Front matter
Reading edition
Etext transcriber's note: Many of the images may be seen at an enlarged size by clicking on them. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected; the original orthography, including variation in the spelling of names, has been retained. The Index included at the end of this etext (which includes volumes 1 thru 4) appears at the end of volume four of The History of Cuba. It is provided here for the convenience of the reader.
JOSÉ CIPRIANO DE LA LUZ
"The Socrates of Cuban youth," as he has often been called, José Cipriano de la Luz y Caballero was born in Havana on July 11, 1799, and was educated at the Convent of San Francisco, the University of Havana, and the San Carlos Seminary where he was a pupil of his uncle, José Agustin Caballero, and of Felix Varela. Later he travelled and studied in the United States and Europe. In Germany he became intimately associated with Baron Humboldt. Returning to Cuba in 1831, he gave himself to the task of improving and promoting the educational interests of his country. In 1843 he revisited Europe, but was recalled the following year to answer an absurdly false charge of being implicated in the Negro Conspiracy. He then founded and until his death conducted his famous school of El Salvador, in which for a generation many of the foremost Cubans were educated, and in which manhood and patriotism were ever the foremost items of the curriculum. He was the author of a number of standard educational works. He died on June 22, 1862.