Banco National de Cuba. Capital, $6,860,455. Banco Territorial de Cuba. Capital, $5,000,000. Royal Bank of Canada. Capital and surplus, $25,000,000. The Trust Company of Cuba. Capital, $500,000. Banco Mercantile Americano de Cuba. Capital, $2,000,000; surplus, $500,000. Banco Prestatario de Cuba. Capital, $500,000. (Makes loans on personal property, approved notes, mortgages, etc.) CHAPTER XXXIV PUBLIC INSTRUCTION Thinking men and women, the world over, realize that the hope, security and well being of the future lies in properly educating the children of the present. From an educated community we have nothing to fear. Mistakes in government policies may occur, but where intelligence dwells, right and justice will soon prevail over wrong. Education to-day is universally recognized as the most efficient and potent safeguard against crime and lawlessness of all kind, and in no section of the world is the need of general education more gravely manifest than in the Latin-American Republics of the Western Hemisphere. Education in all of these countries, from the beginning of their existence as colonies of Spain, has been, unfortunately under the control of the Church, and with the exception of Cuba, largely so remains to-day. Even in this progressive little Republic, the clerical influence on tuition, from the kindergarten to the university, is more or less prevalent. The influence of the priest and the prelate, exerted in the home, usually through the mother, still casts its shadow over true educational progress, especially among those of the gentler sex. There are, of course, many well educated women in Cuba, but they are women whose intellectual longings and aspirations could not be held in check. True, some of the most brilliant men in Cuba have been pupils of church institutions, but men of this stamp and minds of this calibre held from birth all the promise and potency of greatness. Their intellectual lights could not be hidden under the proverbial bushel. In 1896 the population of the Island was 1,572,791, of whom 1,400,884 were unable to read, 33,003 knew how to read but not to write, while 19,158 had received the advantages of what was termed higher education. Even this paucity of true knowledge was frequently superficial and sadly warped by obsolete tradition. When, at the beginning of American intervention, that generous and able group of American officers under General Wood took charge of affairs in Cuba, the need of even a rudimentary education among the untutored masses was painfully apparent. A report of conditions prevailing was forwarded to Washington. Secretary Root referred the matter to President Eliot of Harvard, and as a result Mr. Alexis E. Frye was sent to Havana to establish in Cuba the American school system, or one as nearly like that in vogue in the United States as conditions would permit.