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 FROM PLAZA.PATIO 
 
 I 
 
INTERDENOMINATIONAL 
 
 Home Mission Study Course 
 
 Each volume i2mo, cloth, 50c. net {post, extra) ; paper y 30c. net 
 (post, extra). 
 
 Under Our Flag. By Alice M. Guernsey. 
 
 The Call of the Waters. By Katharine R, Crowell. 
 
 From Darkness to Light. By Mary Helm. 
 
 Conservation of National Ideals. A Symposium. 
 
 MoRMONiSM, THE IsLAM OF AMERICA. By Brucc Kinney, D.D. 
 
 The New America. By Mary Clark Barnes and Dr. L. C. Barnes. 
 
 America, God^s Melting-Pot. By Laura Gerould Craig. 
 Paper, net 25c. (post, extra). 
 
 In Red Man's Land. A Study of the American Indian. By 
 Francis E. Leupp. 
 
 Home Missions in Action. By Edith H. Allen. 
 
 Old Spain in New America. By Robert McLean, D.D., and 
 Grace Petrie Williams. 
 
 Young People's Course 
 
 Paper, net 25c. (post, extra). 
 
 From Plaza, Patio and Palm. A Book of Borrowings. Com- 
 piled by Eva Clark Waid. 
 
 Junior Course 
 
 Cloth, net 40c. (post, e'jift'ra) ; paper, net 25c. (post, extra). 
 Best Things in America. By Katharine R. Crowell. 
 Some Immigrant Neighbors. By John R. Henry, D.D. 
 Comrades From Other Lands. By Leila Allen Dimock. 
 GooDBiRD THE Indian. By Gilbert L. Wilson. 
 All Along the Trail. By Sarah Gertrude Pomeroy. 
 Children of the Lighthouse. By Charles L. White. 
 
FROM 
 PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 A BOOK OF BORROWINGS 
 
 COMPILED BY 
 
 EVA CLARK WAID 
 Illustrated 
 
 ISSUED BY THE 
 
 COUNCIL OF WOMEN FOR HOME MISSIONS 
 600 Lexington Avenue, New York, N. Y. 
 

 Copyright 1916 
 
 Council of Women for Home Missions 
 
 New York 
 
 # 
 
 
 
 3-C 
 
 li' 
 
 DEC -8 1316 
 
 ©CU453150 
 
 V 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. When the Old World Sought the New . . 9 
 
 II. New World Plazas 21 
 
 III. Sunshine in the South West 35 
 
 IV. The Palms of Cuba 53 
 
 V. Porto Rican Patios 61 
 
 VI. What the New World Gives the Old. ... 83 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 I HAVE strung for you a string of beads borrowed 
 from many writers in many lands. Some of them 
 are old Moorish silver beads wrought with Byzantine 
 skill, others are Spanish filigree work. Some are beaten 
 from the New World nuggets and others carved from 
 the curious woods of the West Indies. Some are 
 native beans and buds from tropic isles and some still 
 bear the scent of California rose leaves. Some are Indian 
 pottery with borrowed Castillian ornament and others 
 are carved from bones that long have bleached on desert 
 wastes. Some are gay and some are sombre, but all are 
 strung on two threads twisted tightly together, the work 
 of man and the will of God. And the clasp for this 
 strand is the precious beaten gold of service — like that 
 first gold brought by Columbus from the New World to 
 the Old, and beaten into a holy vessel for the Church. 
 
 Eva Clark Waid. 
 
A WORD FOR LEADERS 
 
 This little book, compiled for the use of young people 
 from twelve to twenty, presents some problems to the 
 leaders of such young people. Usually school cares are 
 so heavy and hours of study so long that it is difficult 
 tu secure outside reading or even any close study of mis- 
 sionary text books. So that much must be supplied by 
 the skillful leader to supplement the text-book. 
 
 This book presents the theme of Spanish- Americans 
 in Cuba, Porto Rico and the United States and its mar- 
 ginal indices are designed to simplify class reading or 
 assignment of topics. The programs are full so that 
 a choice may be made if it is not possible to give all of 
 a program, or sections from the text-book may be sub- 
 stituted if necessary. Unless a definite outside reference 
 is given, the material for all answers, save roll calls, will 
 be found in the Chapter itself, though it is hoped that 
 there will be some outside reading on each theme. 
 
 The best authorities have been sought and their exact 
 words quoted on the different questions taken up, but 
 there has been an endeavor to make of it a harmonious 
 and complete story by the careful assembling of these 
 quotations. 
 
 Each chapter is planned to give a general view of 
 
 5 
 
6 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 some Spanish-American situation and to make a per- 
 sonal appeal for service from other young Americans. 
 
 The leader will find the following helpful: 
 
 A map of North and South America with a special 
 outlining of all the regions bordering the Gulf and the 
 Caribbean Sea. This map should be of paper or cloth 
 so it can be marked or pasted upon, and should have 
 only simple outlines on it and a few names. This can 
 be supplemented by reference to school geographies and 
 small outline maps of Cuba, Porto Rico, New Mexico, 
 etc. The fine maps published in the National Geographic 
 Magazine also can be used, and it also furnishes photo- 
 graphs of the best grade. 
 
 Fine ideas for posters, invitations, decorations, etc., 
 can be borrowed from Leaders' Manual for Star 49, 
 Miss Katherine Crowell, Woman's Board of Home Mis- 
 sions, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York. 
 
 Leaders' Manual for The Children of the Lighthouse, 
 Miss Applegarth, Council of Women for Home Mis- 
 sions, 600 Lexington Avenue, New York. The price of 
 each is ten cents. 
 
 Current magazines will be found invaluable and mis- 
 sionary magazines most helpful. 
 
 Sets of post cards on Cuba, Porto Rico and New Mex- 
 ico can be secured from denominational Boards. 
 
 The music of the programs has been selected from the 
 Missionary Hymnal, price ten cents, which can be se- 
 cured from any denominational Board. 
 
FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 7 
 
 The following books will prove helpful to a leader 
 and in many of them will be found a bibliography of 
 other books of value in the study. 
 
 Poems of American History — Burton Stevenson — 
 Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 
 
 Stories of the States — Elbridge Brooks — Lothrop, 
 Lee & Shephard, 
 
 Pioneer Spaniards in North America — William Henry- 
 Johnson. 
 
 The Gilded Man — A. Bandelier. 
 
 Spain in America — F. Bourne. 
 
 Conquest of Mexico — Prescott — Lippincott 
 
 Life of Columbus — Irving. 
 
 Cuba and Porto Rico — Forbes Lindsay. 
 
 American Explorers and What they Saw — Book of 
 Knowledge. 
 
 California and the Missions — Helen Hunt Jackson — 
 Little, Brown & Co. 
 
 Advance in the Antilles — Howard Grose. 
 
 Old Spain in New America — Robert McLean. 
 
 The Spanish Settlements — Woodbury Lowery — G. P. 
 Putnam's Sons. 
 
8 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 PROGRAM I 
 
 THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW 
 
 Hymn — God is working his purpose out. 
 
 Bible Lesson — A better country — Hebrews xi. 13-16. 
 
 Prayer Hymn — Open my eyes that I may see. 
 
 Roll Call — Answer with the name of some object asso- 
 ciated with Spain. 
 
 Introductory Talk — What was the Old World seeking 
 when it found the New? — Refer to paragraph on 
 Hopes. 
 
 Recitation — Columbus — Joaquin Miller — Poems of 
 
 American History. 
 Three Discoverers and Their Routes — Outlined on 
 the map — Refer to paragraph on Heroes — Columbus, 
 De Soto, Cortes. 
 Three Stories of the Discoverers — 
 
 The Fountain of Youth — Hezekiah Butterworth. 
 The Seven Cities — Lowery's Spanish Settlements, 
 
 Chapter V. 
 The Fair God — Prescott's Conquest of Mexico. 
 Paper — Spanish Conquerors and Spanish Cruelty — Re- 
 fer to paragraph on Hindrances. 
 Discussion — Leader opening and closing. 
 
 How did the English and Dutch colonists differ 
 
 from the Spanish? 
 Old Spain in New America — Chapter I. 
 A Dish of Dates — In each date a small roll of paper 
 on which is a date and historical fact concerning the 
 discovery of the New World. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 WHEN THE OLD WORLD SOUGHT THE NEW 
 
 **One year God lifted the curtain from a hidden con- 
 tinent and gave his children a whole new world in which 
 to carry out his purposes." — Phillips Brooks. 
 
 "He gained a world: he gave that world 
 Its noblest lesson 'On and On.' " 
 
 — Joaquin Miller. 
 
 "The New World has been found! — How paltry are 
 our attempts to realize the significance of that event ! We 
 talk glibly about a change being wrought in the world's 
 history, but we come far from understanding how great 
 that change was. It is simply beyond us to appreciate 
 what it meant to have Europe cease to be synonomous 
 with the world." — Arthur Gray. 
 
 "Meaning to enter the back door of an Old World, 
 he knocked at the front door of a New World." — Lowell. 
 
 History. 
 
 In the beginning of the sixteenth century Spain occu- 
 pied perhaps the most prominent position on the theatre 
 of Europe. Her numerous states were consolidated 
 under one monarchy. The Moslem crescent after reign- 
 ing there for eight centuries was no longer seen on her 
 borders. 
 
 International communication was greatly facilitated by 
 several useful inventions. Such was the art of printing, 
 the establishment of posts, and lastly, the mariner's com- 
 pass. — Prescott. 
 
 9 
 
10 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 The nations of Spain and Portugal on the remote 
 frontiers of Europe were far removed from the great 
 trade routes of Asia. Thus, naturally, they turned their 
 eyes on the great ocean which washed their shores and 
 sought for new domains of commerce. Columbus seems 
 to have set forth not so much to discover new countries 
 as to find a shorter way to India. He conceived the 
 possibility of reaching the Eastern shores of Asia whose 
 provinces of Zipango and Cathay were emblazoned in 
 such gorgeous colors in the narratives of Mandeville and 
 Polo, by a more direct route. 
 
 With the union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon 
 by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella and by the 
 overwhelming defeat of the dark complexioned Moors, 
 Spain had become a nation filled with soldiers and ad- 
 venturers. Her soldiers were brave and the acknowl* 
 edged leaders of chivalry. With the discovery of the 
 New World Spain had leaped to the front and become, 
 for a time at least, the greatest nation of the day. Ships 
 were constructed in great numbers and sent out filled 
 with voyagers "toward that part of the horizon where 
 the sun set." — Prescott. 
 
 As her discoveries progressed, Spain sought in every 
 way to close channels of information concerning her 
 West Indian possessions. As early as 1511 it was forbid- 
 den to supply foreigners with maps or charts. Such was 
 the secretiveness of the authorities that no official map 
 of the western discoveries was published in Spain until 
 the year 1790. Another precaution was the total exclu- 
 sion of foreigners from the crews of vessels sailing to 
 the West Indies. But with the rapid extension of Spain's 
 rich overseas traffic the high seas were soon filled with 
 vessels of other nationalities preying upon it . . . 
 
WHEN THE OLD WORLD SOUGHT THE NEW 11 
 
 very early in the course of the century it became cus- 
 tomary for vessels to sail together in companies in order 
 to afford mutual protection. In 1564 arose the Armada 
 de las Carreras de las Indies whose duty it was to escort 
 the fleets to and from the Indies. The fleets sailed twice 
 a year from Havana, passed north through the Straits 
 of Florida to the neighborhood of Bermuda, whence they 
 set their course for the Azores and then Seville. — Lowery. 
 In the year 1786 beginning at Porto Rico on the East 
 the dominions of Spain stretched westward to California 
 and northward to Missouri and southward to Chile. 
 Among the large islands in the West Indies all except 
 Jamaica and Santo Domingo acknowledged Philip's will ; 
 on the Northern Continent what are now Florida and 
 Southern Alabama and Mississippi and all the area west 
 of the Mississippi River and Mexico were Spanish; on 
 the Southern Continent everything made obeisance except 
 the Guianas and Brazil. — Arthur Gray. 
 
 Heroes. 
 
 To Castile and Leon Columbus gave a new world. 
 
 In 1492 Cristobal Colon, better known to us as Chris- 
 topher Columbus, set sail under the standard of Spain 
 from Palos, and on October 12 discovered an island to 
 which he gave the name San Salvador. He was a Gen- 
 oese who had vainly sought recognition for his plans 
 and theories concerning the new passage to the Indies. 
 Isabella of Spain finally took him under her protection 
 and fitted out the expedition. 
 
 In his four voyages, he "but opened the gates of the 
 New World that others might enter," and his latter years 
 were clouded with ingratitude, imprisonment and pov- 
 erty. To the end of his life after four voyages, in two 
 
12 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 of which he coasted for hundreds of miles along the 
 shores of what we now call Central and South America, 
 he continued to believe he had reached the Indies. — 
 Bryce. 
 
 He was a great world soul. The march of Western 
 civiHzation is his monument. — Starr. 
 As the chief histrion down to the footHghts walks in 
 
 some great scene, 
 Dominating the rest — I see the Admiral himself, 
 History's type of courage, action, faith. 
 
 — Walt Whitman. 
 
 The idea of discovering the island called Bimini said 
 to exist somewhere in the Indies, where wonderful waters 
 flowed that restored old age to youth and kept youth 
 always young, occupied the mind of Ponce de Leon, Gov- 
 ernor of Porto Rico. Strange it seemed that he and 
 others should be glad to risk their lives and fortunes in 
 pursuit of a chimera! 
 
 However, the followers of Columbus, the most of 
 them ignorant and credulous, had seen a mysterious new 
 world rise, as it were, from the depths of the ocean. 
 As the islands, one after another, appeared before their 
 astonished eyes, they discovered real marvels every day. 
 The air, the land, the sea were full of them. There was, 
 according to old legend, such a fountain of youth some- 
 where, and where was it more likely to be found than 
 in this New World? But alas! Ponce sailing in March 
 from Porto Rico, returned in October looking much 
 older, say the chronicles, than when he went in search 
 of rejuvenation. And later finding death where he had 
 hoped to find perennial youth, his bones were laid to 
 rest in San Juan where his statue also stands in the plaza 
 of San Jose. 
 
WHEN THE OLD WORLD SOUGHT THE NEW 13 
 
 Ponce had a dog named Bezerillo that made wonderful 
 havoc among these people and knew which of them were 
 in war and which were in peace, like a man; for which 
 reason the Indians were more afraid of ten Spaniards 
 with the dog than of one hundred without him, and there- 
 fore he had one share and a half of all that was taken 
 allowed him, as well in gold as slaves and other things 
 his master received. He also grew most familiar with 
 native speech at which the Spaniards much admired. — 
 Herrera. 
 
 Hernando Cortes, born in Spain in 1485, is one of the 
 greatest figures among the discoverers and conquered 
 for Spain its richest and most romantic possession, Mex- 
 ico. After varied experiences in the West Indies he 
 was made captain of the expedition sent to explore those 
 mysterious regions of the Mexican Gulf. In the won- 
 derful volumes of Prescott's Conquest of Mexico is re- 
 corded the story of Cortes' adventures and his conquest 
 of that strange civilization whose origin still to-day re- 
 mains a mystery to historian and archaeologist. 
 
 The Aztecs had long confidently looked for the return 
 of their benevolent deity, Quetz al coatl, God of the air, 
 who had promised to return to them and bring with him 
 men with white skins. In Cortes, Montezuma, King of 
 the Aztecs, saw this returning deity and this remarkable 
 tradition prepared the way for the success of the Span- 
 iards in 1519. 
 
 It was on September 1, 1513, that Vasco Nunez de 
 Balboa began his march across the Isthmus of Panama 
 and on September 25th stood "silent on a peak in Darien" 
 at the sight of an immense ocean stretching away toward 
 the west. Four days later, Balboa waded knee deep into 
 the new ocean, tasted its salt waters and cried aloud to his 
 
14 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 followers, "I take real and corporal and actual posses- 
 sion of this sea and its coasts for the King of Spain." 
 
 Although not an acre of that vast territory pertains 
 to-day to the country whose agents discovered it, Spain 
 has nevertheless left her imprint indelibly stamped upon 
 it. — Enock. 
 
 Among Spain's many brave men who longed to seek 
 adventures in the New World was Ferdinand De Soto. 
 After a year's preparation in Spain and the West Indies 
 he sailed from Havana May 18, 1539, landing at Tampa 
 Bay, Florida, May 30. 
 
 For three years he and his men wandered among hos- 
 tile Indians and through the dense forests of this unknown 
 land. Twice there were terrible battles between the In- 
 dians and Spaniards. They were starved, wearied and 
 fever stricken ; every day some of them were left by the 
 way. De Soto himself was ill and weak. At last there 
 was heard in the distance a roaring, rumbling sound. The 
 men stopped to listen. Certainly it was like the sound 
 of rushing water. The men hurried on. And see! 
 There were gleams of water. Could it be the ocean? 
 For an instant they believed they had reached the ocean, 
 but far away they could see another bank. De Soto 
 and his men had discovered the Mississippi ! Beneath its 
 great waters, May 21, 1542, his men buried De Soto, 
 stealthily at midnight, so that the Indians might not 
 know that white men were mortal and that their chief 
 was dead. — Mara L. Pratt. 
 
 Many attempts have been made to trace the name 
 California but its first mention is in one of the romances 
 of Don Quixote's ill-fated library which was burned by 
 the priest and barber, "The deeds of the most valiant 
 knight Esplaudian, the son of Amadis of Gaul," first 
 
Vopyriyht Detroit Publishing Co 
 WHEN THE OLD WORLD SOUGHT THE NEW 
 
WHEN THE OLD WORLD SOUGHT THE NEW 15 
 
 printed in 1510 and evidently a great favorite in Spain, 
 as eight editions testify. By what strange process this 
 name was transferred to the Western Coast is not known. 
 — Lower y. 
 
 But a Portuguese sailor, Juan Cabrillo, unknown and 
 with no recorded history, under orders of the Viceroy of 
 Mexico, Mendoza, assuredly was the one who took pos- 
 session of this land in the name of the king and the 
 viceroy, August 21, 1542. 
 
 It is a story of brave adventure by a real explorer 
 striving to discover an unknown shore and meeting with 
 every form of disaster. Dying in January, 1543, he com- 
 manded his sailors to continue the exploration and they 
 probably reached the mouth of the Columbia River before 
 turning back to Mexico. 
 
 The chronicle of the voyage is full of interesting de- 
 tail as to Indian life, the big trees drifted on the shore, 
 beautiful groves and vast herds feeding on luxuriant 
 pastures. 
 
 Hopes. 
 
 It was a romantic and a stirring age, and the wars 
 with the Moors being over, and hostilities with the French 
 suspended, the bold and restless spirits of the nation, 
 impatient of the monotony of peaceful life, were eager 
 for employment. To these, the New World presented a 
 vast field for wild enterprise and extraordinary adven- 
 ture, so congenial to the Spanish character in that period 
 of its meridian fervor and brilliancy. Many hidalgoes of 
 high rank, officers of the royal household, and andalusian 
 cavaliers, schooled in arms and inspired with a passion 
 for hardy achievements by the romantic wars of Gran- 
 ada, pressed into the expedition, some in the royal serv- 
 
16 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 ice, others at their own cost. To them it was the com- 
 mencement of a new series of crusades, surpassing in 
 extent and splendor the chivalrous enterprises of the 
 Holy Land. They pictured to themselves vast and beau- 
 tiful isles of the ocean to be overrun and subdued ; their 
 internal wonders to be explored, and the banner of the 
 cross to be planted on the walls of the cities they were 
 supposed to contain. Thence they were to make their 
 way to the shores of India, or rather Asia, penetrate into 
 Mang, and Cathay, convert, or what was the same thing, 
 conquer the Grand Khan, and thus open a glorious 
 career of arms among the splendid countries and semi- 
 barbarous nations of the East. — Washington Irving. 
 
 When the Spaniards came to the New World they 
 came mainly for the sake of gold. Few settlers came 
 from Spain to till the soil. The first object was to seize 
 all that could be found of the precious metals, much to 
 the astonishment of the natives who thought that gold 
 must be some kind of a fetish to them. The next was 
 to discover mines and make the Indians work them. The 
 third was to divide up the more fertile regions into large 
 estates, allotting to each adventurer his share of laborer- 
 natives along with his share of the land. No settlers 
 came to clear the ground and build homes. — Bryce. 
 
 Cortes repaired to the house of the Governor — they as- 
 sured him there would be no doubt of his obtaining a 
 liberal grant of land to settle on. "But I came to get 
 gold," replied Cortes, "not to till the soil like a peasant." 
 — Prescott. 
 
 New bands of adventurers were attracted to the New 
 World and ship after ship set sail toward the setting 
 sun, loaded with adventurers and their followers. For- 
 ever ringing in the ears of all was the refrain 
 
WHEN THE OLD WORLD SOUGHT THE NEW 17 
 
 Gold, gold, gold, gold! 
 
 Bright and yellow, hard and cold ! 
 
 It cannot be doubted that a far-reaching missionary 
 interest lay behind the attempt to extend the confines of 
 the Christian world. On Cortes' standard emblazoned 
 with a red cross was the motto "Friends, let us follow the 
 cross and under this sign if we have faith we shall con- 
 quer." The Spanish captains fought to convert the over- 
 seas infidels with the same crusading zeal with which they 
 had driven the Moors from Spain. — Panama Congress — 
 Commission on Message and Method. 
 
 For by such means they will the sooner be converted 
 and come to the knowledge of God and our Holy Cath- 
 olic Church, which is my chief desire, — Order of the 
 King. 
 
 Hindrances. 
 
 Our admiration of the dauntless heroism displayed 
 by the early Spanish navigators is much qualified by a 
 consideration of the cruelties with which it was tar- 
 nished. 
 
 Every Spaniard had his proportion of slaves in the 
 New World and was individually entrusted with the 
 unlimited disposal of the lives and destinies of their 
 fellow creatures. They abused this trust in the grossest 
 manner. Every step of the white man's progress in the 
 New World may be said to be on the corpse of a native. 
 — Irving. 
 
 The humane and orthodox Spaniards Antonio de Ulloa 
 and Jorge Juan in their secret report to the King of 
 Spain in 1746 say, "The miserable state of the Indians 
 is to be ascribed to the vices of the parish priests, the 
 
18 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 extortions of the corregidores and the bad treatment 
 which they generally received from all Spaniards." — 
 Bryce. 
 
 Las Casas affirms that more than 12 million lives 
 were wantonly destroyed in the New World within 38 
 years after its discovery. In 1515 Las Casas returned 
 again to Spain and pleaded the cause of the dying natives 
 in tones which made the dying Monarch tremble on his 
 throne. — Irving. 
 
 The sixteenth century, the age of discoveries, was also 
 the age of conquest. The discoverers advanced to con- 
 quest over the ruins of cities and the bodies of Indians. 
 
 The age of conquest is an age of greed and bloodshed 
 in which the impetuous adventurers roam from Mexico 
 to Patagonia, realizing, in the words of de Herredia's 
 sonnet, "their brutal and heroic dream." — Calderon. 
 
 The policy actuating Spain was well expressed by one 
 of the Mexican viceroys as follows : 
 
 **Let the people of these dominions learn once for all 
 that they are born to be silent and to obey and not to 
 discuss or have opinions in political affairs.' 
 
 Of the 170 viceroys who ruled in the Americas, only 
 four were of American birth and these were reared in 
 Spain. 
 
 The Spanish conquistadores performed prodigies of 
 valor and were among the most intrepid explorers of the 
 world, but they were impatient of the surer if slower 
 methods of development which characterized the Anglo- 
 Saxons. They encountered a menial race which per- 
 formed all manual labor for them and, in the long run, 
 the fabulous wealth of Mexican and Peruvian mines 
 proved of less account than the corn lands and forests 
 and iron mines of North America. — Enock. 
 
WHEN THE OLD WORLD SOUGHT THE NEW 19 
 
 The natural contempt of the Spaniards for manual 
 labor was increased by the law of the Indies, enacted in 
 Madrid, which said "Gentlemen must not mix with trad- 
 ers and sellers of merchandise." — Enock. 
 
 It cannot be denied that Spain at this period surpassed 
 most of the nations of Christendom in bigotry. 
 
 Thomas Torquemada is condemned to infamous im- 
 mortality as the fierce leader of that terrible tribunal 
 called the Inquisition, which for three centuries extended 
 its iron sway over Spain and her colonies. 
 
 The object of the Inquisition was the protection of the 
 true Catholic faith and the destruction of heretics, and 
 its judgments were directed chiefly against the Jews. The 
 tortures invented by the Inquisitors have become prov- 
 erbial in our language. — Prescott. 
 
 We cannot follow Columbus's voyages or the ad- 
 ventures of his followers step by step but we must feel 
 that the discovery of America is an epic poem worthy 
 the mettle of the great discoverer and his men. And 
 so the civilization of what is called Latin America began 
 with the first Spanish settlement, the first Indian blood 
 shed by the greed of the white conqueror and the first 
 attempt to Christianize the inhabitants of the new found 
 land. — Francisco J. Yanes. 
 
20 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 PROGRAM II 
 NEW WORLD PLAZAS . 
 Hymn — Not alone for mighty empire. 
 Bible Lesson — The builders of cities — Neh. ix. 24-3L 
 
 Prayer — Lord, as I study old and new, 
 
 Show me the task I have to do. 
 
 Alphabetical Roll Call — Answer — Things the colo- 
 nists brought from Spain. 
 
 Talk — How did Spain govern her New World prov- 
 inces ? — Conquest of Mexico — Prescott. 
 
 Reading — Description of a Mexican city — The lustre of 
 Ancient Mexico — Vol. III. — Nafl Geo. Magazine 
 —July, 1916. 
 
 Pictures — Spanish customs in New World Plazas — Il- 
 lustrated with post cards, photographs and maga- 
 zines. Refer to paragraph New World Customs. 
 
 Recitation — Quivira — Arthur Guiterman — Poems of 
 American History. 
 
 A Comparison — Thanksgiving in New England in the 
 early days — Alice Morse Earle. A Spanish fiesta 
 in San Francisco — Rezanof, Gertrude Atherton, 
 Chapter 22. 
 
 Historical Statements — Mexican War, Founding of 
 Santa Fe, Gadsden Purchase. 
 
 Story — Angels of Buena Vista — Whittier. 
 
 Dish of Definitions — Stick candy rolled in wax paper, 
 then a definition wrapped around each stick and 
 tied with Mexican colors, red and green. Define 
 such words as plaza, adobe, fiesta, caravel, con- 
 quistador, etc. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 NEW WORLD PLAZAS 
 
 "There is no city among the Spanish speaking peoples 
 but has its restfully attractive plaza, playground, club 
 house and concert hall, all in one for all the people." — 
 Starr. 
 
 "The plaza constitutes the official and social center of 
 the town and here the senors, senoras and senoritas 
 promenade and enjoy the music of bands and the gayety 
 of social life, From the plaza run the main streets lined 
 with dwelling houses and shops. The four sides of the 
 plaza are generally faced by public buildings, the cathe- 
 dral taking an honored place and the municipal building 
 a prominent position." — Enock. 
 
 "Beautiful are the isolated little plaza towns nestling 
 among the brown hills of New Mexico. All the great 
 happenings of the world slip by and the quaint dark peo- 
 ple of the hills live on in a peaceful round of farming, and 
 weaving. Sometimes we think the work very slow, but 
 we must all take courage for customs and convictions 
 of a lifetime are not changed in a little while, especially 
 in these isolated little plazas." — Olga Hoff. 
 
 "As we entered the plaza, the impression made was 
 one never to be forgotten. There were hollyhocks tall 
 and gay against the adobe houses, diminutive garden 
 plots with their tasseling corn and rows of chili; flower 
 beds, small but gay reminders of the old-fashioned flower 
 gardens of New England; little orchards of apricot, 
 peach, apple and plum; irrigating ditches bordered by 
 
 21 
 
22 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 willow, cotton wood and other low bowing trees ; and as 
 a background for all, the picturesque assemblage of adobe 
 houses — no wonder artists search out these plaza re- 
 gions." — Theodora Finks. 
 
 "We visited some of the out of the way plazas where 
 the people still live in the old Mexican fashion and I did 
 feel so sorry for the girls of my age and of course for 
 everybody, for life did not really seem to be life at all; 
 and yet it might be so perfectly splendid with this glori- 
 ous air and sunshine if the people took some interest in 
 living and knew how to live." — Betty's Travels. 
 
 New World Explorers. 
 
 Generally speaking, by 1540 the New World had been 
 conquered for and by Spain. There was still an infinity 
 to be done, but the broad foundation of Spanish America 
 had been laid, and in a cement that time will never 
 crumble. — James. 
 
 Narvaez and his goodly company of three hundred had 
 started in 1528 from Florida on one of the most wonder- 
 ful adventures of the age, crossing the continent from 
 ocean to ocean. After calamities, shipwreck, warfare, 
 fever and famine, four of the expedition in 1536 finally 
 reached the city of Mexico, having traversed many sec- 
 tions of what is now the great South West. The story 
 of the journey, as recorded by Cabeca de Vaca, one of 
 the survivors, and the maps left by him on his return 
 to Spain, together with the records of the two monks, 
 Fray Juan and Fray Marcos in their explorations, un- 
 doubtedly influenced the new viceroy Antonio Mendoza 
 to send out Coronado and his famous group of cavaliers 
 with Fray Marcos in 1538 to explore the land to the 
 north. 
 
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NEW WORLD PLAZAS 23 
 
 Cibola. 
 
 Cibola, meaning buffalo, may have been applied by the 
 natives to the buffalo country and so the Spaniards mis- 
 took it for the name of a city. 
 
 Through all these years the Spaniards had lent a credu- 
 lous ear to the tales and traditions of the Seven Cities 
 of Cibola. This Indian tale, which we now know was 
 simply the first rumors to reach the Spaniards of the 
 Pueblo towns of New Mexico, was coupled in their 
 mind with the Pre Columbian Spanish legend of the 
 Island of the Seven Cities, where bishops fleeing from the 
 invading Moors had found a refuge. — Lowery. 
 
 As it was with Florida and its Fountain of Youth, 
 so with the South West, fairy tales were far more im- 
 portant agents than facts in leading great explorers. — 
 James. 
 
 What pen may paint their daring, these doughty cavaliers. 
 The cities of the Zuni were humbled by their spears. 
 Wild Arizona's barrens were pallid in the glow 
 Of blades that won Granada and conquered Mexico. 
 They fared by lofty Acoma; their rally call was blown 
 Where Colorado rushes down through Godhewn walls of 
 
 stone. 
 Still North and East where deserts spread and tireless 
 
 prairies rolled, 
 A fairy city lured them on with promises of gold. 
 
 — Quivira by Guiterman. 
 
 New Mexico. 
 
 Santa Fe, the romantic! Long ago the Spaniards 
 came with grim faces set in casques of steel, Coronado's 
 men, venturesome rovers, lured on across the desert 
 wastes to find the gold of Cibola. About 1600 other 
 
24 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 Spaniards founded this city, Santa Fe de San Francisco. 
 Soon they built the old palace. For eighty years Span- 
 ish Governors ruled. Then the Pueblo Indians revolted, 
 drove the Spaniards out and held the palace until 1692. 
 Then came more governors of Spain and Mexico, until 
 General Kearney came with an American army in 1846. 
 One of the American Governors, General Lew Wallace, 
 wrote Ben Hur in this same old palace. — Vogt. 
 
 Of all the territories of America, New Mexico alone 
 may point to a poem as the original authority for its early 
 annals — an epic poem written by Captain Gaspar de Villa- 
 gra, one of the companions of Onate, and published in 
 1610, only eleven years after Onate took possession of 
 the domains for "God, the king and myself." — Bancroft. 
 
 In 1660 the population of New Mexico was given as 
 24,000. Three deserters from La Salle reached New 
 Mexico in 1693 and nine French Canadians in 1739. In 
 1805 James Pursley, an Englishman, traveled to Santa 
 Fe and in 1806 Lieutenant Zebulon Pike attempted to 
 establish a U. S. fort on New Mexican territory. 
 
 In 1821 New Mexico passed under the new republic 
 of Mexico, a federation of 19 states and four territories. 
 From 1839-1846 a cruel governor ruled the territory so 
 the inhabitants were not unwilling to come under the 
 sway of the U. S. Government in 1846, at the close of 
 the Mexican War. 
 
 New Mexico shared some of the excitement of the 
 Civil War, being attacked and invaded by the Confed- 
 erate troops who hoped to establish a great Southern 
 empire of slave states. Indian wars taxed all the ener- 
 gies of the territory for many years and only the coming 
 of the Sante Fe Railroad brought any real body of set- 
 tlers into the country. 
 
NEW WORLD PLAZAS 25 
 
 Arizona. 
 
 Nearly all of what we now call Arizona has no other 
 history before 1846 than the record of exploring en- 
 tradas from the South and East. The one exception is 
 the small tract, not more than 60 miles square, from 
 Tuczon south, which contained all the Spanish settle- 
 ments. The name of Arizona's chief river, the Gila, is 
 however first used in a report of 1630. 
 
 December 30, 1853, James Gadsden, U. S. Minister to 
 Mexico, concluded a treaty by which the boundary line 
 was moved southward so as to give the U. S. for ten 
 million dollars all of Arizona south of the Gila. The 
 territory was believed to be rich in precious metals. In 
 1863 it was made a separate territory. — Bancroft. 
 
 To Americans in the earliest years, Arizona seemed, 
 except a small portion of the later acquired Gadsden pur- 
 chase, an utterly barren and worthless waste of sandy 
 deserts and rocky mountains, probably rich in minerals 
 but of no agricultural value whatever. Progress, how- 
 ever, has been constant and the land is found wonder- 
 fully productive wherever water can be obtained. 
 
 Texas. 
 
 No state has had a more remarkable history than 
 Texas. The flags of three foreign powers, France, Spain 
 and Mexico, have floated over her, and for nine years, 
 from 1836-1845, she was an independent republic. The 
 first Europeans to visit her were the Spaniards who 
 sailed along the Gulf Coast in 1519. They also made 
 interior explorations as early as 1535, but made no at- 
 tempt to colonize. La Salle reached Texas in 1685, but 
 his colony was short lived. 
 
 In 1689 or 1690 the Spanish established a mission at 
 
26 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 San Antonio and a fort was placed there in 1718. The 
 early settlers were from the Canary Islands. In 1824 
 Texas passed from Spain to become a part of the Re- 
 public of Mexico. 
 
 In 1836 occurred the famous battle of the Alamo, last- 
 ing through eleven days, and resulting in the freedom of 
 Texas. Texas joined the Union in 1845. El Paso, Texas, 
 has rightly been called in these later days the gateway to 
 Mexico. — Nevin Winter. 
 
 California. 
 
 Later explorations opened up the wonders of Cali- 
 fornia and Cabrillo, Portola and Junipero Serra are 
 names associated with the discoveries along its shores 
 as far north as San Francisco in the 17(X)'s. The story 
 of its colonization was the story of the missions and 
 their growth and increase and in the transfer to the 
 United States in 1846 the main problems were associated 
 with these lands and titles. 
 
 New World Customs. 
 
 The America conquered by the Spanish and Portuguese 
 was peopled by various races and occupied by many dif- 
 ferent civilizations. The invaders unified all these re- 
 gions, imposing uniform laws, customs and religions. 
 
 Spanish and Portuguese took Indian wives. The di- 
 versity of the elements was paving the way for a new 
 caste. The negro, imported by the Spaniard for the 
 cultivation of the tropical soil, added another complica- 
 tion. We find in the seventeenth century as in the twen- 
 tieth, in the colonies, as to-day in the republics, every va- 
 riety of this admixture of Iberian, Indian, African. — 
 Calderon. 
 
NEW WORLD PLAZAS 27 
 
 Not only was the language the same, Spanish, with 
 comparatively few dialectic differences, but manners and 
 social usage were similar. They have the broad features 
 of Spanish character and temperament, the love of so- 
 norous phrases, the sensitiveness to friendliness or af- 
 front, the sense of personal dignity, steady courage in 
 war and the power of patient endurance. — Bryce. 
 
 The Spaniards brought with them to the New World 
 the old Latin fondness for town life. Thus the inherited 
 contempt for rural life acts like a ball and chain on the 
 economic and agricultural advancement of countries. — 
 Ross. 
 
 The great mass of country dwellers with aboriginal 
 blood, deprived of the strong civilizing influence of a 
 higher element, could not progress. — Encine. 
 
 Outside the towns the parents usually are too ignorant 
 to recognize the burden of their ignorance and have no 
 use for education for their children. — Ross. 
 
 The Spaniard degenerated in the colonies. Idleness 
 became his natural condition, lengthy meals and daily 
 siestas limited his activities. It seemed as though time 
 itself stood still in these quiet cities. There is grey mo- 
 notony with its petty quarrels, its indolence, its exag- 
 gerated religious rites. A pompous and sensual Catholi- 
 cism satisfied the imagination of the Creoles (Spaniards 
 born in the New World), the superstition of the Indian 
 and the materialism of the negroes. — C alder on. 
 
 One can easily imagine that ancient customs still prac- 
 tised in New Mexico are those which came into Spain 
 with the Moors, and further back are those of ancient 
 Palestine. The threshing floors with the winnowing of 
 the grain, the two women grinding at the mill, the great 
 water jars carried by the women and the patient burro 
 
28 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 or Mexican donkey carrying his burden as in the old 
 days at Bethlehem. — Sheldon Jackson. 
 
 With the castanets and guitar of Old Spain have come 
 the ballads and love songs sung amid the herds on New 
 Mexican mountains or on the festal days in New Mexi- 
 can plazas. Mingled with remnants of Moorish songs of 
 castles and Cids, are plaintive love songs and local epi- 
 grams, sung or chanted while the Indian influence has 
 given them a minor strain and harsh intonation. — 
 Lummis. 
 
 One popular air of Spain would well fit New Mexi- 
 can circumstances — can you guess the subject? 
 
 Little I am but everywhere 
 
 Blows and burdens I have to bear; 
 
 Haw-hee. 
 That is why my voice of long protest 
 Has grown to be bigger than all the rest 
 
 Of me. 
 
 — Translated by Katherine Lee Bates. 
 
 New World Homes. 
 
 The typical house of Spanish America is built of adobe 
 or sun-dried brick; where stone is abundant, it is used. 
 In every case the walls are completely hidden, within 
 and without, by a plaster of mud put on by the bare 
 hands of women. 
 
 The evolution of the Mexican home in the larger towns 
 is now making toward Americanism. These changes 
 bring problems in their wake. New conditions make new 
 customs and the theories underlying those customs must 
 be taught the Mexicans if they are to be housed with 
 oil lamps and heating stoves. 
 
NEW WORLD PLAZAS 29 
 
 Each member of the average family has an individual 
 home-made mattress of wool. At night these are laid 
 on the floor or in the patio. In the morning all are 
 piled in one bedstead and covered neatly with a spread. 
 — Alice Blake. 
 
 I often said, *'Oh, if we could only live as the Mexi- 
 cans live, how easy it would be!" For they had their 
 fire built between some stones piled in the yard, a piece 
 of sheet iron laid over the top; this was the cooking 
 stove. A pot of coffee was made in the morning early 
 and the family sat on the low porch and drank it and 
 ate a biscuit. Then a kettle of frejoles (Mexican brown 
 beans) was put over to boil. These were boiled slowly 
 for some hours, then lard and salt added and they sim- 
 mered down until they were deliciously fit to eat and had 
 a thick red gravy. Then the young matron of the house 
 would mix the peculiar paste of flour and salt and water 
 for tortillas. These were patted out until they were as 
 large as a dinner plate and very thin; then thrown on 
 to the hot sheet iron where they baked. Each one of the 
 family got a tortilla; the spoonful of beans was laid 
 upon it and so they managed without the paraphernalia 
 of silver and china and napery. Their fare was varied 
 sometimes by a little carin seca pounded up and stewed 
 with chile verde or chile Colorado (green or red pepper) 
 — carin seca is meat cut into thin strips and dried hard 
 and brittle in the sun. — Mrs. Summerhay in Vanished 
 Arizona. 
 
 Mexican Characteristics. 
 
 Some one may say that 100 years has passed since the 
 Spanish rule was practically broken in the New World 
 
30 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 but 100 years is too short a time in a nation to overcome 
 the handicap of three centuries. 
 
 "Mexicans are bound to the past by custom and tradi- 
 tion. They display almost no inventive power; there is 
 a real want of public spirit which greatly hinders their 
 progress. We see many traits favorable to progress — 
 they have a fondness for publicity; they take an inter- 
 est in political questions; they have a talent for public 
 speaking; they are a kindly, friendly and law-abiding 
 people." — Alice Hyson. 
 
 The real Mexicans are humble, peaceable, law-abiding 
 citizens whose chief fault is lack of ambition. To a 
 large extent they devote themselves to common labor, 
 railroad construction, etc. 
 
 The Mexican of the peon class is improvident but 
 requires little to be contented. He is utterly lacking in 
 initiative and seldom rises even to the dignity of a sec- 
 tion boss. In all movements looking to his betterment, 
 he must be guided, often forced. Though naturally 
 docile, the Mexican can be easily roused through igno- 
 rance and superstition. — Gregory Mason. 
 
 In many ways the Mexican has become necessary to 
 the Southwest. He is there to stay and his numbers 
 are increasing. The problem there is to find some means 
 by which this dead weight of ignorant unprogressive 
 and improvident immigrants can be molded into a pro- 
 gressive citizenship. — Gregory Mason. 
 
 There are three typical races in New Mexico beside 
 the rapidly growing American group. First the Pueblo 
 Indians about nine thousand. Second the ten thousand 
 Navajos whose other ten thousand is in Arizona. Last 
 of all the Mexicans in-bred and isolation-shrunken 
 descendants of the Castilian world finders. — Lummis. 
 
NEW WORLD PLAZAS 31 
 
 In a number of industries that require unskilled labor, 
 notably railroad construction, the Mexican has become 
 an important factor. In the last few years, Mexicans 
 have entered industries other than railroading. Many 
 have become farm laborers and an ever-increasing num- 
 ber are now engaged in cotton picking in Texas and 
 Oklahoma. Mexicans also form considerable per cent 
 of the unskilled labor in mines and road building in the 
 South West. — Gregory Mason. 
 
 Mexican Population. 
 
 Prior to 1900 it was a rare thing to find a Mexican 
 at a greater distance than 100 miles from the border. 
 To-day they are not only common in every State of the 
 South West but are found in large numbers as far west 
 as California, as far north as Wyoming and as far east 
 as Iowa and Kansas. El Paso, Los Angeles, San 
 Antonio, Laredo, Brownsville, Albuquerque, are a few 
 of the large Mexican centers. — Gregory Mason. 
 
 Statistics of Mexican Population in Census of 1910 
 
 Texas 125,016 California 33,694 
 
 Colorado 2,603 Oklahoma 2,744 
 
 New Mexico 11,918 Kansas 8,429 
 
 Arizona 29,987 Other States 5,412 
 
 Since the census of 1910 was taken vast numbers of 
 Mexicans have crossed the border because of war and 
 famine in Mexico. The number is estimated from 
 300,000 to 800,000. 
 
 Proverbs of the Plaza. 
 
 The wandering knight, Don Quixote, is famed for 
 his squire Sancho Panza. And Sancho is famed for his 
 Spanish proverbs — most of them the common possession 
 
32 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 of all lands though put in varied form. The following 
 
 may well be used concerning the New World plazas that 
 
 to-day lie under the Stars and Stripes and concerning 
 
 their dusky Spanish-Indian people. 
 
 Blood is an inheritance, virtue an acquisition. 
 
 What's lost to-day may be won to-morrow. 
 
 Not with whom thou art bred but with whom thou art 
 
 fed. 
 Better a good hope than a bad holding. 
 When God sends dawn he sends it for all. 
 
34 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 PROGRAM III 
 SUNSHINE IN THE SOUTHWEST. 
 
 Hymn — Hail to the brightness of Zion's glad morning. 
 
 Bible Lesson — God, Thy Light — Isaiah Ix. 18-22. 
 
 Prayer Hymn — Rise on the Shadowed Nations 
 
 Geographical Roll Call — Spanish names in America. 
 
 Marking the Map — What is the South West? 
 
 Where are large Mexican groups in the United 
 
 States? Paragraph, Mexican, Chap. II. 
 What Mission school can you locate? 
 
 Reading — The Old Santa Fe Trail — Richard Burton. 
 
 Discussion — How did the Indians adapt the Catholic 
 faith to their old customs? — Lowery's Spanish 
 Settlements, Prescotfs Conquest of Mexico. 
 
 Stories — What the Bible means to Spanish-Americans. 
 — Denominational missionary magazines. 
 The Bible in the Saints' Niche — Home Mission 
 Monthly, November, 1915 — 156 Fifth Ave., 
 N. Y. C. 
 Leaflet — ^Our Mexican Churches — Rev. J. H. 
 Heald — Cong. H. M. Society — 287 Fourth Ave., 
 N. Y. C. 
 
 Sketch — Life of Junipero Serra — Glimpses of Califor- 
 nia and the Missions — Helen Hunt lackson. 
 
 Talk — What my own denomination is doing to make 
 sunshine in the South West. 
 
 Dish of Chiles (peppers) cut from cardboard or heavy 
 paper, after the picture in seed catalogues and 
 lightly colored with red or green — a bright little 
 incident of the South West pasted on the back. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 SUNSHINE IN THE SOUTHWEST. 
 "The great region known as the Southwest is made up 
 of the States of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado 
 and CaHfornia." 
 
 "Lands of golden sunshine, 
 Lands of turquoise sky. 
 Lands where the sands run silver, 
 Lands where the opals lie/' 
 
 "Sun, silence and adobe, that is New Mexico in three 
 words. Before the Saxon really knew there was a new 
 world, it had its own civilization and its little walled 
 cities of stone. It is a land of quaint swart faces, of 
 Oriental dress and unspelled speech; of polytheism and 
 superstition." — Lummis. 
 
 "Near by was an orange tree on which were hanging 
 twenty-five hundred ripe and golden oranges. As I sat 
 under it, my lap filled with California's golden blossoms 
 and golden fruit and canopies of gold over my head, I 
 said to myself — Tables are prophesies — The golden 
 apples of Hesperides have come true.' " — Helen Hunt 
 Jackson. 
 
 "The air, sunny, balmy, dreamy, seductive, making the 
 mere being alive a pleasure ; all sorts of fruits and grains 
 growing a riot — it is easy to understand the character 
 or rather the lack of character of the old Mexican and 
 Spanish California." — Helen Hunt Jackson. 
 
 "Man may bask in the sun all the year round, why 
 then should he work?" — Spanish Soldier. 
 
 35 
 
36 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 First Rays of Sunshine. 
 
 Sore need was there in this new land of golden sun- 
 shine and golden treasure for those whose golden lives 
 were the only true sunshine of God's favor to the 
 despoiled and ravaged peoples of the land. 
 
 Unnumbered millions of them were plunged in the 
 crassest idolatry, many of their altars were horrible with 
 the clotted blood of human victims and their shamans 
 and soothsayers kept constant intercourse with demons 
 and evil spirits. — Lowery. 
 
 Elaborate heathen ritual or age long pagan customs 
 prevailed in the great Aztec civilization while every 
 wandering Indian tribe had its own weird religious rites. 
 — Even after four hundred years, strange customs and 
 superstitions are found in all that conquered world. 
 
 And he concluded with appealing to a higher principle 
 by holding out the prospect of extending the empire of 
 the Cross over the nations of benighted heathen. — 
 Columbus Before Isabella 
 
 From the first days of discovery. Queen Isabella 
 neglected no means for furthering the conversion and 
 civilization of the heathen through the agency of mis- 
 sionaries exclusively devoted to it, who were to establish 
 their residence among the natives and win them to the 
 true faith by their instructions and the edifying example 
 of their own lives. — Prescott. 
 
 And whereas our principal intent in the discovery of 
 new lands is that the inhabitants thereof may be brought 
 to understand the truths of our Holy Catholic faith 
 . . . and this is the chief motive that you are to bear 
 and hold in this affair, to this end it is proper that re- 
 ligious persons accompany you. — Charles V., 1526. 
 
SUNSHINE IN THE SOUTHWEST Zl 
 
 The conversion of the natives of the New World to 
 the Holy Catholic Faith occupies the chief place in every 
 early grant and act of tenure. It also stands first in 
 every law enacted for the new territory and in all vice 
 regal instructions and reports. — Lowery. 
 
 The Spanish cavalier felt he had a high mission to 
 accomplish as a soldier of the Cross. It was not for 
 morals he was concerned, it was for the Catholic Church, 
 the faith. No doubt was ever entertained of the efficacy 
 of conversion, however sudden the change or how violent 
 the means. The sword was a good argument when the 
 tongue failed. — Prescott. 
 
 Messengers o£ Light. 
 
 Three Mendicant religious orders came to the New 
 •World, the Dominicans, Franciscans and Augustinians. 
 Those who came in response to the urgent appeal for 
 religious service in those earliest days were devoted, self- 
 sacrificing, patient and energetic missionaries. The 
 Franciscans became by far the most popular and power- 
 ful. Shod only with sandals made from the fibre of the 
 maguey, with worn sackcloth robes, they endured every 
 hardship of the journeys. Their worn robes were un- 
 raveled and woven again by the Indians and dyed with 
 the blue dye of the country so they might last longer. 
 Nor were the Dominicans behind them in austerities and 
 self-sacrifice. — Lozvery. 
 
 Interpreters were rare in the land so the preaching in 
 Latin did not much avail. Tricky interpreters later on 
 discoursed of matters alien to religious truth. 
 
 Sometimes a cross was erected and no instruction 
 given. Then the natives worshipped it as a new symbol 
 of magic. 
 
38 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 When there were thousands to be baptized it was diffi- 
 cult to secure enough Christian names so the difficulty 
 was solved with much originality. All those baptized 
 one day were called Peter, the next day John and so on 
 for all the Saints. 
 
 It should be remembered that the same nation which 
 \ gave birth to the sanguinary and rapacious adventurers 
 who perpetrated cruelties, gave birth likewise to the 
 early missionaries like Las Casas; men who in a truly 
 evangelical spirit braved all kinds of perils and hard- 
 ships, even death itself, to ameliorate the condition and 
 save the souls of barbarous and suffering nations. 
 Theirs was the true chivalry of Spain. — Irving. 
 
 Las Casas. 
 
 Bartholomew Las Casas, born at Seville in 1474, went 
 to Hispaniola in 1502 and was an eye-witness of the 
 cruelties practised on the Indians. The whole of his life 
 until he died at the ripe age of 92 was devoted to en- 
 deavoring to ameliorate their sufferings. As a mission- 
 ary of the Dominican order, he travelled the wilderness 
 of the New World seeking to convert and civilize. He 
 was the author of many volumes in their behalf and his 
 history of the New World is one of the great sources 
 of information for all later historians, though Spain has 
 been reluctant to allow its truthful record to be known 
 to the world. 
 Odonedo. 
 
 Father Odonedo, who accompanied Cortes in his Con- 
 quest of Mexico, by his discretion and sagacity, con- 
 tributed greatly to the success of the expedition. He 
 was a true disciple of Las Casas. If he followed the 
 banners of the warriors it was to mitigate the ferocity 
 
SUNSHINE IN THE SOUTHWEST 39 
 
 of war and turn the triumphs of the Cross to good 
 account for the natives themselves. He afforded the 
 uncommon example of enthusiasm controlled by reason, 
 a quickening zeal tempered by toleration. — Prescott. 
 
 It would form a fascinating chapter could I tell of the 
 stirring history of some of the early missions established 
 in New Mexico. Missions were established and churches 
 built at practically all of the Indian pueblos and also at 
 the two Spanish settlements. 
 
 Fray Padilla with Coronado. 
 
 "Beside the brilliant army beloved of serf and lord, 
 There walked as brave a soldier as ever smote with 
 
 sword. 
 Though naught of knightly harness his russet gown 
 
 revealed, 
 The cross he bore as weapon, the missal was his shield. 
 Through all their weary marches toward a flitting goal, 
 They turned to Fray Padilla for aid of heart and soul. 
 He bound the wounds that lance thrusts and flinty 
 
 arrows made. 
 He cheered the sick and failing, above the dead he 
 
 prayed. 
 His soul still longed for conquest, though not by lance 
 
 and sword. 
 He longed to show the heathen the pathway of the Lord." 
 
 — Guiterman. 
 New Mexican missions were radically different from 
 the California establishments of later years. The friars 
 were mere parish priests in charge of Indian pueblos. 
 There were no mission estates and no power over tem- 
 poral things. The Indians tilled a little piece of ground 
 and furnished a few servants. He was in most instances 
 
40 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 a kind hearted man, friendly to the Indians but accus- 
 tomed to inertia. — Bancroft. 
 
 The missions in Texas centered around San Antonio 
 where in 1719 a few Franciscan friars made a settle- 
 ment. San Jose was founded in 1720, San Juan and San 
 Espada in 1731 and Concepcion de la Acuna in 1731. 
 The great cathedral of San Fernando was built in 1734. 
 
 The Cross in California. 
 
 With pilgrim staff and pastor's cross the padres strove 
 to bring the gospel to the wild and ignorant "Gentiles" 
 who roamed and fought and starved between the moun- 
 tains and the sea. That was the real beginning of Cali- 
 fornia. Mission after mission sprang up by the magic 
 of hard work, until there were twenty-one of these great 
 establishments linked together by the long trace of the 
 king's highway, which ran seven hundred miles from its 
 starting point in Sonoma. Around these missions some 
 thirty thousand Indians were gathered and taught how 
 to live in this world as well as prepare for the next. 
 The broad acres were brought under the plow, grape 
 vines and fruit trees were planted, the green serranos 
 were covered with flocks and herds. The rude native 
 crafts of pottery, basketry, skin-dressing and boat- 
 building were developed and improved. Weaving and 
 carpentry and stone cutting and brick and tile making 
 were taught. 
 
 Junipero Serra was a scholar, a dreamer and idealist 
 possessed by a single passion — to plant the standard of 
 the Cross in California. — Henry Van Dyke. 
 
 Entering the Franciscan order at sixteen in 1728, New 
 Spain was from the beginning the goal of his ardent 
 wishes, but not until 1749 was he permitted to join the 
 
SUNSHINE IN THE SOUTHWEST 41 
 
 party of missionaries bound for Mexico. And not for 
 another nineteen years was he permitted to join the mis- 
 sionary band sent to CaHfornia to estabHsh new missions 
 and take over the missions of the Jesuits who had been 
 expelled from all Spanish dominions. From 1767 to his 
 death in 1784 he was the great dominating spirit of that 
 wonderful colonizing experiment, the missions of Cali- 
 fornia. 
 
 Shadows. 
 
 The religion of the Indians, like that of the ancient 
 Greeks, was of that accommodating kind, which could 
 admit within its elastic folds the deities of other religions. 
 — Prescott. 
 
 The priests when they were converting the Indian 
 natives thought it better not to disturb the ancient 
 heathen dances but to transfer them to the church feast 
 days, expunging, so far as they could, the more offensive 
 features of the dance, though what remains is sufficiently 
 repulsive. — Bryce. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Communion has some decided 
 advantages over Protestantism for purposes of prosely- 
 tism. The dazzling pomp of its service affects the rude 
 child of nature and the respect paid to material repre- 
 sentations of the Divinity, such as images, crosses and 
 emblems, attains the same object. 
 
 The Penitentes. 
 
 The order of Los Hermanos Penitentes (the Penitent 
 Brothers) was founded in Spain some 300 years ago. 
 The seeds of the order were brought to Mexico and later 
 to New Mexico by the Franciscan friars with the Span- 
 ish Conquistadores. The first public penance was by 
 
42 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 Juan de Onate and his men in 1594. It is interesting 
 to note that a tribal penance has been a custom among 
 the Pueblo Indians from time immemorial. It is certain 
 that for over a century there has been in New Mexico an 
 order of Penitentes whose credo was founded upon the 
 whip and cross as instruments of penance. Up to within 
 a decade the order numbered some thousands with fra- 
 ternities in towns of every county. Lent is the season 
 of activity. Every Friday night during Lent with weird 
 music the whippings go on through the lonely mountain 
 gorges. It is not until Holy Thursday that the knots of 
 fanatics come together in some spot where they have a 
 brotherhood house and do their penance by daylight. 
 The fifers lead with women singing Penitentes hymns 
 and following them come the figures half naked, with 
 heads covered with great bags, beating themselves with 
 whips or bending under crosses. All day on Good Fri- 
 day the pilgrimages continue with beatings and tortures 
 until the victim is suspended to the cross and left for a 
 time for his sacrificial penance. — Lummis. 
 
 The Gloom Overcasts the Sunshine. 
 
 In all the Spanish countries the church had trodden 
 down the laity, making devotion consist in absolute sub- 
 mission. . . . The ministers of religion ceased not 
 only to rouse the soul but to supply a pattern for con- 
 duct. The church as a whole lost its hold upon the con- 
 science and thought of the best spirits. — Bryce. 
 
 Before 1750 the padres were charged with culpable 
 neglect of their duties as missionaries, notably in their 
 failure to acquire the native language or to speak Spanish 
 to the Indians, so their religious work had no effect. 
 
 The church was the center of colonial life. The cities 
 
SUNSHINE IN THE SOUTHWEST 43 
 
 were adorned by her chapels and convents. Property 
 became the monopoly of the convents and enormous 
 wealth was accumulated. Monotonous devotions, pray- 
 ers and futilities fill the hours. The people are oppressed 
 by taxes and the Church and State stand together in 
 abuses of power. Education of the natives is frowned 
 upon and moral standards for the priesthood relaxed. 
 The colonist degenerates and stagnates religiously nor 
 do the many attempts for political freedom bring any 
 religious freedom. — Calderon. 
 
 In 1865 Juarez, Dictator in Mexico, declares : "They 
 need a religion which will force them to read not to 
 spend their money on candles for saints." 
 
 The Old Santa Fe Trail. 
 
 It wound through strange scarred hills, down canons 
 
 lone 
 Where wild things screamed, with winds for company; 
 Its mile-stones were the bones of pioneers. 
 Bronzed, haggard men, often with thirst amoan. 
 Lashed on their beasts of burden toward the sea; 
 An epic quest it was of elder years. 
 For fabled gardens or for good, red gold, 
 The trail men strove in iron days of old. 
 
 To-day the steam-god thunders through the vast. 
 While dominant Saxons from the hurtling trains 
 Smile at the aliens, Mexic, Indian, 
 Who offer wares, keen colored, like their past : 
 Dread dramas of immitigable plains 
 Rebuke the softness of the modern man; 
 No menace, now, the desert's mood of sand ; 
 Still westward lies a green and golden land. 
 
44 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 For, at the magic touch of water, blooms 
 The wilderness, and where of yore the yoke 
 Tortured the toilers into dateless tombs, 
 Lo ! brightsome fruits to feed a mighty folk. 
 
 — Richard Burton. 
 
 Transformation. 
 
 There are two things responsible for the transforma- 
 tion of the Southwest — water and education. Of course 
 the railroads ushered in the new era, but they got the 
 Goddess of Progress on the threshold and left her there. 
 Then the Government and individuals began to irri- 
 gate and a new world was discovered. Industry and 
 commerce have kept pace with agriculture but the most 
 remarkable advance and the one that augurs best for the 
 future welfare is in education. — Gregory Mason. 
 
 Irrigation. 
 
 While your merchandise is weighing, we will bit and 
 
 bridle and rein 
 The floods of the storm rocked mountain and lead them 
 
 down to the plain. 
 And the foam ribbed, dark hued waters, tired from that 
 
 mighty race, 
 Shall lie at the feet of palm and vine and know their 
 
 appointed place. 
 And out of that subtle union, desert and mountain flood 
 Shall be homes for a nation's choosing where no home 
 
 else had stood. 
 
 — S harlot Hall. 
 Sunshine After Shadows. 
 
 At the close of the Mexican War in 1846 all of the 
 Southwest was open to all religious faiths and the first 
 
SUNSHINE IN THE SOUTHWEST 45 
 
 home missionary entered New Mexico in 1849 in the 
 person of W. H. Read, commissioned by the Baptist 
 Board. 
 
 In 1850 W. G. Kephart rode a thousand miles in an 
 ox cart to reach Santa Fe and open work for the Ameri- 
 can Missionary Society. 
 
 In 1850, too, came the Methodists and in 1866 Rev. 
 McFarland took over mission property for the Presby- 
 terians and founded the boarding school which still 
 flourishes. 
 
 In 1863 the Episcopalians also began work for the 
 Mexicans. 
 
 There is work now in six States under seven denomi- 
 nations with day schools, boarding schools, industrial 
 schools, many Mexican congregations and Sunday 
 schools. 
 
 It is hard for the Mexican to "come out." All his 
 instincts and customs are against it. Ties of family and 
 kin are wonderfully strong and sacred to him. To be- 
 come a Protestant he must sever the dearest and most 
 sacred relations. It is also hard for one bred in a Mexi- 
 can community to "touch not the unclean thing." The 
 New Testament standard seems too high and severe to 
 him. He has his saints, to be sure, but they are all dead 
 ones, to be worshipped, not imitated. He likes Catho- 
 licism for its easy morals and its easy expiation. He 
 would rather beat himself one day in a year than live 
 right every day. — Rev. J. H. He aid. 
 
 Names. 
 
 The names of the children are always startling to the 
 stranger. We may enjoy hearing Constancia, Inocencia, 
 Providencia or Fidela, but we are amazed to meet scores 
 
46 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 of little boys named Jesus (pronounced Hay-soos), or 
 Juan Bautista. Then there is the occasional name, as 
 Gracias a dios (thanks to God), or Serafin. Most chil- 
 dren are named for the saint nearest to whose day they 
 are born, and celebrate their saint's day, not the day of 
 the month of their own birth. For instance, should 
 parents decide to name a child born in August, or any 
 other month of the year, Antonio, he would not recog- 
 nize August as his birth month to be celebrated, but San 
 Antonio's Day, January 17th. — Missionary Magazine. 
 
 Education. 
 
 It is not a particularly easy thing for the Mexican 
 girls to be helpful and thoughtful for others. Their 
 home training and their religious teaching do not implant 
 very much of the idea of service. It is more "take" than 
 "give" with them, more "be done for" than "do." From 
 their point of view it is so much more reasonable to 
 expect some one else to do any extra work or particularly 
 uninteresting task. In fact, at a simple request for addi- 
 tional helpers, the atmosphere sometimes becomes un- 
 mistakably murky. 
 
 Lately, however, we have had a most gratifying clear- 
 ing up of our moral skies, the cause, a little society 
 formed among the girls, called the O. F.'s — Others First. 
 The members were chosen from two classes, those who 
 would probably make the best O. F.'s, and those who 
 were evidently most in need of the O. F. stimulus. The 
 foundation stone of the club, as their song states, is "Do 
 Something for Somebody Every Day. Otherwise you 
 are not an O. F." As a consequence, almost a fourth of 
 the school is solemnly bound to at least one daily act of 
 kindness. Most of them do far more than that and with 
 
SUNSHINE IN THE SOUTHWEST 47 
 
 evident pleasure in the doing. All sorts of unique and 
 amusing incidents are recounted at the weekly meeting. 
 The range of possibilities extends from "buttoning" 
 some one who is in danger of being late to breakfast, to 
 helping iron, or clean the kitchen kettles, and where the 
 big girls lead, the little ones are bound to follow. 
 Already they are planning for an H. O. — "Help Others" 
 — society, whose deeds shall far outshine those of their 
 older sisters. — Esther Buxton. 
 
 The results of the work in the little plaza schools are 
 proving to the people in those plazas that the Protestants 
 have a greater interest in them and their children than 
 has ever been shown by their religious teachers hereto- 
 fore. The children who have attended these schools are 
 more cleanly and are more respectful and obedient to their 
 parents ; they are more intelligent and take greater inter- 
 est in religion than the children who are deprived of 
 school privileges or have only the advantages, such as 
 they are, of the schools under Romish teachers. This 
 improvement is no less marked among the people them- 
 selves. 
 
 A plaza which has had the service of a mission teacher, 
 who has not only taught the children, but has been a true 
 missionary in spirit and activity — agoing into the homes 
 of the people, helping them to bear their burdens, shar- 
 ing with them their sorrows and caring for them in sick- 
 ness — has had an uplift which shows itself in more tidy 
 homes, better dressed and more refined women, and more 
 intelligent, industrious and law-abiding men. The home 
 of the mission teacher is the center and soul of the intel- 
 lectual and social life of the plaza, and withal one of the 
 most potent evangelizing agencies at work among the 
 people. A people naturally affectionate, home-loving and 
 
48 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 peculiarly imitative as are the Mexicans, under the in- 
 struction and guidance of these consecrated, wise-hearted 
 mission teachers, have become — the men, better farmers, 
 better citizens, better husbands and fathers; the women, 
 better housekeepers, more devoted mothers and more 
 intelligent and economical wives. Even the adobe houses 
 have changed in appearance, and the sheep, goats, and 
 even the poor, patient, burden-bearing donkeys show the 
 results of the more humane treatment of their masters. 
 ' — Missionary Magazine. 
 
 Most of all I shall remember Ranchos de Taos by its 
 orchard — ^an unusual sight up here and so lovely. Just 
 waves and clouds of rose and pink and white blossoms 
 and lovely tracery of brown branches and pale green 
 leaves against a background of the grand mountains — 
 gray and blue and purple — the most exquisite thing! 
 
 I shall not forget either that the orchard itself is owing 
 to the faith and patience of Miss Alice Hyson (another 
 "Johnny Appleseed"), for so many years the beloved 
 friend and teacher of the people of Ranchos de Taos. 
 When she came here to open a school — I think it was 
 one of the first schools for the Mexican children — she 
 was not so many years older than we are now. Just 
 think of that. 
 
 She was as brave as could be, but was sometimes a 
 little homesick, especially as her own home was in a 
 leafy country and here when she came there was not a 
 single tree to be seen in all the plaza. The people told 
 her it was not worth while to plant trees for they would 
 not grow, and even if they did, no fruit could ripen. 
 
 Nevertheless Miss Hyson set out both fruit and shade 
 trees, and a few. years ago she had to cut down some of 
 her shade trees to give more space to the fruit trees, 
 
SUNSHINE IN THE SOUTHWEST 49 
 
 which had grown very large, and so beautiful. While of 
 course this year's harvest is all in the future, we know 
 something of what it will be from the delicious preserves 
 of last year's fruit. 
 
 Aunt Julia says that even more beautiful than the 
 orchard are the fruits of the Spirit seen in the lives of 
 the Christians of this plaza. These also are of Miss 
 Hyson's planting and watering and God gave the 
 increase. — Betty's Travels. 
 
 When the girls leave for vacation they are brimful of 
 schemes for plays and entertainments to enliven and 
 beautify their home life. They well know the barren- 
 ness of it hitherto. The Spanish- Americans are pre- 
 eminently fond of home and social life. However, when 
 the conversation of the uneducated classes, assembled 
 for a social evening, is limited, as it is mainly to a most 
 detailed inquiry, by each one present, as to the health 
 and welfare of every other person present, and that of 
 the honorables, his sisters and his cousins and his aunts, 
 there would seem to be room on the program for other 
 subjects equally edifying. 
 
 The returning school girls may not be able to transfer 
 to their parents and friends much of the book learning 
 they have gained, but they soon transform the home and 
 community in its social life. — Miss Sawhill. 
 
 Medical Work 
 
 Few of the simple home means, that can be used so 
 advantageously for the relief of pain, are known. If a 
 little instruction in the daily care of the body could be 
 given these people, the results would be far-reaching in 
 the future. Nothing seems to be known about antisep- 
 tics, and the necessity and value of cleanliness from the 
 
50 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 standpoint of preventing disease has not been learned by 
 the majority. 
 
 The opportunity for medical work among the Mexi- 
 cans is present everywhere. In the districts lying 
 twenty-five or thirty miles distant from the centers of 
 population the people are too poor to afford medical 
 attention. These districts comprise populations ranging 
 from two hundred to one thousand, where there are no 
 physicians, hence many die without the attention of 
 physician or nurse. 
 
 God Thy Light. 
 
 Written by a Menaul boy to his teacher: 
 
 "I am sorry to tell you that my Bible is out of me. 
 One of my friends went to Kansas and he took it with 
 him; and I could say nothing to him, because he was 
 very much affectionate to the reading of it, and believe it, 
 too. But I am going to send for another one." 
 
 Another thing I can't get over is the earnest way the 
 Bible is studied in these schools, and the difference in the 
 plazas where it has been studied for 'some time. I don't 
 want to be irreverent — the Indians in our Indian Mis- 
 sion schools taught me not to be — but when I see the 
 dark, windowless, little adobe houses in the Bibleless 
 plazas, and the bright, shining glass windows in the 
 plazas where our missionaries have taught the Bible, I 
 always think of that verse in the Psalms, "The entrance 
 of Thy word giveth light," and I know that light shines 
 even more brightly in the hearts of these boys and girls — 
 for I can see it beaming out from their faces. — Betty's 
 Travels. 
 
SUNSHINE IN THE SOUTHWEST 51 
 
 Bright sun of freedom gild valley and mountain, 
 Each sacred hilltop by heroes' feet trod, 
 Till rock and river re-echo the story, 
 Saved to the nation and saved unto God. 
 
 — Ida Vose Woodbury. 
 
52 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 PROGRAM IV 
 CUBA— THE PEARL OF THE ANTILLES. 
 
 Hymn — O Highly Favored People, 
 
 Bible Lesson — Deuteronomy iv. 33-40. 
 Prayer of St. Augustine — I behold how some things 
 pass away that others may replace them, but Thou 
 dost never depart, O God, my Father, supremely 
 good. Beauty of all things beautiful. 
 The Map of Cuba and what it shows. 
 Three Questions in Cuban History: 
 
 Why did the Cubans revolt against Spain? — 
 Paragraphs on Revolution and Spanish-Amer- 
 ican War. 
 Why did the Cubans lose respect for the Catholic 
 Church? — Advance in the Antilles — Chapter IV. 
 Why did the Cubans suspect the United States 
 when it intervened ? — Old Spain in New Amer- 
 ica — Chapter IV. 
 A Day in Havana — An imaginary sightseeing trip. 
 Secure folders from steamship company and look 
 up recent magazine articles. 
 Recitation — The Palm — with introduction applying it 
 
 to Cuba. — J. G. Whittier. 
 Guitar or Mandolin Music. 
 
 Unpleasant Things in Cuba — Ten brief facts, viz., 
 poor roads, gambling, few schools, dirty kitchens, 
 etc. 
 Pleasant Places in Cuba: 
 
 El Cristo — Leaflet — American Baptist Home 
 Mission Society — 2060 Vernon Ave., Chicago. 
 Candler College. 
 
 Guines School — Leaflet — Woman's Board of 
 Home Missions, 156 Fifth Ave. 
 Dish of Sweets — Each one to tell some sweet fact about 
 Cuba as the sweet cake or candy is taken. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE PALMS OF CUBA. 
 
 ''First among the beautiful trees of Cuba are the 
 palms, some twenty-six varieties of which give shade, 
 food and life. At the head of these stands the royal 
 palm, a tree peculiar to the island. It is a marvel of 
 beauty and utility and is the most common of all trees in 
 Cuba. It is met with almost everywhere. On the plains 
 it forms delicious groves of shade and on the distant 
 mountains it may be seen rearing its plumed crest against 
 the sky, while in the valley below its dark leaves murmur 
 softly in cadence with the winding river over which they 
 sway." — Robert Hill. 
 
 "Large sugar brakes on every hand 
 And yoked ox in field and lane, 
 Bright orange groves and royal palm 
 And thatched roof huts, hid in the cane." 
 
 "We might believe the island was originally a forest of 
 palms, wild limes and orange trees." — Humboldt. 
 
 "The royal palm is a figure of majesty and beauty. It 
 is usually from sixty to eighty feet high at maturity and 
 not infrequently reaches one hundred feet, the tall trunk 
 slightly swelling near the middle and tapering at either 
 extremity. The upper portion is a fresh and shining 
 green contrasting with the lower section which is light 
 in color. It is crowned by a tuft of branches and leaves 
 at its apex." — Ballon. 
 
 "It well was called the blessed tree." 
 
 53 
 
54 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 Cuba and Her Names. 
 
 The island of Cuba was discovered by the great Gen- 
 oese pilot on the 28th day of October, 1492. Columbus 
 first named the island Juanoa in honor of Prince John. 
 Afterward the king named it. Fernandina. This was 
 changed to Santiago and finally to Ave Maria; but the 
 aboriginal name has never been lost — Cuba being the old 
 Indian name for the island. — Ballon. 
 
 Its beauty and the affection of its dwellers have given 
 it many other titles. The Pearl of the Antilles, the Key 
 to the Caribbean, the green-girdled isle, lost Atlanta's 
 daughter, most beauteous Carib isle, are some of these 
 endearing terms, while in deference to its allegiance to 
 Spain when Mexico threw off the yoke in 1821, the 
 Spanish Government always addressed Cuba as "our 
 ever loyal isle," and "Fairest emerald in our crown." 
 
 Position. 
 
 Cuba is strategically the key to the Gulf of Mexico 
 where the Mississippi Valley terminates facing the 
 Caribbean Sea and the Panama Canal. — Coolidge. 
 
 In strategic position as regards proximity to the 
 American and Mexican seaboards, Cuba is by far the 
 most important of the Great Antilles. 
 
 Havana — 1,413 miles from New York. 
 
 475 miles from New Orleans. 
 130 miles from Yucatan. 
 96 miles from Key West. 
 
 —Hill 
 
 Cuba is about the size of New York State and is about 
 the length of California or Italy. 
 
 Cuba's area is about 45,000 square miles. 
 
^ 
 
THE PALMS OF CUBA 55 
 
 Cuba has numerous harbors with excellent anchorage. 
 The entire coastline of Cuba with inlets and bays is over 
 6,800 miles. , : 
 
 A labyrinth of reefs, islets and keys fringe the shores 
 of Cuba. In many of these, springs of pure water bub- 
 ble up from the deep. 
 
 It is the most beautiful island that eyes ever beheld, 
 full of excellent ports and profound rivers. — Journal of 
 Columbus. 
 
 Everywhere rains are most abundant in summer from 
 May to October. The average number of rainy days in 
 the year is 102. There is one record of snow falling in 
 Cuba, in 1856. 
 
 Products. 
 
 When one treads the fertile soil arid beholds the clus- 
 tering fruits in such abundance, the citron, the star-apple, 
 the perfumed pineapple, the luscious banana and other 
 fruits for which our language has no name, not forget- 
 ting the noble woods which caused Columbus to exclaim 
 with pleasure, and to mention the palm and the pine 
 growing together, we are struck with the thought of how 
 much Providence and how little man has done for this 
 Eden of the Gulf. 
 
 Other fruits are mango, zapota, fig, lemon, orange, 
 breadfruit, pomegranate, tamarind. — Ballon. 
 
 The principal products of Cuba are sugar, tobacco, 
 coffee, bananas, corn, oranges and pineapples. 
 
 Sugar cane was brought to Cuba from the Canary 
 Islands with the first colonists and in 1595 the first sugar 
 plantation was established. The Cuba sugar lands are 
 the most fertile of the world. The yield for 1915-16 
 was over 3,180,000 tons. 
 
56 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 Tobacco, indigenous to Cuba and the United States, 
 is a great source of revenue, yielding in 1915 $32,000,000. 
 The Cuban leaf is ranked as the finest known and fur- 
 nishes royalty with its famous brands of cigars. There 
 are dozens of large factories in Cuba, employing thou- 
 sands of people. — Hill. 
 
 The cocoanut palm supplies milk, shade and material 
 for a hundred domestic uses. It grows in luxuriant 
 thriftiness all over the island. 
 
 The ceiba, or silk cotton, next to the palm, is the most 
 remarkable of trees. The negroes have a superstition 
 that it is a magic tree haunted by spirits. The great 
 Peace Tree at San Juan Hill, made famous by the Span- 
 ish-American War, is a ceiba. 
 
 There are no venomous reptiles in Cuba. The insect 
 life is abundant and beautiful. The little cocuyo or 
 firefly is caught and confined in little wicker cages and 
 its light is as brilliant as a small candle. 
 
 The parrot is Cuba's most conspicuous bird. 
 
 Cuban People. 
 
 The population of Cuba in 1915 was 2,494,104. Cuba 
 is distinctly an island of Spanish traditions and even 
 to-day its largest immigration is Spanish. Cuba has a 
 large and powerful black and mulatto race to be dealt 
 with and the Spanish laws granted him full rights of 
 citizenship. There is very little race prejudice or draw- 
 ing of the color line. 
 
 To live awhile in a Cuban village is like stepping back 
 to some old world period of time. There is no hurry 
 or worry of an electric nineteenth century, but much 
 simple kindness and unaffected hospitality. The people 
 may be pitifully poor, but never too poor to share. 
 
THE PALMS OF CUBA 57 
 
 Their faults are of a primitive order and due to impulse 
 and lack of training — not to cultured selfishness. Those 
 untutored people taught me many lessons and I am 
 grateful to them, and am hoping for them that there may 
 come the manifold blessings of the Kingdom, even 
 through their little ones. — Helen Manatt. 
 
 Cubans are much attached to family life and deep 
 affection exists among the members of families. The 
 Cuban mother is affectionate but over indulgent. Cuban 
 hospitality is proverbial. — Porter. 
 
 Cuban women are noted for beauty and charm, but 
 the majority of them lack education or opportunity for 
 any development of character or occupation. House- 
 keeping is conducted in a most indolent fashion. The 
 foremost word in the dictionary of life for Cubans seems 
 pleasure. There is a mania for gambling, encouraged by 
 the lottery drawings. — Grose. 
 
 Changes. 
 
 What changes are taking place in Cuba ! The old and 
 the new seem so oddly mixed that we often stop to won- 
 der. Sugar cane is hauled by oxen in the old-fashioned 
 way to a mill that is run entirely by electricity and has 
 all the modern conveniences. A country family comes 
 riding into town, the mother and young children on 
 horseback with the father walking by their side ; on their 
 way they meet their friends on motor cycles or in auto- 
 mobiles, and on special days they have the privilege of 
 seeing an airship sailing above them. 
 
 If they wish a longer trip they will take advantage 
 of the interurban electric line, but so little used are they 
 to the customs of modern traveling that they will carry 
 with them in the car a pair of nice live chickens or a 
 
58 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 little "squealy" pig, as a gift to the friends they are to 
 visit. 
 
 Candles have rapidly given way to electric lights; 
 Pianos can be heard on every side, but an organ or a 
 melodeon is a thing unknown. 
 
 There seem to have been no stages of development, 
 but one quick jump from the things that, to an Ameri- 
 can, seem very old-fashioned, to the most modern. 
 
 The other day I met a middle-aged married woman 
 two squares away from her home and alone. On seeing 
 me she expressed her delight in having company the rest 
 of the way, for she explained that she had never before 
 been so far from home without someone with her! But 
 it is becoming common now to see girls going to and 
 from school without a companion. Is the change too 
 great? — Beulah Wilson. 
 
 Cuban History. 
 
 1511 — First colony under Velasquez. 
 
 1524 — First slaves of the New World brought to Cuba. 
 
 1551 — Havana becomes capital. 
 
 1762 — Invaded and conquered by English. 
 
 1763 — Returned to Spain. 
 
 1848 — ^Chinese coolies brought to Cuba. 
 
 1869 — Slavery abolished. 
 
 1829, 1844, 1868-1878— Rebellion against Spain. 
 
 1898 — American Intervention. 
 
 1902 — Cuban Republic established. 
 
 — McClean. 
 
 Cuba became the headquarters of the Spanish power 
 in the West. It was hence that Cortes embarked for the 
 conquest of Mexico. 
 
THE PALMS OF CUBA 59 
 
 The natives were at once made subject by the new- 
 comers who reduced them to abject slavery, and proving 
 hard taskmasters, the poor creatures perished until they 
 had nearly disappeared. Then commenced the slave 
 trade of the West Indies. — Ballon. 
 
 Bad as slavery is at the best, there was in Cuba prob- 
 ably the worst system known. In it, as in the episodes 
 of the conquest, was shown the thread of ferocity that 
 runs through the warp and woof of Spanish character. 
 — Porter. 
 
 The treatment of the Chinese coolies imported in large 
 numbers after the slaves were freed, was as cruel as that 
 meted out to the African. After an investigation the 
 Chinese government forbade further emigration to Cuba. 
 — Porter. 
 
 It was Chief Hatney of Cuba who made the memor- 
 able reply, more eloquent than a volume of invective, 
 when urged at the stake to embrace Christianity that his 
 soul might find admission to heaven, he asked if white 
 men would go there. Being answered in the affirmative, 
 he exclaimed, "Then I will not be a Christian for I would 
 not go to a place where I find men so cruel." — Las Casas. 
 
 Rulers. 
 
 Cuba was ruled by a military despotism from the very 
 outset. The Captain General was the ruler, a viceroy of 
 Spain accountable only to the sovereign. His rule was 
 absolute. He had the power of life and death in his 
 hands. As a rule the Captain General came to Cuba a 
 poor man and returned a rich one no matter how brief 
 his term of office. In 387 years Cuba had 136 rulers. 
 From 1859-1897 there were 3S.— Ballon. 
 
60 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 Revolutions. 
 
 Liberal ideas and discontent began to influence Cuba 
 as she saw the example of Mexico and South America 
 throwing off the Spanish yoke and realized the increas- 
 ing greatness of the United States. 
 
 Three factors contributed to Cuba's frequent protests 
 and revolts: 
 
 1. Undue trade restriction. 
 
 Colonial trade confined to one port at a time in 
 Spain and one in Cuba — Seville, Cadiz — Santi- 
 ago, Havana. 
 
 2. Arbitrary taxation — leading to corruption and 
 abuses, and taxes on food, on recreation, enor- 
 mous burdens upon citizens. 
 
 3. Retention of all government and political of- 
 fices in the land by Spaniards to the exclusion 
 of Cubans. — Robinson. 
 
 Spanish-American War. 
 
 Spain learned nothing by experience and her govern- 
 ment of her last remaining islands was marked by the 
 same greed, arrogance and cruelty that had deprived her 
 of her other possessions. 
 
 As the nearest neighbor the United States was again 
 and again brought into unpleasant relations with Spain. 
 
 The miserable unsanitary conditions of the island 
 made the land a breeding spot of yellow fever and other 
 menacing epidemics. All business interests and indus- 
 tries suffered under the continuous warfare. Added to 
 this, under General Weyler, arose the brutal and medie- 
 val method of slow starvation of non-combatants in con- 
 centration camps. 
 
THE PALMS OF CUBA 61 
 
 Unfortunate political incidents and the destruction of 
 the battleship Maine in Havana harbor finally in 1898 
 brought on the Spanish-American War. — Elhridge 
 Brooks. 
 
 In the name of humanity, in the name of civilization, 
 in behalf of American interests which give us the right 
 and duty to speak, the war upon the helpless in Cuba 
 must stop. — McKinley. 
 
 January 1, 1899 the Stars and Stripes floated over 
 Cuba only to yield to the flag of a single star when the 
 Cuban Republic was formed in 1902. 
 
 Cuba is now governed by a Constitution modelled 
 after that of the United States. 
 
 Cuba's Church. 
 
 Perhaps one of the most vital clauses in that docu- 
 ment is the one granting religious freedom and stating, 
 "The Church shall be separated from the State, which 
 shall in no case subsidize any religion." In the days of 
 Spanish rule, church and crown were one. In Cuba as 
 in Spain the Catholic Church was against freedom of 
 worship. The Church opposed civil marriages, Cubans 
 were not admitted to the priesthood. Church fees were 
 mercilessly exacted. The priests represented to the 
 people, cupidity, ignorance, immorality and indifference 
 to their holy office. — Pepper. 
 
 Cuba was steeped in superstition, ignorance, indiffer- 
 ence. Illiteracy and immorality, insincerity and insta- 
 bility speak in unmistakable terms of the false moral 
 teaching of the Romish Church. 
 
 United States in Cuba. 
 The civilizing work of the United States has been ad- 
 
62 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 mirable. Two years of endeavor extirpated the yellow 
 fever which had prevailed in Havana since 1726. The 
 Yankees fought the mosquitoes, the vehicles of the dis- 
 ease, and their sanitary works and measures decreased 
 the death rate from 91 3-10 per cent per 1,000 in 1898 
 to 20 6-10 per cent in 1902. They attacked malaria and 
 tuberculosis. 
 
 The Yankees opened up new roads, knowing how far 
 the prosperity of the island depended upon them. They 
 installed modern schools in the old Spanish school 
 houses and built special schools, kindergartens and tech- 
 nical colleges in larger towns. New pedagogic methods 
 and a wider culture strongly modified social and political 
 life. The Americans left ten times as many schools as 
 they found. — Calderon. 
 
 Cuban Awakening. 
 
 The national educational plans of Cuba are constantly 
 extending schools into new territory. It has been a long 
 and a difficult process to furnish schools for all the peo- 
 ple in a country lacking educational leaders, but the 
 schools have been built up on the foundations laid at the 
 time of the American occupation. In 1915 the Secretary 
 of Public Instruction reported 289,692 children in public 
 schools, a large increase in six years. A few teachers' 
 institutes exist; there is one national normal school, but 
 several are needed; and in 1915 twenty-nine new school 
 houses were erected, making a total of 4,011, having 
 4,111 teachers. 
 
 There are still a great many children in Cuba who are 
 denied the privilege of an education by public, private or 
 mission school. The national government is carrying out 
 a program for increased equipment and the better train- 
 
THE PALMS OF CUBA 63 
 
 ing of teachers ; and while the department is not as thor- 
 oughly organized nor as efficiently administered as some 
 others, there is a constant annual growth in extension and 
 efficiency. The awakening of the Cubans as a result of 
 the educational progress is most noticeable. The visitor 
 is conscious of it as he sees the daily, weekly and monthly 
 periodicals in English and Spanish, and as he discovers 
 the annual increase of books and magazines which are 
 being sold to Cubans through book stores and news- 
 stands. — Advance in the Antilles. 
 
 A Pioneer Worker — In the history of beginnings 
 must always be included the story of Don Alberto 
 J. Diaz, the first Cuban missionary to his own people, 
 and the founder of the First Baptist Church in Cuba in 
 1886. His life story and success are tributes to the help 
 of women in the evangelization of Cuba. The first fruit 
 of his work was a little child, his four-year-old sister, 
 who listened eagerly to his words when the other mem- 
 bers of his family scorned him and his mother refused 
 to speak to him for months. The little sister crept up 
 to his side, and looking up into his face, said: "I like 
 the man you talk about so much; I will give Jesus my 
 heart." When his mother finally yielded and Diaz led 
 her into the baptismal water, his joy so overcame him 
 that he forgot the customary formula, and looking up- 
 ward said with infinite tenderness, "Lord Jesus, this is 
 my mother!" — Mrs. D. B. Wells. 
 
 Cuba Para Cristo. 
 
 Dating from the close of the Spanish- American War, 
 various American EvangeHcal Churches began sys- 
 tematic missionary work. The agencies employed have 
 been colporterage preaching. Sabbath and day schools. 
 
64 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 The first places to be occupied were the six provincial 
 capitals and from these the work has spread until now 
 every center of importance has its chapel and Sabbath 
 school. All the denominations have flourishing day 
 schools. Young People's Societies abound and their del- 
 egates meet annually in a convention which does much 
 to elevate the character of the work. — Tourist Guide. 
 
 Over 300 delegates representing the Christian En- 
 deavor Societies and Sunday Schools of Cuba met re- 
 cently in Havana. The watchword of the Convention 
 was "Cuba para Cristo" (Cuba for Christ). This 
 thought echoes through all the churches on the island. 
 
 — McClean. 
 
 Cuba in the United States. 
 
 The Rev. Desideric Carrera, formerly a Cuban cigar 
 maker, is working as a colporteur of the Bible Society 
 among the cigar makers of Tampa and Key West. It 
 is a difficult and dangerous occupation. In Tampa there 
 are 15,000 Cubans, 9,000 Spaniards and 12,000 Italians. 
 In Key West about 10,000 Cubans are engaged in cigar 
 industries. These people are anti-clericals and alienated 
 from all religion. Readers are employed to read to 
 them while they work. Much of the literature read is 
 corrupt. There is hardly a more spiritually needy com- 
 munity in the United States. — Record of Christian Work. 
 
 West Tampa, Florida, is a little Cuba, for of her 10,- 
 000 inhabitants only 1,500 are Americans, the rest are 
 Cubans, Spaniards and Italians. They have come over 
 here to work in the cigar factories, for the cigar industry 
 is the basis of prosperity for the city. The factories open 
 at six in the morning and close at five in the afternoon 
 
THE PALMS OF CUBA 65 
 
 and the workers are compelled to sit in rooms heated with 
 steam so the tobacco leaves may not be broken. 
 
 Day Schools. 
 
 There are 2,500 children of school age and the public 
 school provides for only 250. For eleven years a many 
 sided work has been developed by several Protestant 
 churches. Through the church, the parish schools and 
 Home School for boys and girls, classes and clubs. All 
 their devoted missionaries in the variety of their work 
 seem to have deserved the title applied to one of them, 
 ^'Consecrated Odd-Job Expeditor." — Church Reports. 
 
 The United States still owes many neighborly duties 
 to Cuba — the duty of affectionate understanding of 
 Cuba's ways and peoples, the duty of patience with her 
 imperfect governmental schemes, the duty of helping her 
 economic difficulties. Above all the United States must 
 be a good neighbor in the things of the spirit, in the train- 
 ing of Cuba's fascinating children, in the opening of 
 vision and usefulness for Cuba's beautiful daughters, in 
 the planting of stronger moral values in Cuba's sons 
 — and above all in the love of that Christ who laid down 
 the law, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 
 
 **Softly they murmur, the palm and the pine 
 Hushed is our strife in the land of the free 
 Over our children their branches entwine 
 Thrones of the continent, isles of the sea." 
 
 — Holmes. 
 
66 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 PROGRAM V 
 PORTO RICO— THE LAND OF THE RICH PORT 
 
 Processional Hymn with American Flags carried by 
 
 the leaders — ^Our Flag Is Flashing Near and Far. 
 
 Bible Subject — The Isles of the Sea. 
 
 Prayer — "Let me serve a little better 
 
 Those that I am striving for, 
 Let me strive a little harder 
 To be all that I should be. 
 Let me be a little meeker 
 With the brother that is weaker. 
 Let me think more of my neighbor 
 And a little less of me." 
 
 Three Journeys to Porto Rico — Five minutes each. 
 
 1. Columbus, 1493 — Middledyk's History of 
 Porto Rico. 
 
 2. Sir Francis Drake, IS9S— Middle dyk. 
 
 3. Mr. and Mrs. Today — Steamship folder. 
 Questions to Ask Travellers: 
 
 What is a patio? 
 
 What do they eat in Porto Rico? 
 
 What is a sugar central? What is anemia? 
 Reading — "My American Visitors" — Page 150, page 
 
 168 — American Bride in Porto Rico. 
 Two Papers — What Spain Gave Porto Rico — Refer to 
 
 Old Spain in New America, chapter V. 
 
 What the United States is trying to give Porto 
 Rico — Pamphlet Congregational Missionary 
 Work, A.M. A., 287 Fourth Ave. 
 
 Missionary Visits: 
 
 To an orphanage. To a hospital. 
 
 To a school. To a country service. 
 
 Closing Hymn — "They Are Coming, Lord, to Thee." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 PORTO RICAN PATIOS. 
 
 "What is a patio? Answer, pray, 
 Ye who all the livelong day, 
 
 Hear a fountain rise and fall. 
 Hear the birds to each other call. 
 See the flowers and the bright hued vine 
 Over the walls of the patio climb. 
 
 What is a patio? It is a space 
 Far from the street or market place. 
 Open above to the stars and sky. 
 Open above to the winds going by. 
 What is a patio? Ye who roam. 
 It is the heart of our tropic home. 
 
 What is a patio? Answer, pray, 
 
 Ye who all of the livelong day 
 
 Toil in the noisome muck and mire. 
 
 Filth on the ground and wet clothes higher ; 
 
 Windows none and a noisome smell 
 
 In each dark room where a family dwell. 
 
 Dozens of rooms from each foul court, 
 The only spot for life or sport; 
 Hundreds of children who never know 
 How up above the sweet stars go. 
 What is a patio? You can tell. 
 It is the heart of their life as well. 
 
68 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 Bright isles of sunshine — in this new day, 
 'Neath a new banner and 'neath a new sway; 
 May we who query help thee to live 
 Open to all that the great Love can give, 
 Sweet stars and sunshine with cleansing winds met 
 ■Fountains of life in thy patios set." 
 
 "A tier of rooms on each side of a square, comprising 
 as many as the convenience of the occupant may re- 
 quire encompass an open patio or court, open to the sky 
 and with but one door opening into the street. Some- 
 times this door is large enough for the family carriage." 
 
 — Ladd. 
 
 "The patio was filled with flowers and singing birds 
 and the plashing fountain shed coolness in the air. It 
 was the center of the family life and even the mild eyed 
 pony could look into the happy enclosure from his own 
 retired quarters at one corner." 
 
 "A^view of these patios gives impressions that cannot 
 be forgotten. An inner court perhaps forty or fifty feet 
 long and fifteen or twenty feet wide; several lines filled 
 with clothes that have just been hung up to dry; a num- 
 ber of dirty naked babies; odors of all kinds; the fetid 
 atmosphere caused by filth, on the ground and by the 
 crowd of inhabitants of the patio. These are merely 
 suggestions of the squalor and abject poverty of thou- 
 sands who live in the patios of the city slums in Porto 
 Rico." — Fowles. 
 
 "The patios of the cities are simply indescribable. The 
 only relief is that there is no suffering from cold." 
 
 — Grose. 
 
PORTO RICAN PATIOS 69 
 
 History. 
 
 The ancient name of this island was Borinquen — "The 
 Land of the Vahant Lord" — and it was inhabited by the 
 Carib Indians. Porto Rico means "Rich Port," and was 
 the name given by the Spanish conquerors. Columbus 
 landed in 1493 at Aguidilla on the north shore. The 
 fourth centenary of that event was commemorated in 
 1893 by the erection on a granite pedestal of a marble 
 column crowned with a Latin cross — on the pedestal is 
 the inscription "1493 — 19th of November — 1893." 
 
 The history of Porto Rico falls naturally into eight 
 divisions : 
 
 Discovery, 1493. 
 Settlement, 1508-1509. 
 Subjugation, 1509-1544. 
 Dark Centuries, 1544-1815. 
 Colony, 1850-1870. 
 Province, 1870-1895. 
 ^■**-- Awakening, 1895-1898. 
 
 American Occupation, 1898. — Barnes. ^ 
 
 Geography. 
 
 The island of Porto Rico, situate in the Atlantic 
 Ocean, is about 1,420 miles from New York, 1,000 miles 
 from Havana, 1,200 miles from Panama, 3,180 miles 
 from Cadiz, Spain. 
 
 It is about 104 miles in length by 34 miles in average 
 breadth and has an area of 2,970 miles. With the ad- 
 joining islands it has over 3,600 miles area. 
 
 By its geographical position Porto Rico is peculiarly 
 adapted to become the center of an extensive commerce. 
 
 So far as temperature is concerned, Porto Rico enjoys 
 
70 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 perpetual summer. The average daily temperature is 
 80° and the mean monthly temperature hardly varies 
 6°. Average annual rainfall, 54 inches. — Middledyk. 
 
 The chief cities are San Juan, Ponce, Mayaguez, 
 Arecibo, Aguidilla, Fajardo, San German. 
 
 San Juan is the capital and is a beautiful old city built 
 in Spanish style. It also has a beautiful harbor, the only 
 good harbor in Porto Rico. There are 1,143 kilometers 
 of fine roads in the island. Agriculture is almost the sole 
 resource of the people. The chief exports are sugar, 
 coffee, tobacco, oranges, grape fruit, cocoanuts, pine- 
 apples. 
 
 Possessing every variety of tropical landscape, fertile 
 from mountain tops to the sea, rich in pasture lands, 
 shaded with magnificent palms, moistened by twelve 
 hundred streams, its possibilities are immense. — Hill. 
 
 Porto Rico though rich in possibilities is still unused. 
 
 People. 
 
 The greater part of the country people are skiiNwss 
 and %iterate. They are content to build a little shack, .^ 
 sit down in it and let the bananas ripen and the cocoanuts^ 
 fall. There is not a month in the year that does not 
 bring a harvest of some kind, so "Sufficient unto the day" 
 seems to be their motto. It is ever a mystery how they 
 live, so crowded is the island, and extreme poverty is in 
 evidence everywhere you go. Porto Ricans have never 
 known anything but poverty and ignorance. 
 
 One of the greatest problems in Porto Rico, perhaps 
 at the bottom of most of the other problems, is the very 
 real fact of grinding, heart rending, starving poverty. 
 It is a fact that a great many of the people do not ever 
 know what it is to eat a square meal. A piece of bread in 
 
1 
 
PORTO RICAN PATIOS 11 
 
 or gold limbs, eyes made of precious stones and num- 
 erous articles of great value have been presented to the 
 church. The church ornaments are valued at $100,000. 
 
 The church also organizes an annual pilgrimage to this 
 shrine. — Fowles. 
 
 Not the least of the wonders wrought by Protestant 
 Missions has been the change in the Roman Catholic 
 Church. The American Catholic bishop sent to the 
 island soon after it came under American control re- 
 moved the most corrupt priests. A higher standard of 
 morals for the clergy was demanded and the Sisterhoods 
 began to care for and teach the poor. — McClean. 
 
 The great day of days to Porto Rican children is Jan- 
 uary 6th — Three Kings Day — the day when the three 
 wise men came from the East bearing gifts to Jesus. 
 The three kings come from Greece, India and Ethiopia, 
 the first on a white beast, the second riding a bay and 
 the third, a black one. The whole island is filled with 
 happy peasants who carry boxes containing images of the 
 three kings to whom you are expected to make an offer- 
 ing. On the evening of the fifth of January baskets of 
 every kind and quality are left on the front doorstep or 
 in the garden with hay and water for the horses or 
 camels of the three Kings who come in the night myste- 
 riously to fill the baskets. — Marion Blythe. 
 
 Protestant Churches. 
 Protestant Missions in Porto Rico date from the year 
 of the American occupation, 1898. Until that time re- 
 ligious liberty was unknown and there was not a single 
 native Protestant organization on the island. The first 
 building erected after the American occupation was the 
 Presbyterian Church in Santurce, a suburb of San Juan. 
 
78 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 Any study of Porto Rico that fails to take into account 
 the mission work of Evangelical churches would be en- 
 tirely inadequate. Some histories scarcely mention this, 
 one of the greatest forces that have been introduced into 
 the island, so they fail to make clear a chief cause of the 
 great changes that have occurred. The larger towns were 
 fixed as mission centers and from these radiated the 
 numerous lines of work. The effect of these centers 
 manned by Americans speaking Spanish and teaching a 
 strong upright life by precept and example can never be 
 properly estimated. — Latin- American Tourist Guide. 
 
 Comity 
 
 Porto Rico is notable because of the arrangement 
 made by all denominations conducting religious work in 
 the island whereby the large cities were open to all but 
 each denomination was given special charge of one sec- 
 tion of the island. 
 
 Porto Rico has about 570 churches with 13,250 mem- 
 bers, about 20,000 Sunday school pupils, and 2,807 
 members of Young People's Societies. There are 60 
 ordained missionaries, 65 women missionaries and 210 
 native workers. Nine denominations are working in 
 Porto Rico. 
 
 Religious Education. 
 
 In addition to the evangelistic activities there has been 
 much educational work done. The spirit of union is pop- 
 ular; three denominations, Presbyterian, United Breth- 
 ren and Congregational, join in the publication of a 
 church paper and the work of a Training School for 
 native ministers, which is situated at Mayaguez. There 
 is one other school of even more inter-denominational 
 
PORTO RICAN PATIOS 79 
 
 character, the Polytechnic Institute of San German; its 
 beautiful location and efficient work merit a visit from 
 every tourist in the island. — Latin-American Tourist 
 Guide. 
 
 There are about 35 mission day schools with about 
 3,000 in attendance. Their main purpose is to co-operate 
 with the public schools providing for those in the cities 
 who could not attend because of poverty or for the rural 
 districts where there was inadequate provision by the 
 government. — McClean. 
 
 Our girls in our day schools have no homes or come 
 from such bad surroundings that this instruction is their 
 only training for a decent respecta^ble life. — Church 
 Report. 
 
 The superintendent goes into the patios and gathers 
 the children who are too poor to attend the public schools 
 — cannot even have shoes or one full garment. — Report. 
 
 I sent my son to your school because I knew the fine 
 spiritual character of your teachers and wanted him 
 under such precious influences. — A Catholic teacher. 
 
 At El Goto our devoted missionaries have bought and 
 refitted a small building and arranged it for a dispensary, 
 night school and reading room. The place is always 
 crowded and doors and windows often filled with adults. 
 We should establish more missions of this kind. 
 
 — Bishop Colmore. 
 
 Social Service. 
 
 There are four hospitals, three orphanages and a Poly- 
 technic School under church auspices. The largest hos- 
 pital is the Presbyterian Hospital at Santurce, a suburb 
 of Sari Juan. 
 
 A fine new concrete hospital is being erected. An at- 
 
80 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 tendant missionary at clinics and a visiting nurse add to 
 its efficiency. 
 
 There can be no question that the work we are doing 
 in our nurses' training school is one of the most valuable 
 projects we have undertaken in Porto Rico. In strong 
 contrast with the relief work which must of necessity oc- 
 cupy most of the attention of the hospital force, we have 
 in the nurses' training school a prophylactic agency. 
 From this institution should go a great many women 
 whose training should fit them to preach the gospel of 
 preventive medicine. All told we have about sixty grad- 
 uates. — Allah en. 
 
 At Humacoa is the Congregational Hospital, at Ponce 
 the large Episcopalian Hospital of St. Luke. 
 
 The George O. Robinson Orphanage at Santurce in its 
 fifteen years of existence has done a beautiful and 
 blessed work for the orphan girls of Porto Rico and has 
 returned fruit a thousandfold to the Methodist women of 
 the United States whose gifts make it possible. 
 
 The Blanche Kellogg Institute at Santurce is a notable 
 example of successful application of settlement ideas to 
 Porto Rican conditions and renders a large social service 
 in clubs, classes, Bible classes and temperance instruction. 
 
 The Marina Mission at Mayaguez also conducts suc- 
 cessful industrial work, community classes and training 
 of leaders, while a day nursery meets the needs of the 
 poor mothers with little children who must work every 
 day. 
 
 We can never build here a great land but we can build 
 here a great people fitted for a great Christian service 
 to all the Spanish-speaking world that borders on the 
 Caribbean Sea. So the rainbows on its opal waters may 
 be the bows of promise set in Southern skies. 
 
82 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 PROGRAM VI 
 THE NEW WORLD AND THE OLD 
 Hymn — We've a Story to Tell to the Nations. 
 Bible Lesson — Christ's Ambassadors — II. Cor. v. 17-20. 
 Prayer — "But Father, if I feel, may I not pray 
 
 That Thou would'st turn their darkness into day? 
 Beneath their load they struggle to walk straight 
 O God, reach out Thy hand and lift the weight. 
 Pray? Yes; but ere thou ask of me my gift 
 Go, seize their heavy burden, child, and lift." 
 
 — Alva Kerr. 
 Roll Call — ^Great inventions, books or foods given by 
 
 the New World to the Old. 
 Reading — Return of Columbus from the New World — 
 
 Chapter VL, Irving's Life of Columbus. 
 Questions : 
 
 Why should there be unity of purpose in the 
 twenty-one American Republics ? — Paragraph 
 Unity of Aim. 
 What political ideals can the New World give the 
 
 Old ? — Paragraph Gifts of the Mind. 
 How can the New World help reconcile the Old? 
 
 Paragraph Duty of Giving. 
 How does Home Missions help Foreign Missions? 
 General Discussion on three lines: 
 
 What did I like best in this study book? 
 What have I learned? 
 How can I help? 
 A Dish of Gifts — For each one a tiny mite box with a 
 penny in it to start some gift for Spanish-Ameri- 
 can work. Set date for return of same. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 WHAT THE NEW WORLD GIVES THE OLD. 
 
 "O America, because you build for Mankind, I build 
 for you!" — Walt Whitman. 
 
 "Earth's races look to thee 
 The peoples of the world 
 Thy risen splendors see 
 And thy wide flag unfurled. 
 
 Float high and be the sign 
 Of love and brotherhood, 
 The pledge, by right divine 
 Of Power, to do good." 
 
 — Venahle. 
 
 "For all mankind that unstained scroll unfurled 
 Where God might write anew the story of the world." 
 — E. E. Hale, concerning Columbus. 
 
 "Haply the lifeless cross I know — Europe's dead cross — 
 may bud and blossom there." 
 
 — Prayer of Columbus — Whitman. 
 
 The First Gifts. 
 
 The admiral (Columbus) did not delay long at Palos 
 after his landing, being desirous of presenting himself 
 before his sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella. He took 
 with him specimens of the multifarious objects of the 
 newly discovered regions. He was accompanied by sev- 
 eral of the native islanders arrayed in their simple bar- 
 baric costumes and decorated with collars, bracelets and 
 
 83 
 
84 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 other ornaments of gold, rudely fashioned. He ex- 
 hibited also masses of the same metal in dust or crude 
 form, numerous vegetable exotics and several kinds of 
 quadrupeds and birds unknown in Europe. The latter 
 with their brilliant plumage gave a brilliant effect to the 
 pageant. 
 
 One lump of gold was of sufficient magnitude to be 
 fashioned into a holy church vessel to contain the host, 
 thus converting the first fruits of the New World to 
 pious uses. — Prescott. 
 
 Gifts o£ the Field. 
 
 It has been the honor of America to contribute to the 
 world its greatest crop in point of yield — ^^the white 
 potato. Making its bow to civilization from Peru the 
 potato has girdled the globe. 
 
 Another native of America that has now favor in 
 every part of the world is the pineapple, growing in 
 tropical and sub-tropical regions. 
 
 Vanilla is made from the fruit of a climbing orchid, 
 a native of tropical America but now grown in Java, 
 Ceylon and other parts of the Orient. 
 
 Lima beans came from South America. — National 
 Geographic Magazine. 
 
 Corn came to us from the Indians and was found by 
 the Europeans from Chile to the St. Lawrence. — Hum- 
 boldt. 
 
 It is said Mexican cornfields in normal times outrank 
 Mexican gold mines. To-day the United States produces 
 two-thirds of the world's supply of corn. — Enock. 
 
 The companions of Columbus on his first voyage 
 found what has since been known as tobacco. On Octo- 
 ber 27, 1492, the ships of Columbus anchored ofif the 
 
WHAT THE NEW WORLD GIVES THE OLD 85 
 
 shores of a great land, supposed to be the Kingdom of 
 the Khan. Here, in the island now called Cuba, they 
 found many strange things. Among them natives with 
 firebrands in their hands and puffing smoke from mouths 
 and noses. The herb bore several names but tabago or 
 tobaco seemed to be the most general. It was really the 
 name of the pipe which the natives used in smoking. 
 
 It was not till 1560 that the herb became known in 
 Spain and not till 1586 that it was used in Europe, when 
 Ralph Lane, Governor of Virginia, sent over by Sir 
 Walter Raleigh, returned and smoked the first pipe in 
 England. — Porter. 
 
 There exists a legend relative to the Christian inhabi- 
 tants of the East that they believed the banana to be the 
 tree of the source of good and evil. Beyond all doubt 
 this legend had some influence on the minds of early 
 botanical classifiers who designated two species of the 
 plant Musa paradisiaca and Musa sapientium — Fruit of 
 Paradise, Fruit of Knowledge. The origin of the banana 
 is given as India. Natural to Africa and Asia, there is 
 also a strong tradition of at least two species cultivated in 
 America long before the coming of the Europeans. — 
 National Geographic Magazine. 
 
 Rubber was the gift of Latin America to the world. 
 The Spaniards when they arrived in Mexico found the 
 natives playing a national game of tennis with rubber 
 balls in the great stone built tennis courts which are 
 among the archaeological wonders of Central America. — 
 Enock. 
 
 The wild turkey was the progenitor of the domestic 
 bird Mexico gave to Europe. 
 
 True mahogany is distinctly a native of tropical 
 America. The first mention of it occurs shortly after 
 
86 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 the discovery of the New World when Cortes and his 
 companions between the years 1521 and 1540 employed 
 it in the construction of ships. In 1597 Sir Walter 
 Raleigh found it excellent to repair his ships in the West 
 Indies. — National Geographic Magazine. 
 
 Gifts of the Mind. 
 
 Each nation is in the long run judged and valued by 
 the rest of the world by its contribution to the world's 
 stock of thought, of literature, of art. — Bryce. 
 
 Is not that nation great which can learn that it is giv- 
 ing which makes a nation great, as it is giving and serv- 
 ing which makes men noble? National greatness con- 
 sists in those things which make men great; goodwill, 
 helpfulness, service, leadership into higher ways. 
 
 A new spirit of altruistic helpful service has come 
 even into nations. It is the spirit of the Gospel. In 
 contrast to it read the answer of the African natives to 
 the missionary: 
 
 "Never since the Zambesi ran into the sea was such a 
 thing dreamed of, as that we should make a road for 
 other people to walk on." — Frederick Lynch. 
 
 For the world of to-day is a product not only of the 
 past. In a measure it is controlled and shaped by our 
 interest in the world of to-morrow. — Franklin Giddings. 
 
 April 23, 1916, was not only Shakespeare's tercen- 
 tenary, but also that of the great Spanish writer Cer- 
 vantes. In honor of this event his house in Valladolid, 
 Spain, was purchased and restored "to renew faith in 
 the great destinies of the Spanish people," 
 
 The Marques de La Vega Irclan in his account of the 
 restoration said: 
 
 "Not all the investigations or good intentions or 
 
WHAT THE NEW WORLD GIVES THE OLD 87 
 
 enthusiasm would have restored this house had it not 
 been for the active effort of the King of Spain and the 
 co-operation of the President of the Hispanic Society of 
 New York, Mr. Archer Huntington." 
 
 Unity of Aim in the Nev^^ World. 
 
 The medal commemorative of the second Pan Ameri- 
 can Scientific Congress in 1916 represents two figures 
 clasping hands across the outstretched continents while 
 the inscription reads — Friendship, Solidarity and Prog- 
 ress through Scientific Achievement. 
 
 There can be no true American ideals in social welfare 
 without the contributions and co-operation of all the 
 American peoples. The most impressive thing about 
 this first American Congress on Child Welfare held in 
 the Argentine Republic in 1916 was the conception of 
 the western hemisphere as a unit for child welfare and 
 the community of thought and interest among all Ameri- 
 can peoples wherever the interests of children are con- 
 cerned. — E. N. Clop per in The Survey. 
 
 An international conference of labor representatives 
 was held at Washington in July, 1916. Concerning its 
 plans the following was written: 
 
 "A pan-American federation of labor is not only pos- 
 sible but is necessary. It will constitute a ready and fit 
 agency for injecting into international deliberations at 
 opportune and critical times consideration for human 
 rights, interests and welfare. . . . The realization of 
 an international alliance between the labor movements 
 of all pan-American countries will constitute a genuine 
 parliament of men, one of the highest purposes to which 
 mankind has aspired." — Samuel Gompers. 
 
 Neither continent can reach its full development with- 
 
88 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 out the other. More and more in the future years it will 
 be seen that North and South America complement and 
 supplement each other. What is done for the regenera- 
 tion of one part blesses the whole. In a sense South 
 America presents to every North American Christian 
 both the home missionary and foreign missionary motive. 
 His motto might well be "All America for Christ." — 
 Gospel in Latin Lands. F. E. Clark. 
 
 The Best Gift. 
 
 Now when old things are passing away is the time for 
 us to make the one supreme gift in which we believe the 
 safety and future hope of the world lie — a knowledge of 
 the life and teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let 
 Christianity go as a beneficent power, with new thoughts 
 and new hopes to be a link between all the races of man- 
 kind. — Lord Bryce. 
 
 The Commission has assumed that in the sphere of 
 fundamental religious values, the spiritual, intellectual 
 and social needs whose satisfaction has to do with man's 
 right relations to God and to his fellow man and with the 
 highest welfare of nations, Latin America does not differ 
 from North America. — Report of Panama Commission. 
 
 It is for us, the Americas, to unite for the blessing of 
 the world, to make a moral salvage of Christian civili- 
 zation. — George Gray. 
 
 Ways of Giving. 
 
 I have had twenty years of observation and experience 
 in the evangelization of the Spanish-speaking people of 
 Colorado. I rejoice, but not with complacency, in the 
 progress I can see. There has been political liberation, 
 a social uplift, an educational advance and manifold 
 
WHAT THE NEW WORLD GIVES THE OLD 89 
 
 reforms in the lives and customs of these people in these 
 years. The evangelical church has been back of it all. 
 —M. H. MacLeod. 
 
 My hope is to see Latin America rise vigorous, re- 
 solved to shake off the yoke of those traditions which 
 have so long enervated all her noble impulses and once 
 free from these handicaps to see her live as God com- 
 mands. — Antonio Mezzorana. 
 
 Whatever may be the final outcome, none of us can 
 be indifferent to Mexico and the Mexicans. There are 
 perhaps now not less than a million of them on this side 
 of the line — some temporarily but others to remain as a 
 permanent asset of the nation. A letter now on my desk 
 from one of our Mexican ministers says : 
 
 "The invasion that Mexico needs is an invasion of 
 Christians and missionaries who will take the lighted 
 torch of the Gospel everywhere." — B. F. Fullerton. 
 
 We believe there are two things necessary to bring 
 about success in work in Spanish lands — First a far 
 more comprehensive preparation of native workers and 
 second a great propaganda through the printed page.— 
 /. Will Harris. 
 
 All the Greater Antilles are in need of industrial 
 schools where the boys and girls of the less fortunate 
 can prepare for the battle of life. The hope of the 
 Church is, to a great extent in the middle class, among 
 the people who have to work hard for a living. This 
 class could be won for the church through industrial 
 schools. A college for women in each one of the islands 
 is another very desirable and urgent need. The Latin 
 American woman is virtuous and consecrated to her 
 home. The great cry is the winning of the Latin 
 
90 FROM PLAZA, PATIO AND PALM 
 
 American women and their training for motherhood. — 
 Jose Osuna. 
 
 Gifts Bearing Fruit. 
 
 Porto Rico has been chosen for a service not only out 
 of proportion to its size but entirely unique among Latin 
 American countries. The past fifteen years have lifted 
 it to a plane where it stands alone. Its people are of 
 Spanish, Indian and African ancestry. Its climate is 
 distinctly tropical. Its history is not unlike that of other 
 Latin American countries. And yet it is different. 
 What is responsible for this? In a word, the great dif- 
 ference is to be found in the fact that Porto Rico has 
 had seventeen years of new life, new hopes, new powers. 
 Indeed the very physical aspect of the island has 
 changed. Its foreign trade has leaped from eight and 
 one-half millions in 1901 to forty-nine millions in 1915. 
 The school system has spread until out among the re- 
 motest barrios there are schools. . . . Our govern- 
 ment is sure. Our schools are of high order and improv- 
 ing every year. The spirit of the Porto Ricans is a great 
 asset. They are ready to co-operate in every cause of 
 righteousness and social betterment when they really 
 understand it. 
 
 It was evident at Panama that Porto Rico's accom- 
 plishment in the way of co-operation of churches had 
 placed her far to the front of every other Latin Ameri- 
 can country. The churches are united — a unit in aims 
 and fundamental faith. Give us now the word and we 
 promise that in fifteen years more this solid front now 
 forming will have marched in obedience to command and 
 will have made clear to other Latin lands the power that 
 
WHAT THE NEW WORLD GIVES THE OLD 91 
 
 comes from united prayer and work in matters of the 
 Kingdom. — E. A. Odell. 
 
 The Duty of Giving. 
 
 "For we 
 Who scarce yet see 
 Wisely to rule ourselves are set 
 Where ways have met 
 To lead the waiting nations on." 
 
 We are set between oceans. In the providence of God, 
 this continent whether it elects it or not will be a mis- 
 sionary force of some sort to governments east and west. 
 
 If twenty-one republics are federated on this conti- 
 nent to stand for high democratic principles, high moral 
 levels, Christian integrity and Christian character the 
 nations of the world will not long stand against their 
 influence. — C. L. Thompson. 
 
 Take Thou our hearts, O God of power. 
 
 We bring Thee love, our only dower. 
 
 Though poor and mean the gift may be, 
 
 Thy love can make it fit for Thee.— Alice Guernsey. 
 
 God give us with the time 
 
 His strength for His large purpose to the world; 
 
 To bear before Him, in its face unfurled 
 
 His gonfalon sublime. —A. D. T. Whitney. 
 
 Here the last stand is made 
 If we fail here, what new Columbus bold 
 Steering brave prow through black seas unafraid 
 Finds out a fresh land where man may abide 
 And Freedom yet be saved? — Arlo Bates. 
 
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 New York 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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