stockings.
At least half of the children at the Santurce school came from the
poorer classes, most of them from the shack district. A walk through
this section would show most of the children under seven absolutely
naked, and nine-tenths of the parents and older children barefooted,
the girls and women bareheaded, with only indispensable clothing,
often ragged and dirty. A glance into our schoolrooms or at the
company trooping out at noon or at four o'clock showed only children
with shoes and stockings, as neatly dressed, as clean as those coming
from any school in the States. The dirty or ragged or barefooted
would not come. Before or after school, or on Saturdays or Sundays,
some of them could scarcely be recognized in their home-clothes. The
good clothes and the shoes were often worn only at school and at the
fiestas or on holidays.

How many times, looking up absent children, we found that they were
away because of dirty clothes, or because the one good suit was being
washed, or because shoes were worn out. Frequently we furnished them
with shoes or clothes, trying to devise some way by which they could
work for them, earn them. This education in neatness and self-respect
was not book education, but it was more valuable than much learned
from books.

[Illustration: NATIVE HOUSE. SANTURCE, PORTO RICO.]

During the school-year our two hundred and fifty school children
needed and used at least twice as much clothing as in any similar
previous period of their lives. Does not that show how education and
Christianity increase needs and develop business and commerce?

But we have been talking about schools and pupils with scarcely a
word about books or classes. We had them, much as in American
schools. At first, with children who spoke and understood only
Spanish and teachers who knew little Spanish, there were great
difficulties and progress was slow. The book and class-work were not
as interesting or encouraging as some of the other lessons I have
told about.

The children were quick and "picked up" English rapidly. When words
would not serve they could talk with hands and head and shoulders and
whole body, much better than can American children. They were patien