s conducted. Recognizing
the immense value of such a visit from many points of view, the American
administration in Cuba agreed to pay each teacher one month's salary for
the purpose of the excursion, and to provide transportation from their
homes to Havana or other convenient ports, whence their further travel
was provided for by the Quartermaster's Department of the United States.
On arriving at Cambridge they were received and entertained during their
stay by a committee specially appointed by Harvard. They were thus
enabled to have without cost an extended and singularly interesting and
enjoyable excursion, such as many of them had never had before, to
receive stimulus, suggestion and instruction in the most approved
methods of education and school management, and--perhaps most important
of all--to come into direct touch with the people and institutions of
the great northern republic with which their own country had and was
destined always to have the closest of relations.

The school system of the island was strictly removed from politics, both
local and general, and was taken from the control of the municipalities
and placed directly and solely under that of the national government.
Thus was assured a fine degree of uniformity in the quality and methods
of teaching. Thus also the poorer districts, which could with difficulty
have maintained any kind of schools at all, were enabled to have as good
service as the richest communities. The salaries paid to teachers were
good, comparing favorably with those paid in the United States.

[Illustration: THE UNIVERSITY OF HAVANA

Cuba is enviably distinguished for providing not only elementary but
higher education, even of the best university grade, practically without
cost to the children of her citizens. The University of Havana, which is
the crown of the whole educational system of the country, was founded in
1728, and formerly was housed in the old convent of Santo Domingo. But
in 1900 under the American administration of General Leonard Wood, it
was removed to the fine site of the former Pirotecnica Militar, near El
Principe.]

There was, it must be confessed, some criticism of this elaborate and
expensive educational establishment. It was urged by some that
approximately one-fourth was entirely too large a proportion of the
national revenue to devote to this purpose, and that it would be to the
greater benefit of the island to spend less money on schools and more o