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In the towns and villages where the
schools are located, most children learn at least to read and write,
but out in the country illiteracy and ignorance reign supreme. In the
absence of statistics it is not possible to determine the proportion
of illiterates; there is no doubt, however, that it is very large, and
I have heard it estimated at all the way from seventy to ninety per
cent of the population over ten years of age.
Some of the best schools are private institutions, one of the best
known being the institute for girls and young ladies, founded by Santo
Domingo's foremost woman poet, Salome Urena de Henriquez. It is the
custom also for well-to-do families to send their children abroad for
study and to travel themselves, and the Dominicans are not few who,
besides their native Spanish, speak other languages, acquired abroad.
Within the country, too, there is a predilection among the upper class
for the study of foreign tongues, and many learn English and French in
the family circle or by association with persons speaking these
languages.


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