The question of education is one that will receive early attention, and in which the President of the United States has personally evinced considerable interest. Free public schools exist, but the teachers have the right to take pay scholars, and naturally those who do not pay get little or no attention. In the cities from which data are available it was found that only a small portion of the school population attend school. There were 888 schools for boys and girls in 1893 and the amount paid for their support was $775,646. It is impossible even to approximate the situation at the present moment. In a general way, it may be described as simply deplorable. A free public-school system must be immediately established, for much of the misfortune and suffering Cuba has undergone may be traceable to the neglect of education. The number of people who are illiterate is very great. Some statistics show only one in forty of the labouring classes able to read and write. There can be no stable government in Cuba until this has been remedied. The reader familiar with Cuban history will remember that the first movement toward the emancipation of the slaves was the practical freeing of all children born subsequent to 1868, the year the revolution started which ended in the abolition of slavery. In the same way, the first act looking toward political emancipation should be the establishment of a free public-school system, which shall have for its aim the preparation of the young Cubans for self-government, whether exercised as part of a Cuban republic or part of the greater republic the basis of which is industrial freedom and the common school. [Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF THE PROVINCE OF SANTA CLARA.] Manufacturing in Cuba is limited to a few industries in Havana, to the manufacture of sugar and tobacco, and to machine-shops and small foundries scattered over the Island for the convenience of the railway companies, sugar-centrals, and harbours. The author visited all the manufacturing plants in Havana, some of which were located in quarters of the city reeking of filth and teeming with disease germs. There is little hope for industrial enterprise in the broader sense until the sanitary conditions have been improved in all the industrial centres of the Island. The fear of that deadly enemy to all enterprise and thrift, yellow fever, which lurks in the vicinity of the most flourishing industries of Havana, makes it dangerous for those unacclimatised to enter these occupations. The initiatory success of manufacturing in Cuba must depend upon the importation of skilled labour from the United States or Europe. With this invisible and deadly foe in the background, ready to strike when least expected, and against which, as a Confederate officer now in the United States Army at Havana said, "You cannot even raise an old-fashioned rebel yell," the outlook is far from attractive.