Libraries And The Press


Books for the people were considered by the Spanish colonial

authorities to be of the nature of inflammable or explosive

substances, which it was not safe to introduce freely.



From their point of view, they were right. The Droits de l'homme of

Jean Jacques Rousseau, for example, translated into every European

language, had added more volunteers of all nationalities to the ranks

of the Spanish-American pat
iots than was generally supposed - and so,

books and printing material were subjected to the payment of high

import duties, and a series of annoying formalities, among which the

passing of the political and ecclesiastical censors was the most

formidable.



The result among the poorer classes of natives was blank illiteracy. A

pall of profound ignorance hung over the island, and although, with

the revival of letters in the seventeenth century the light of

intellect dawned over western Europe, not a ray of it was permitted to

reach the Spanish colonies.



The ruling class, every individual of whom came from the Peninsula,

kept what books each individual possessed to themselves. To the people

all learning, except such as it was considered safe to impart, was

forbidden fruit.



Under these conditions it is not strange that the idea of founding

public libraries did not germinate in the minds of the more

intelligent among the Puerto Ricans till the middle of the nineteenth

century; whereas, the other colonies that had shaken off their

allegiance to the mother country, had long since entered upon the road

of intellectual progress with resolute step.



Collegiate libraries, however, had existed in the capital of the

island as early as the sixteenth century. The first of which we have

any tradition was founded by the Dominican friars in their convent. It

contained works on art, literature, and theology.



The next library was formed in the episcopal palace, or "casa

parochial," by Bishop Don Bernardo de Valbuena, poet and author of a

pastoral novel entitled the Golden Age, and other works of literary

merit. This library, together with that of the Dominicans, and the

respective episcopal and conventual archives were burned by the

Hollanders during the siege of San Juan in 1625.



The Franciscan friars also had a library in their convent (1660). The

books disappeared at the time of the community's dissolution in 1835.



Bishop Pedro Gutierres de Cos, who founded the San Juan Conciliar

Seminary in 1832, established a library in connection with it, the

remains of which are still extant in the old seminary building, but

much neglected and worm-eaten.



A library of a semipublic character was founded by royal order dated

June 19, 1831, shortly after the installation of the Audiencia in San

Juan. It was a large and valuable collection of books on juridical

subjects, which remained under the care of a salaried librarian till

1899, when it was amalgamated with the library of the College of

Lawyers.



This last is a rich collection of works on jurisprudence, and the

exclusive property of the college, but accessible to professional men.

The library is in the former Audiencia building, now occupied by the

insular courts.



The period from 1830 to 1850 appears to have been one of greatest

intellectual activity in Puerto Rico. Toward its close Juan de la

Pezuela, the governor, founded the Royal Academy of Belles-Lettres, an

institution of literary and pedagogical character, with the functions

of a normal school. It was endowed with a modest library, but it only

lived till the year 1860, when, in consequence of disagreement between

the founder and the professors, the school was closed and the library

passed into the possession of the Economic Society of Friends of the

Country.



This, and the library of the Royal Academy, which the society had also

acquired, formed a small but excellent nucleus, and with, the produce

of the public subscription of 1884 it was enabled to stock its library

with many of the best standard works of the time in Spanish and

French, and open to the Puerto Ricans of all classes the doors of the

first long-wished-for public library.



Since then it has contributed in no small degree to the enlightenment

of the better part of the laboring classes in the capital, till it was

closed at the commencement of the war.



During the transition period the books were transferred from one

locality to another, and in the process the best works disappeared,

until the island's first civil governor, Charles H. Allen, at the

suggestion of Commissioner of Education Martin G. Brumbaugh, rescued

the remainder and made it the nucleus of the first American free

library.



The second Puerto Rican public library was opened by Don Ramon

Santaella, October 15, 1880, in the basement of the Town Hall. It

began with 400 volumes, and possesses to-day 6,361 literary and

didactic books in different languages.



The Puerto Rican Atheneum Library was established in 1876. Its

collection of books, consisting principally of Spanish and French

literature, is an important one, both in numbers and quality. It has

been enriched by accessions of books from the library of the extinct

Society of Friends of the Country. It is open to members of the

Atheneum only, or to visitors introduced by them.



The Casino Espanol possesses a small but select library with a

comfortable reading-room. Its collection of books and periodicals is

said to be the richest and most varied in the island. It was founded

in 1871.



The religious association known under the name of Conferences of St.

Vincent de Paul had a small circulating library of religious works

duly approved by the censors. The congregation was broken up in 1887

and the library disappeared.



The Provincial Institute of Secondary Education, which was located in

the building now occupied by the free library and legislature,

possessed a small pedagogical library which shared the same fate as

that of the Society of Friends of the Country.



The Spanish Public Works Department possessed another valuable

collection of books, mostly on technical and scientific subjects. A

number of books on other than technical subjects, probably from the

extinct libraries just referred to, have been added to the original

collection, and the whole, to the number of 1,544 volumes in excellent

condition, exist under the care of the chief of the Public Works

Department.



Besides the above specified libraries of a public and collegiate

character, there are some private collections of books in the

principal towns of the island. Chief among these is the collection of

Don Fernando Juncos, of San Juan, which contains 15,000 volumes of

classic and preceptive literature and social and economic science,

1,200 volumes of which bear the author's autographs.



The desire for intellectual improvement began to manifest itself in

the interior of the island a few years after the establishment of the

first public library in the capital. The municipality of Ponce founded

a library in 1894. It contains 809 bound volumes and 669 pamphlets in

English, German, French, and Spanish, many of them duplicates. The

general condition of the books is bad, and the location of the library

altogether unsuitable. There was a municipal appropriation of 350

pesos per annum for library purposes, but since 1898 it has not been

available.



Mayaguez founded its public library in 1872. It possesses over 5,000

volumes, with a small archeological and natural history museum

attached to it.



Some of the smaller towns also felt the need of intellectual

expansion, and tried to supply it by the establishment of

reading-rooms. Arecibo, Vega-Baja, Toa-Alta, Yauco, Cabo-Rojo,

Aguadilla, Humacao, and others made efforts in this direction either

through their municipalities or private initiative. A few only

succeeded, but they did not outlive the critical times that commenced

with the war, aggravated by the hurricane of August, 1898.



* * * * *



Since the American occupation of the island, four public libraries

have been established. Two of them are exclusively Spanish, the

Circulating Scholastic Library, inaugurated in San Juan on February

22, 1901, by Don Pedro Carlos Timothe, and the Circulating Scholastic

Library of Yauco, established a month later under the auspices of S.

Egozene of that town. The two others are, one, largely English, the

Pedagogical Library, established under the auspices of the

Commissioner of Education, and the San Juan Free Library, to which Mr.

Andrew Carnegie has given $100,000, and which is polyglot, and was

formally opened to the public April 20, 1901. There is also a growing

number of libraries in the public schools. From the above data it

appears that, owing to the peculiar conditions that obtained in this

island, the people of Puerto Rico were very slow in joining the

movement of intellectual expansion which began in Spanish America in

the eighteenth century. They did so at last, unaided and with their

own limited resources, even before the obstacles placed in their way

by the Government were removed. If they have not achieved more, it is

because within the last few decades the island has been unfortunate in

more than one respect. Now that a new era has dawned, it may

reasonably be expected that the increased opportunities for

intellectual development afforded them will be duly appreciated and

taken advantage of by the people, and if we may judge from the

eagerness with which the youth of the capital reads the books of the

San Juan Free Library, it seems clear that the seed so recently sown

has fallen in fruitful soil.



* * * * *



The history of the Press in Puerto Rico is short. The first printing

machine was introduced by the Government in 1807 for the purpose of

publishing the Official Gazette. No serious attempt at publication of

any periodical for the people was made till the commencement of the

second constitutional period (1820-'23), when, for the first time in

the island's history, public affairs could be discussed without the

risk of imprisonment or banishment. The right of association was also

recognized. The Society of Liberal Lovers of the Country and the

Society of Lovers of Science were formed about this time. The

Investigator and the Constitutional Gazette were published and gave

food for nightly discussions on political and social questions in the

coffee-house on the Marina.



The period of freedom of spoken and written thought was short, but an

impulse had been given which could not be arrested. In 1865 there were

eight periodicals published in the island. On September 29th of that

year a law regulating the publication of newspapers indirectly

suppressed half of them. It contained twenty articles, each more

stringent than the other. To obtain a license to publish or to

continue publishing a paper, a deposit of 2,000 crowns had to be made

to cover the fines that were almost sure to be imposed. The

publications were subject to the strictest censorship. They could not

appear till the proofs of each article had been signed by the censor,

and the whole process of printing and publishing was fenced in by such

minute and annoying regulations, the smallest infraction of which was

punished by such heavy fines that it was a marvel how any paper could

be published under such conditions. These conditions were relaxed a

decade or two later, and a number of publications sprang into

existence at once. When the United States Government took possession

of the island, there were 9 periodicals published in San Juan, 5 in

Ponce, 3 in Mayaguez, 1 in Humacao, and a few others in different

towns of the interior.



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