EDUCATION AT A DISCOUNT. 101 the slave-owning sugar planter found scant room for footing. He is self-supporting and law-abiding, and if he is content with his condition, it is difficult to consider that fact in the light of either a fault or a misfortune. Hope has been expressed that education may in time raise the gibaro to the status of the American farmer, and so it may-in time; but there are serious difficulties in the way of such a consummation. In the first place, the "leedle gibaroons" as a Teuton friend affectionately called them, are very far from being promising material for the schoolmaster, and the parents have not the slightest ambition for their offspring in the direction of learning, or in any other for that matter. The gibaro can not conceive of anything better than his own life, with which he is perfectly satisfied, and it would be difficult to persuade him that it could be improved upon. * * The Reverend Father Sherman, who made close observations in the country districts a few years since, expressed the opinion that the children are quick to learn and susceptible of Americanization. A desire for knowledge of sorts is generally characteristic of children living a free life in the nursery of Nature, but it is seldom accompanied by willingness to submit to the restraints and discipline involved in school attendance. If Father Sherman's deductions are correct, the juvenile Porto Ricans are possessed of traits quite inconsistent with their manner of life, environment, and heredity. |