The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.13, page 505, 20 May 1902, U. of Illinois Press

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ADDE N DA In the first place, we are willing to take fifteen boys and girls for next year and all agree that it is better to keep these we have rather than have others sent over to take their places. Our school year, ~go~~903, begins Tuesday, September gth, and closes May Seth. The two hundred and fifty dollars allowed for each one will be sufficient to cover all expenses during the school year as well as during the vacation. By compelling them to exercise the most rigid economy we have been able to come to the close of the present year with a credit balance to each account, save one, as the financial statement sent herewith will show. The second year ought not to be quite so hard for them especially since the monthly allowance is increased slightly. The questions asked under paragraph number ~ in your letter are rather more difficult to answer explicitly and with positiveness. The opinion of the instructors is in effect that almost all of them show at least sufficient earnestness to indicate that they are worthy of additional help for another year. My opinion concurs with theirs. This earnestness is much more apparent in connection with their academic studies than with those in the industrial departments. Generally speaking they do not like to work and it is a hard matter to get them to see the advantage of learning a trade. Perhaps they have not been here quite long enough for us to judge them fairly. Our experience with some Cuban students is that they have to remain here about two years or longer before they really acquire the American spirit. And too, the conditions of life under which they have been reared in Porto Rico doubtless, ire a certain measure, are responsible for the characteristics they exhibit. Here as there they like to dress gaudily and extravagantly, to spend much time in powdering their faces and in congregating for idle gossip. Of the boys, Saturnio Sierras and Felix Reheat are worse than the others, being less earnest both at study and at work and less inclined to respect authority. Of the girls, Lina Gonzales Nieves3 and Catalina Rojas4 give considerable trouble, the former being decidedly the worst one of the entire fifteen. With these four exceptions they do reasonably well, and as ~ have already said, no one of them seems too bad to give another year's trial. The habits, customs and standards of requirements in the two countries, Porto Rico and the United States, differing so greatly, the comparatively short time these girls and boys have been with us, as well as the youthful ages at which some of them come to us, cause some hesitation in answering the questions: ''Of 5o5