the party. In a country where everything must stop for a shower, where rapid transit has not yet exerted its stern discipline upon public habits, the value of time has quite a different rating than with

us.

We have already given a long list of educational benefits which the experience bestowed; they will go far toward making better schools and better disciplined pupils. But no other single thing promises such far-reaching good to the country as the arousing of a professional feeling and an honorable rivalry among the teachers themselves. With little unity of aim, with free intercourses prohibited by difficult transportation, with no competition beyond such as the financial interests of practically private schools arouse, there could be little helpful stimulus passing from teacher to teacher. When we stop to consider how much inspiration our teachers gain from observation, competition and suggestive oversight, we realize how epoch-making this first great convention of nearly half of the teaching staff of Cuba was. The esprit du corps thus awakened will continue to be a vital force for mental quickening and professional advancement.

In social matters many new ideas were received. The wealthier planters, who spend every summer in Europe, are accustomed to all the punctilious etiquette which foreign associations imply. But the less wealthy, who are bound largely to their insular life, lay small stress upon acknowledgment of invitations, responsibility for excuse if not present, punctuality in appearance, or care to notify the hostess in case an uninvited friend is added to the original party. A Cuban friend recently told me of her interesting experience when she had arranged a fishing party and had invited as many guests as the launch would accommodate. When the party arrived at the landing so many uninvited guests had been unexpectedly added, that the family who gave the party all stayed at home, while their guests went serenely off for a day's fishing. This is a result of lavish hospitality and easy ways of life. It by no means indicates an intended lack of courtesy. The better classes of Cubans are clean and careful about their personal habits, but the climate encourages great laxity in the style and arrangement of dress. Girls are quick to see the difference in these matters, and as late as February of this year, as I was making a tour of the island, it seemed to me that the teachers who had been in Cambridge could be almost identified

by their greater neatness of dress. These were small things, and quite similar to the improvement which could be seen in one of our own inexperienced and ambitious country teachers, when exposed to the refining influence of a large and cultivated community. There was a great change, however, which could only have come to daughters of a Latin race; this was in the novel experience of social freedom. To go out alone, or to receive calls from a gentleman whose intentions were not declared to parental authority, were innovations startling enough to invite much greater abuse than we readily conceive. That this unusual liberty was not misused is a great tribute to the innate dignity of the women, who have been absurdly guarded by the most artificial conventionalities. Before the gently reared women of Cuba felt suddenly a heavy burden of self-support thrown upon them, they would hardly have had the moral courage to face the opposition of family, and church, and political prejudice, and go forth to widen their horizon and increase their power for work, by so radical a measure. But women who had been imprisoned, and even taken out to be shot for aiding their insurgent relatives, women who had crept through underbrush at night to carry messages and supplies to those outside in distress, women who had known temporary hunger, and more permanent sorrow and poverty, were ready to seize with joy so unusual a share in our modern woman's heritage of independence. It will take time for the whole lump to be leavened, but no other single influence will ever count for so much in the declaration of social independence of Cuban womanhood as this single two months' break with Latin race traditions of seclusion.

And now what are the political benefits of a trip which was avowedly and really non-political in purpose? There is no stroke of policy at once so telling and so legitimate as real courtesy. There never was a people more susceptible to kindness, or quicker to detect its genuineness than the Cubans; and I might add that there are few people who can be more cordial than Americans when actuated by an impulse of true sentiment. These conditions were all fulfilled, and I believe this courtesy of 1900 will successfully meet the test of time, and the high light of historical development; and will stand triumphantly as the most fortunate political relation we have had with Cuba. We are a brusque though kindly intentioned people; military methods in general are not pre-eminently

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adapted to the proud Latin race; our military representatives had an added disadvantage in acting outside their sphere when handling perplexing civil questions. They have worked conscientiously and more wisely than could have been expected, but they have in no way expressed to Cuba the warmth of friendly interest which has pervaded all classes of the American people. These teachers learned at Cambridge what genuine good will lay behind the strenuous, and often incomprehensibly stern, efforts at good government which they had witnessed in Cuba. They saw, also, that a country prosperous beyond their wildest conception was little likely to have much at stake in acquiring even the " Pearl of the Antilles." One little woman voiced the sentiment of many when she said, "Why, they say the Americans want Cuba, but I can't believe it, now that I see how much richer they are than we." No argument would ever have carried one-half the conviction on this point that came from the mere sight of Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington. The question of annexation was often discussed; it had been too much feared as our ultimate aim to escape becoming a live issue. Strangely enough the northern experience seemed to have a different effect on the women and men in this regard. The men seemed to grow more strongly in favor of absolute independence. They seemed so fired with the ambition to build up a counterpart of our prosperity, that they must begin the work at once. But the women grew rapidly into annexationists. Evidently they were so well satisfied with our women's privileges that they would have gladly crept into peaceful enjoyment of them under any flag.

These were some of the benefits which Cubans received, but Americans too received a genuine reward for their disinterested labor and expenditure. There is always an interest developed in any one for whom we have done something; there are added interests in this case from learning to know such childlike, affectionate, and confiding people. Many lasting friendships were made between the two radically unlike races, which will help to better national understanding of their quick intuitions and sensitive shrinking from brusque northern demands.

The two things now needed are a final friendly adjustment of our political relations, and, secondly, a starting of this new independent régime with high ideals of what good government means.

The permanent result of this novel expedition of 1900 must be politically the existence of centers of friendly feeling and confidence, which will affect whole communities. The teachers were still discussing Cambridge experiences in February, when I made my last circuit of the island, with an enthusiasm which could not fail of its due effect. Industrially it gave the wider knowledge of great prosperity and its causes, which arouses ambition and reveals needs that must end in good. Socially it left in the minds of these leaders of children a memory of all that a cultured community of the highest type signifies. Educationally it helped toward unity of methods, and a healthy emulation; and in general it developed those more elevated standards of judgment which must precede all true effort.

Six weeks was a short time in which to absorb all this; there were some disagreeable details, for human nature is much the same throughout the world. It might be easy to make a microscopic analysis which would not be altogether pleasing; it might be easy to say that the expedition was not. But there were some things that it was and eternally will be. It was the first general association and organization of the teachers of the Cuban nation. It was a romantic awakening of a depressed people to higher ideals. It was an exchange of true sentiment, graciously expressed and intuitively fathomed as sincere. It was a glimpse into the promised land of peace and prosperity. What years of struggle and defeats and victories may precede the final entering in, we cannot lift the veil of the future to know. But all those who sincerely care for Cuba's future must rejoice in this disinterested international courtesy. It was conceived in its final proportions by Mr. Frye's idealistic nature, responded to by President Eliot's high appreciation of the fundamental need of any self-governing people, executed with the finish of Harvard traditions, and appreciated by as courteous and gratefully responsive a people as the world knows.

LAURA D. GILL,
Dean of Barnard College.

i

THE LAW AS A PROFESSION FOR WOMEN.

In 1848 the first woman in the United States received the degree of M.D. In 1870 the first woman in the United States received from a law school in Illinois the degree of LL.B. From 1848 to 1900, the time of the last census, about 2,000 women hold the M.D. degree; while only 108 from 1870 to 1901 have received the LL.B. degree from the law schools of the colleges represented in this Association. This number of 108 does not include the women graduated from schools not represented here; but since the oldest and best of the law schools open to women are a part of the universities represented in the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ, if one doubles the number of 108, that will probably make an over-estimate of the number of women who have in the last thirty years received the degree of LL.B. Not all women who are graduated from law schools are in active practice. I have been unable to secure any reliable statistics giving the number of such women; Illinois claims more than any other State in the Union, 90 having been admitted to the bar, of whom 59 are in active practice; there are only nine in my own State, Massachusetts, six or seven States have none and six or seven more only one or two. Since bar examinations are prepared for, either by study and preliminary practice in an office, or by work in a law school, it is probable that not more than 200 women are in active practice in the United States. Double that number even, and still the discrepancy in numbers between the women practicing as doctors and those practicing as attorneys is very marked.

I am interested in suggesting a few reasons why I believe so few women are practicing as attorneys and why I believe few women will find the law lucrative or perhaps congenial in comparison with the other professions.

In considering the question, it must be remembered that these are years when all occupations and professions, many created for that very purpose, are increasingly occupied by women. These have been tabulated, to the number of 350. Moreover, there is more and more public encouragement given to college graduates to enter the less crowded and more unusual professions. You will notice it in the papers of this Association, you will hear it urged and argued