Muddling a Muddle:
RANSER, RICHARD
Puerto Rican Miracle Transformation. By Earl Parker Hanson. Simon & Schuster. 416 pp. $5.00. Reviewed by Clarence Senior Consultant on migration, Puerto Rican Department of Labor THE...
...The only major subject which he has slighted would seem to be labor and labor legislation, in which extraordinary advances have been made...
...The author of this book is broad in his outlook, comprehensive in his selection of material, and unusually well informed in a number of fields...
...Hanson's story...
...Thus, he can differentiate between the old days, when a kindly Washington paternalism was trying to do something for the Puerto Ricans, and today, when the Puerto Ricans are doing things for themselves...
...Hanson has done a splendid job of communicating his fervor, and in organizing a mountain of relevant material and interpreting various aspects of Puerto Rico's upward struggle...
...He is especially fervent about Governor Luis Munoz Marin, which is understandable to anyone who has ever worked with the latter...
...Wo Americans have only recently begun to learn to get along with peoples of other cultures...
...The author was part of the early New Deal planning mechanism on the island...
...Reviewed by Clarence Senior Consultant on migration, Puerto Rican Department of Labor THE UNDERDEVELOPED two-thirds of the world is increasingly turning to Puerto Rico for instruction and inspiration...
...this book tells why...
...Chester Bowles, in his enthusiastic introduction, writes that "nowhere, except perhaps in the agricultural settlements of Israel or in some of the industrial and village projects of India, have there been pioneering efforts at economic development which match in promise the techniques recently evolved in Puerto Rico...
...His understanding and training are also somewhat less than adequate in the field of population dynamics, as witness his praise of the scientifically indefensible book The Geography of Hunger, which grievously misrepresents Puerto Rico...
...Our policy of trying to teach children in a language they did not understand has undoubtedly been the most serious single obstacle to the development of Puerto Rico...
...The chapter on education shows what an aroused people with a sincere and capable government can do through their schools...
...The Division of Community Education has won worldwide fame for its community organizers, films, posters, "people's almanacs" and leaflets...
...Earl Parker Hanson, engineer, geographer and explorer, is also enthusiastic about the island and its people...
...The unseemly behavior of many of our former representatives in Puerto Rico, reported here in detail, should be an object lesson to guide our relations with the rest of the world...
...The progress made recently by the two and a quarter million people who inhabit the 3,435 square miles of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is striking and dramatic...
...But these are minor flaws in an excellent treatment of an extraordinary effort to make democracy meaningful...
...The crucial difference which the change in approach has made is one of the most valuable lessons of Mr...
...This book should bo invaluable for those who are involved in inter-cultural relations, whether at home or abroad...
...It should never be forgotten that the Puerto Ricans achieved control of their educational system for the first time on January 2, 1949, after four centuries under Spain and half a century under our rule...
Vol. 38 • March 1955 • No. 11
