CHAPTER VII

Of faults against academic discipline and means of checking them

Art. 119. Slight faults are:

1. Inattention in regard to the [admonitions of the] help of the institution.

2. Injuries and offenses of slight moment to other pupils.

3. Faults of deportment in the schoolroom.

4. Indecorous words and unquiet acts and pranks.

Grave faults against academic discipline are:

1. Blasphemy, irreligious actions, and immodest actions and words.

2. Passive resistance to superior orders.

3. Insubordination against the directress and instructresses of the school.

4. Grave offenses or insults which wound the other pupils.

5. Any other action which causes grave disturbance in the academical order and discipline.

6. The second occurrence of slight faults, and resistance in suffering the punishment which shall have been imposed for them.

Art. 120. The checking of slight faults belongs to the directress and instructresses, but the hearing of grave faults belongs to the disciplinary Council.

Art. 121. Punishments prescribed for slight faults are:

1. Private censure by the directress of the school.

2. Idem, public before her companions.

3. Seclusion in the institution for the space of several days, which may not exceed one week, but attendance at class and permission for the pupil to go home for the night.

4. Increase of failure of attendance up to the number of five.

Art. 122. Grave faults shall be punished by the following penalties:

1. Public admonition, ex-cathedra, by the directress or instructress, according as may be prescribed by the disciplinary Council.

2. Loss of the [studies of the] term.

3. Expulsion from the institution.

4. Disqualification to continue her course.

Art. 123. Punishments 2, 3, and 4, shall be imposed by personal action, which shall be declared by the cloister in full session, the one interested being heard for that purpose; but the confirmation of the governor general shall be indispensable.

Art. 124. The pupil who shall not present herself to undergo the penalties expressed in number 1 of the preceding article shall lose the term.

The penalty of expulsion shall carry with it the loss of the term. The pupil expelled shall not be allowed to enter the school without the express permission of the directress.

Art. 125. If a punishable act shall be committed in the school by those who are subject by the laws to the judicial action, the directress, collecting the data and advisable information, shall inform the court so that it may proceed in accordance with law.

Art. 126. If the pupils, anticipating, or prolonging, their vacation, or for the reason of scholastic disturbances, cease to attend their classes, they shall not be admitted to the term examinations until the extraordinary examinations of June. That fact shall be noted by the instructresses and handed to the directress of the school.

TÍTULO V

REVALIDA EXAMINATIONS [i.e., examinations for a degree]

Art. 127. Pupils may receive the degree of a teacher's certificate of primary, elementary, or superior teaching, to which they may be admissible, according to the studies which they have pursued during any time of the year, if it is not in the month of May, the time when the instructresses in all branches shall have their vacations.

Art. 128. Those who are candidates for a degree shall present a petition to the directress accompanied by documents sufficient to prove that they have taken the course and passed in the necessary studies in due time and form. The petition shall be handed to the secretary so that she may give information of what appears in the books, and ask the decision if the pupil comes from another institution.

Art. 129. The paper having been drawn up, the directress shall grant admission to the exercises or shall refuse the petition. In case of doubt she shall consult with the cloister of the school.

Art. 130. The paper having been approved, the pupil shall pay six pesos for the fees of inscription, and having done that, the secretary shall appoint the day and hour for the first exercise.

Art. 131. Exercises for academical degrees shall be made by means of inscriptions similar to those of matriculation, regulated according to the form approved by the government. In them shall be comprised the extract of the studies and the antecedents of the course of the one interested.

These inscriptions shall give a right to the repetition of each one of the exercises of the degree in the case of suspension, but having been repeated in one such exercise, the inscription remains null and void, and another one is needed for a new examination.

Art. 132. The exercises mentioned in the preceding article shall not be held in distinct institutions, but each pupil shall begin and end them in one and the same institution. Among the candidates for the degree at any time, those who shall have the best marks in their study certificate shall be preferred, for the order of the exercises.

Art. 133. The exercises for degrees shall be four in number--one written, one oral, and two practical--and shall last for the time deemed advisable by the tribunal.

Art. 134. The tribunal for each exercise shall be comprised of three instructresses, those of the branches examined, taking turns in composing it.

Art. 135. The written part for the candidates for the certificate of teachers of elementary primary instruction shall consist in the writing of a capital alphabet and another small alphabet on the ruled paper which is supplied to them; in the writing by dictation of one or more sentences, which shall occupy at least a fourth of the paper of the size of the stamped paper; in the solution of three arithmetical problems chosen by lot from among twenty prepared beforehand; and in the development of one pedagogical theme from three chosen by lot from an urn containing thirty, for this last part taking as a minimum half a sheet of paper the size of the stamped paper.

Four hours shall be allowed for these exercises.

Art. 136. The written part of the exercise of confirmation for the candidates to the teacher's certificate of primary superior education shall consist in the solution of three arithmetical problems chosen by lot from among twenty previously prepared, and the development of a pedagogical theme from three drawn by lot from an urn containing twenty, of the matter suitable for this grade, taking as a minimum one sheet of paper of the size of the stamped paper.

Five hours shall be prescribed for these exercises.

Art. 137. When there are several candidates they shall take the written exercises at the same time, but shall be conveniently located and watched so that they may not aid one another.

Art. 138. Paper with the seal of the institution and rubricated by the president of the tribunal, shall be furnished to those examined for all the written exercises.

Art. 139. The oral exercises for those pupils who are candidates for the elementary teacher's certificate shall consist in answering nine questions on the three branches which shall be chosen by lot from among all the others constituting the general group of the studies of the elementary teacher; and for the candidates to the superior teacher's certificate, in the same exercise, and in like manner for all the branches studied in the four terms.

Art. 140. After the termination of the written and oral exercises the practical exercise in needle-work will begin. This last having ended, the tribunal in the practice school shall be constituted, in the elementary or superior section, according to the class of the pupil in point. Each one of them shall draw a paper from an urn in which there shall be as many as there are branches of study included in the corresponding grade; that is to say, those studies of the elementary for the pupils of that class, and all the studies for the superior, except that of music and singing, which shall not form a part of this exercise.

The subject having been chosen by lot, the one examined shall draw a new ticket from another urn from thirty prepared for that purpose. The number of that ticket shall indicate the point which she is to explain on the development of girls, the elementary spending ten minutes on the explanation and the superior fifteen.

Art. 141. Immediately after the termination of an exercise, the exercise shall be passed upon by secret vote, for which purpose the president shall distribute to each one of the judges three tickets, one of which shall contain an S (sobresaliente [i.e., excellent]), the second one A (aprobada [i.e., passed]), and another one shall be blank (suspensa [i.e., conditioned]).

Art. 142. If each one of the judges deposits a distinct letter in the urn the president shall declare the graduate to have passed; in other cases she shall be qualified according to the vote of the majority.

Art. 143. In order to be admitted to the second exercise, one must have passed in the first; in order to be admitted to the third she must necessarily have passed in the second; and in order to be admitted to the fourth one must have passed the three preceding.

Art. 144. Pupils conditioned in the exercises for confirmation shall not present themselves for new exercises until two months from the date of their condition.

Art. 145. The exercises to which the preceding article refers can be repeated indefinitely, whenever the above-mentioned time intervenes between each two times.

Art. 146. When a pupil repeats the exercises in which she shall have been conditioned, at least one of the judges who shall have participated in the condition shall form part of the tribunal.

Art. 147. For fees of teacher's certificate of superior primary instruction, candidates shall pay in papeles de pagos al estado the sum of forty pesos, besides presenting the fitting stamp which must be affixed to each certificate, and paying in cash two pesos for expenses of issuing the document.

The above-mentioned sum of forty pesos shall be reduced to thirty-five when it is a question of a teacher's certificate of elementary primary instruction, and to seventeen and one-half for the change from elementary teacher's certificate to that of superior.

Half of the amount collected for the purpose of issuing the circulars shall be assigned for printing and other like purposes, and the other half shall be distributed among the secretary and the employes of that office.

Art. 148. The governor general, finding the documents regular, shall issue the certificates with the mark of passed or excellent, which shall bear in plain sight the coupon part of the respective inscriptions which the directress of the school sends him for that purpose, on which he shall note the approval of the exercises and the payment of the fees which the regulations in course prescribe, accompanying it also with a registered copy of the baptismal certificate of the graduate.

Of the practice school

Art. 149. A school of primary teaching, supported by the municipality, shall be joined to the normal school, and, if possible, shall occupy the same building with it, in which the pupils who are candidates for teachers can learn what a school for girls is and practice in it, following the most adequate method and procedure for the teaching of each subject, so that during their course they may obtain the good results which must be promised.

Art. 150. The practice school shall be divided into two sections, which shall be called the elementary and the superior grades. There shall be one teacher in charge of it with a superior certificate, and she shall be called "regent."

Art. 151. The regent shall have one assistant, for whom it shall be sufficient to possess a teacher's certificate of elementary primary instruction, since she shall be in charge of the section peculiar to the certificate which is demanded of her.

Art. 152. The practice school shall not lose its character as a public school for the girls of the village, and shall be supplied in the manner prescribed for others of its class.

Art. 153. The superior normal school for women teachers in Manila shall have at present only day pupils, until the necessities of instruction in the archipelago counsel the admission of resident pupils exactly or in similar form as the normal school for men teachers.

Art. 154. The Augustinian nuns of the Assumption may establish at their account, if they deem it advisable, the admission of resident pupils in the same institution of the school, whenever that is not to the prejudice of the day pupils, or indeed in any other edifice contiguous to or distinct from the school.

Art. 155. All the orders which prevent the fulfilment of the contents of these regulations are abrogated, and the minister of the colonies is authorized to decide the doubts which may arise from the application of the same.

Additional article

The directress and instructresses of the congregation of Augustinian nuns of the Assumption shall have complete liberty for the observance of the statutes of their order.

Madrid, March 31, 1892. Approved by his Majesty.

Romero

DECREE OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT ELEVATING TO THE GRADE OF SUPERIOR THE NORMAL SCHOOL FOR MEN TEACHERS IN MANILA, AND APPROVING PROVISIONALLY THE NEW REGULATIONS OF THIS SCHOOL

Normal school of teachers: Your Excellency:

The normal school for men teachers in Manila, established by virtue of the royal organic decree of December 20, 1863, for the purpose of being used as a seminary for men teachers fit to take charge of schools of primary instruction for the natives throughout the Philippine Archipelago, has been fulfilling, since its foundation, the difficult task committed to it by the government of his Majesty, filling the great space which was experienced in these remote provinces from the primitive times of the conquest. With the adoption of a system combining pedagogical instruction and education, at the same time that it has diffused, so far as has been possible, the use of the Castilian language, knowledge of evangelical truths, and the practice of Christian morals, it has propagated the germ of true civilization in all the islands, consolidating, with the most elementary principles of education, the civil life of the villages in their diverse relations in regard to the social organization, and especially with the diverse institutions which unite this archipelago with the mother country.

The immediate truths of that foundation are the greater facility of communication between the natives and the civil, military, ecclesiastical, governmental, judicial, and administrative authorities, and the greater development in the arts and industry, in agriculture and commerce, and in the participation of the natives in the profession of letters and of sciences, and in the exercise of authority and other subordinate charges in the different state offices. Such results have been preceded by an initial period of most laborious formation, for, although the normal school had to be ruled from the beginning by organic regulations adapted to the needs of the region and to the special circumstances of the time and of the individuals for whom it was founded, it had to limit its sphere of action to the most reduced horizons, in accordance with the remarkable state of imperfection and backwardness of the scholars entrusted to it, and of the little time allowable for their fitting instruction and education in the profession of teacher. The perfection of the normal teaching and of its regulation was left, therefore, for the provision of later supplementary orders. For, having seen the moral impossibility of its complete application, according to the ideal demanded of a perfect plan of pedagogical teaching, it had to be molded according to the pressing needs of the villages and to the lack of a staff fit to take charge from the beginning of all the schools of primary instruction in the archipelago.

The absolute lack of suitable men teachers, with actual experience in teaching, was the reason for the studies in the normal school being reduced in the earlier years to supplying hastily the first intellectual and moral needs of the villages. Those having been satisfied, the studies required in article 4 of the regulations for the acquisition of a teacher's certificate of elementary instruction were completed in three years. But although the resident and day pupils had to be fully sixteen years old for admission into the normal school, it resulted that, since the majority of them came from provinces where they generally cease to attend school after the age of twelve, the few ideas which they had learned in those schools were already obliterated from their minds, especially the use and knowledge of Castilian. Consequently, in order that the pupils might study the branches suitable for the teaching profession with understanding of the authors of the textbook, and the explanations of the instructors, it was indispensable to cause said studies to be preceded by a preparatory year, in order that the legal qualifications of ability to pursue their career might be obtained.

At the beginning, the textbooks had to be chosen from among the shortest and most abridged, in consideration of the lack of development of the intellectual faculties of the pupils. That produced in due time the advantage that the new teachers, explaining to the children of their schools the same authors by whom they had been formed, afterwards came themselves better prepared to frequent the classes of the normal school. Furthermore, having left aside the qualification of the young candidates being sixteen years old, in order to enter the preparatory class, the halls of this normal school were from that time filled by the most advanced pupils of the elementary primary schools of the villages, without any notable interruption in the progress of their studies from childhood until the completion of their course.

To this spontaneous and natural modification of the regulations, was due the calling to the teaching profession of the most suitable and advanced pupils whom the normal school now possesses; and if to them be added the best students of the practice school who increased annually the number of the preparatory class, the result is that said selection must greatly redound to the very great advantage of the teaching force. It proceeded then to mitigate the harmful exclusiveness of article 11 of the regulations for the schools and teachers of primary instruction for the natives of this archipelago, permitting the exercise as teachers to the scholars graduating from this normal school of Manila, who had acquired the teacher's certificate before reaching the age of twenty.

Indeed, that the most opportune time for exercising the duties of teacher with advantage and without loss of intellect is immediately after receiving the certificate, is evidenced by the fact that the matters recently learned remain yet fresh in the memory and in the mind of the young teachers; the will is then more active and ready to communicate those matters to the children, and enthusiasm consolidates in this case the vocation of the young teacher and moderates his mind with the habit of work, so that he will persevere in his profession for the rest of his life.

Granting the fondness of the native for instruction, and having seen the increase in this last third of the century of public instruction in Filipinas, thanks to the multitude and variety of official and private teaching centers, it is more and more indispensable every day that the primary teaching of the archipelago be propagated, perfected, and consolidated, giving the greater extension and the preferred place to the pedagogical studies of the normal school for men teachers, by adding to the course of teachers of elementary primary instruction that of superior primary instruction. The intellectual progress of Filipinas, and its hopes for the future, demand a greater development in the instruction and education of the children; and consequently, that the young men, who nobly aspire to become teachers, may obtain the certificate and prerogative of teacher of superior primary instruction. That such are the desires of the government of his Majesty, are evident by the recent creation of a superior normal school for women teachers in Manila, and the constant desire of enlarging the literary studies throughout the Spanish domains.

The necessity of also extending the teaching of this normal school for men teachers in Manila has been so widely recognized, that for some years past the supplementary courses for obtaining the certificate of superior teacher of primary instruction have in fact been studies in said center. It is so much more easy to introduce said improvement, since it can be realized with the same teaching staff, without any greater expense than the actual budget, and even an increase in the years of study can be realized. For, during the first three years, the pupils would study the branches corresponding to the teachers' course of elementary primary instruction, in order to obtain, after passing the examinations of the third year, the certificate by virtue of the examination for degrees only those who shall have obtained in said examination the grades of excellent and passed, besides the fourth year being entitled to obtain the certificate of superior teacher, the studies of the normal school of Manila comparing throughout with those which are pursued in the superior normal schools of the Peninsula.

To the professional exercise of the duties of teacher of superior primary instruction, belong privileges, prerogatives, and emoluments, distinct from those which are enjoyed by teachers of a lower rank. In such case the término competitions of the first and second class would have to belong exclusively to the teachers of superior primary instruction, and in the contests for the ascenso schools they must be preferred to the elementary.

Said competition must take place before a competent tribunal, and must be subjected to the official schedule of the various branches, whose study prepares one for the certificate of superior teacher indispensable for such competitions.

The case foreseen by article 12 of the regulations, namely, of the existence among the supernumerary pupils of a sufficient number of teachers to supply the schools of the archipelago, having been realized, the suppression of the regular [de numero] resident pupils is now proceeding in this normal school.

In accordance, then, with the previous exposition, he who affixes his signature has the honor to recommend to the lofty consideration and approval of your Excellency, so that you may deign to bring, if you judge it suitable, to the notice of his Excellency the minister of the colonies, the subjoined modification of the regulations of the normal school for male teachers of primary instruction for the natives of the Filipinas Islands approved by her Majesty, December 20, 1863. May God preserve your Excellency many years. Manila, November 1, 1893. Your Excellency,

Hermenegildo Jacas

General Division of Civil Administration: Your Excellency:

So powerful and conclusive are the arguments which the right reverend father director of the normal school for men teachers in Manila adduces, in order to petition your Excellency that said institution enlarge the scope of the studies of its teaching, and have, therefore, in the future, the character of superior, which the director who affixes his signature, honoring himself in making them his own, recommends to your Excellency that taking them under consideration, and in harmony with them, you deign to authorize the subjoined project for a decree. Will your Excellency decide. Manila, November 10, 1893. Your Excellency,

A. Avilés

Decree

General government of Filipinas: Civil Administration.

Manila, November 10, 1893.

This general government in the exercise of its powers and in conformity with the recommendation of the General Division of Civil Administration on this date, declares the following:

Article 1. In order to heed the necessities felt more sensibly each day for broadening and perfecting the pedagogical studies for the purpose of forming suitable teachers to whom to entrust the development and progress of primary instruction in the archipelago, the normal school for men teachers of this capital is declared a "superior normal school."

Art. 2. Teachers' certificates which shall be conferred in the future by this institution shall include two grades--elementary and superior.

Art. 3. The studies corresponding to the first grade shall be divided into three courses, and in the form established by the regulations, by which said institution must be ruled, in its article 4.

Art. 4. For the superior degree the same subjects shall be studied with the extension of those which are prescribed in the last section of article 4 of the abovesaid regulations.

Art. 5. The teachers' certificates, obtained in the superior normal school, shall bear equal rights and privileges with those obtained in like institutions in the Peninsula.

Art. 6. The same instructors as those at present in the normal school shall be those charged to teach the subjects belonging to the fourth year.

Art. 7. The regulations drawn up by the director of the superior normal school for men teachers who shall begin to rule with such character, at the beginning of the next term of 1893-94 are provisionally approved.

Let it be communicated, proclaimed, and information thereof given to the ministry of the colonies for its approval.

Blanco

REGULATIONS OF THE SUPERIOR NORMAL SCHOOL FOR MEN TEACHERS

Of the object of the superior normal school

Article 1. The object of the superior normal school for men teachers in Manila is to serve as a seminary for teachers who may take charge of the schools of primary instruction in the archipelago.

Art. 2. The pupils shall be resident and subject to one and the same rule and discipline. For the present the previous entrance examination shall allow the entrance of day pupils provided that their number does not exceed sixty the first year, and if their antecedents give hope that they can pursue their studies to advantage and that their conduct will be such that it corresponds to the good name of the institution.

Art. 3. [This article is equivalent to Art. 3 of the regulations of December 20, 1863 for the normal school; see ante, p. 86.]

Of the studies and their duration

Art. 4. The teaching in the normal school shall include two grades--elementary and superior. The adequate teaching for the acquisition of certificate of teacher of elementary primary instruction shall be distributed over three terms, and one term more shall complete the teaching required for the superior teacher's certificate. The scholars who are candidates for the certificate of teachers of elementary primary teaching must have studied and passed in the following branches:

Christian doctrine explained, in three courses.

Elements of sacred history, comprising two courses.

Castilian language, with exercises of composition and analysis, according to the four parts of the grammar, three courses.

Theory and practice in reading, two courses.

Theory and practice in writing, two courses.

Arithmetic, two courses.

Principles of geometry and surveying, one course.

Principles of geography and history for España and Filipinas, one course.

Principles of agriculture, one course.

Elements of pedagogy, one course.

Rules of etiquette, one course.

Elements of lineal and figure drawing, three courses.

Lessons in vocal and instrumental music, three courses.

Gymnastics, three courses.

The courses in catechism, sacred history, reading, writing, Castilian language, arithmetic, and geometry shall have lessons daily; every other day, geography, history, surveying, and pedagogy; bi-weekly the course in etiquette.

There shall be daily lessons in the academies of music, gymnastics, and drawing.

In order to obtain a teacher's certificate of elementary primary instruction, besides having passed in the branches belonging to the three above-mentioned courses, a revalida examination shall be demanded after having passed the examinations of the last course.

In order to obtain a superior teacher's certificate, one is required: 1--to have obtained the mark of excellent in the revalida examinations for the teacher's certificate of elementary primary instruction; 2--to have taken the increased course in pedagogy, and in addition the legislation in force in regard to primary instruction in Filipinas; 3--principles of religion and ethics, universal history, algebra, industry, commerce, and the ordinary phenomena of nature.

Art. 5. [Equivalent to Art. 5 of the regulations of 1863; see ante, p. 87.]

Art. 6. During the last six months of the third course, the pupils shall have practical experience in teaching, by teaching in the classes of the practice school annexed to the normal school established by article 3.

Pupils may not pass from one course to another without proving their fitness in the general examination which shall be held at the end of each year.

An extraordinary examination shall be given to the pupils of the third course, who have not for any reason passed in the ordinary examination at the end of the course.

Art. 7. The teachers of superior primary instruction may select by competition the término schools of the first and second class; and in the contests which are held they shall be preferred in the management, as regular appointees, of the ascenso schools.

Art. 8. The pupils of the normal school, who shall have completed their studies in the elementary course for teachers, having passed their final examinations in proof of their courses, before receiving the teachers' certificates of elementary primary instruction, shall be obliged to stand another examination which shall be called the revalida examination; and in their certificates shall be noted the honorable marks which they shall have merited in said examination.

Teachers who shall have obtained the mark of excellent in the revalida examination, shall be empowered to continue their studies, and to become candidates for the superior teacher's certificate, and can also take regular charge of ascenso schools.

Those who shall not have obtained the mark of excellent in the revalida examination, but that of good or fair, shall also receive teachers' certificates, with the corresponding note, and shall be empowered to take charge of entrada schools. Those who shall have failed in said examinations, if, after the exercise has been repeated, they merit approval, shall receive certificates as teachers of entrada.

Of the pupils of the normal school

Art. 9. Both the resident pupils of the normal school, and the day pupils shall have the following qualifications for admission: 1--they must be natives of the Spanish domains; 2--be fully thirteen years old, this requirement to be proved by baptismal certificate or any other equivalent public document; 3--not suffer any contagious disease, and enjoy sufficient health to discharge the duties peculiar to the charge of teacher; 4--have observed good deportment and prove same by certification of the parish priest of the village of their birth and residence; 5--speak Castilian, know the Christian doctrine, read and write well, know something of Castilian grammar, as far as the regular verbs, inclusive, and the four fundamental operations of arithmetic. All of this shall be exacted in a previous examination held before a tribunal designated by the director.

Art. 10. Only those young men who have the qualifications demanded of the resident pupils, namely, that they live in Manila, or its environs, under the care of their parents, or the charge of a guardian, shall be admitted as day pupils, and in such conditions that one can assume that they have examples of virtue and morality at the domestic hearth. School supplies shall be given to this class of pupils free of charge, if they are poor.

Of the director, teachers, and dependents of the normal school

Art. 11. [The same as Art. 15, of the regulations of December 20, 1863. See ante, pp. 91, 92.]

Art. 12. Under the authority of the director there shall be at least six teachers, besides one instructor in drawing, one for vocal music, and one for gymnastics; three assistants, and the number of servants and dependents necessary for the school. One of the teachers shall be at the same time the spiritual instructor of the school, and shall have charge of the direction of the pupils and of presiding over religious ceremonies. Under his peculiar charge shall also be the lessons in sacred history, ethics, and religion. Another of the teachers shall discharge the special duties of prefect of morals, whose principal occupation shall be to accompany the pupils and watch over them in the interior matters of the life of the institution. The other four teachers shall be occupied chiefly in the teaching of other matters.

The classes in vocal music, drawing, and gymnastics, shall be daily and last one hour. A superior término teacher of the first grade shall be appointed for the practice school which is joined to the superior normal school, and he shall guide it under the supervision of the director.

Art. 13. The salary to be received by the director, instructors, assistants, and dependents, as well as the expenses for equipment and the rent of a building, shall be assigned annually in the budgets of the local funds of the islands, in the proper chapter and article.

Of examinations

Art. 14. There shall be a review of all matters studied during that period at the end of each month in each of the classes of the normal school. Every three months there shall be private examinations of all the matters studied during that time, with qualifications and promulgation of the marks obtained by each pupil. A general examination shall be held at the end of the term. This exercise shall be public and shall be held in the presence of the authorities and persons of distinction of the capital, and shall close with the proclamation and distribution of rewards.

Of holidays and vacations

Art. 15. The holidays for the normal school shall be Sundays, Thursdays, feast days, Ash Wednesday, the day commemorated to the faithful dead, and also the saints' days and anniversary birthdays of their Majesties and the prince of Asturias, and the saint's day of the governor general of the archipelago.

The short vacations shall extend from Christmas eve to January 2, and the three carnival days. During said vacations the resident pupils shall remain in the institution.

The long vacations shall last from the close of the examinations at the end of the term in the second fortnight of the month of March until the first day of June. Resident pupils shall pass the period of the long vacations with their families.

Concerning rewards and punishments

Art. 16. The merit of pupils shall be recompensed with honorable marks which shall be entered in the book of the institution, and with annual prizes, whose solemn distribution shall take place at the close of the public examinations.

Art. 17. Punishments shall consist of public censure, deprivation of recess, and separation from the other pupils, and if this is not sufficient, definitive expulsion from the school. Expulsion shall take place irremissibly for the cause of contagious disease, for remarkable laziness, lack of application, and for serious lack of respect toward the teachers, and for bad deportment or depraved morals.

Art. 18. The public reading of the marks of good deportment, application, and progress, shall also serve as reward; and as punishment shall also serve the reading of the contrary marks. This shall be done every three months, assembling for that purpose all the pupils in one place, with their teachers, under the presidency of the director.

Of the interior regulations of the school

Art. 19. [This article is the same as Art. 23 of the regulations of 1863; see ante, p. 94.]

Of textbooks

Art. 20. [This article, consisting of two paragraphs, is equivalent to Art. 24 of the regulations of 1863, except that it reads "general government" where the latter reads "superior civil government."]

Concerning special examinations for obtaining assistants' certificates

Art. 21. Examinations shall be held four times each year in the normal school for the obtaining of assistants' certificates. Those who present themselves for the said examinations shall have the qualifications established in art. 9, for those who desire to enter the school. They shall be conversant with some of the matters established in art. 4, in regard to the subjects suitable for the acquisition of teachers' certificates of elementary primary instruction, according to the schedule approved by the superior government. Such examinations shall be public, and shall be held before the directors and teachers of the normal school.

Art. 22. [The same as Art. 26 of the regulations of 1863. See ante, p. 95.]

Of the issuing of teachers' and assistants' certificates

Art. 23. The General Division of Civil Administration has the right of issuing certificates as superior elementary and assistant teachers, at the recommendation of the director of the normal school.

Art. 24. [The same as Art. 28 of the regulations of 1863. See ante, p. 95.]

Of the competitive examinations to obtain a regular appointment in the término schools of first and second grades.

Art. 25. The vacant término schools of the first and second grades shall be supplied by competitive examinations. Such competitive examinations shall be held whenever the General Division of Civil Administration considers it necessary.

Competitive examinations shall be announced three months beforehand, and all those who shall have obtained a teacher's certificate for superior primary instruction shall be entitled to participate in them.

Art. 26. The examinations shall take place before a tribunal composed of five judges, appointed by the director from among the instructors of the normal school, and shall be ruled by an official schedule drawn up by the same persons, and approved by the superior government. In that schedule shall be contained the matters of the studies peculiar to the teaching profession.

Art. 27. The examination exercises shall be oral and written.

The oral exercises shall consist:

1. In the reply to questions chosen by lot in regard to religion and ethics, pedagogy, Castilian grammar, arithmetic, principles of geography, history of España and the world, principles of algebra and geometry, principles of physics and natural history, and principles of agriculture. Questions in each one of these matters shall be prepared for this purpose in distinct lists, and numbered tickets shall be placed in an urn. The competitor shall draw three tickets, and after reading the questions on religion and ethics for those same numbers, shall reply to at least one of them. Then he shall draw three other tickets for the examination in pedagogy; and so on, for the examination in the other studies. In the drawing of the questions for each subject, there shall always be twenty-five tickets. The questions which are answered shall be replaced by others.

2. In the explanation concerning the capacity of children, in a point relative to any of the subjects above named, the competitor shall read in a textbook of the schools the bit that shall be indicated by one of the examining judges, and shall proceed with the book closed to the explanation of what he has read.

3. In reading from a printed book and a manuscript.

4. In writing on the oilskin the sentence dictated by one of the judges, and then giving the grammatical and logical analysis of the same.

Written exercises shall consist:

1. In writing a page of capital letters according to the system of Iturzaeta on the ruled paper given for that purpose, for which each competitor shall cut the pen which he shall use immediately before the exercise.

2. In writing at the same dictation a composition in Castilian, which shall not be less than one page long, on a subject assigned by the tribunal.

3. In solving in writing the arithmetical problems which shall previously have been agreed on by the judges.

Paper bearing the stamp of the normal school, and the rubric of the president of the tribunal, and a writing desk, shall be furnished to the competitors for all their exercises.

The first exercise shall last an hour and a half, from the time when everything necessary for the same is ready. One hour shall be granted for the second, and for the third the period deemed advisable by the director.

In the marking of the first exercise, attention shall be paid only to the caligraphy, and in the third to the solution of the problems. In the second the writing, spelling, and especially the construction shall be marked.

All the competitors shall perform at one and the same time each one of the written exercises under the eyes of the members of the tribunal, and placed so that they cannot aid one another. The competitors shall not be allowed to consult any book or writing for the second and third exercises. After the time assigned for each one of the exercises, the competitor shall sign his paper and hand it to the president or his substitute.

Art. 28. In case of tie in the exercises between two or more competitors, consideration shall be given to the marks of the certificate, to the years of experience, and to the greater merit contracted in the practice of teaching.

Art. 29. The schools obtained by competition shall be governed permanently by the teachers who obtained them, and such teachers shall be entitled to the emoluments prescribed in the budgets corresponding to their rank.

Art. 30. The competitors who shall not, however, have passed those examinations, shall be preferred to those of their own class who, although they have the same marks in their certificates, shall not have obtained approbation in such exercises.

Manila, November 10, 1893. Approved.

Blanco

SCHOOL LEGISLATION, 1863-1894

Plan of primary instruction in Filipinas. See ante, pp. 76-86.

Normal Schools

December 20, 1863. Regulations for the normal school for men teachers. See ante, pp. 86-95.

July 22, 1864. Royal order, declaring a ticket for the passage of the Jesuit fathers assigned to the normal school of Manila.

November 24, 1864. Decree of the superior civil government, in which are dictated some precautionary measures for the installation of the normal school. The number of regular resident pupils is fixed with expression of those who belong to each province of the archipelago in proportion to the respective census of the village, and that of supernumerary resident pupils. Admissions of petitions of candidates for this class of appointments and matriculation for day pupils is declared open.

November 29, 1864. Circular of the superior civil government, directed to the chiefs of the provinces and of the districts, dictating rules for the provision of the places of regular resident pupils in the normal school for men teachers in Manila.

January 19, 1865. Royal order, approving the allowances for Jesuit fathers and brothers of the normal school, and for equipment of the same.

May 30, 1865. Royal order no. 175, of the ministry of the colonies, approving all the measures adopted by the superior civil government for the inauguration of the normal school for men teachers, and expressing the pleasure with which her Majesty saw the zeal manifested in the installation of said institution.

July 17, 1865. Decree of the superior civil government, ordering that the corporals and sergeants of the army who so desire be admitted into the normal school for men teachers.

March 13, 1866. Decree of the superior civil government, dictating rules for the establishment of a school of primary instruction for boys in the normal school for men teachers.

June 25, 1866. Royal order, no. 293, of the ministry of the colonies, naming the sum of ten pesos per month as the board for resident pupils of the normal school for men teachers, and reducing the regular places to forty.

December 24, 1866. Decree of the superior civil government, ruling that the vacancies of regular resident pupils of the normal school for men teachers be filled by the pupils who attend the school of primary instruction, established within the normal school, and by others who may solicit them.

March 22, 1869. Decree of the superior civil government, arranging that the term in the normal school for men teachers begin in June and end in March, the examinations being held in the latter month.

December 2, 1870. Order of the supreme government, modifying article 4 of the regulations of the normal school for men teachers, of December 20, 1863; and arranging that the fees for matriculation in the normal school be reduced to six escudos per study.

November 23, 1871. Project of regulations for a normal school for women teachers in Filipinas.

January 11, 1872. Royal order, ruling that the girls' school of Nueva-Cáceres be erected into a normal school and seminary for women teachers.

June 14, 1872. Decree of the superior civil government, reducing the places for regular resident pupils of the normal school for men teachers in Manila to thirty.

May 26, 1873. Order of the executive authority, authorizing the one hundred villages of the diocese of Nueva-Cáceres to each send a young woman to the girls' school in said city, so that such young women may afterward direct the schools in their respective villages.

May 4, 1874. Decree of the superior civil government, ordering that no petition be sent to it for entrance into the normal school for men teachers without the requisites prescribed in article 9 of the organic regulations for said school, and that the petitions be sent through the medium of the provincial chiefs.

May 21, 1874. Decree of the superior civil government, reducing the number of places for regular resident pupils of the normal school for men teachers in Manila to twenty.

July 28, 1874. Decree of the general government, reducing the number of places for resident pupils of the normal school for men teachers in Manila to fifteen.

August 17, 1874. Decree of the general government, ordering that those pupils of the normal school for men teachers who have twenty voluntary failures of attendance, or thirty involuntary, be stricken from the list.

June 9, 1875. Decree of the general government, constituting in the normal school for women teachers of primary education the school of Santa Isabel of the city and diocese of Nueva-Cáceres.

June 19, 1875. Decree of the general government, approving, with the character of ad interim, the regulations for the normal school for women teachers of primary education in the diocese of Nueva-Cáceres. See this decree, as well as the regulations for the school, ante, pp. 142-160.

June 30, 1875. Circular of the government, directed to the governors of the provinces of the diocese of Nueva-Cáceres because of the inauguration of the normal school for women teachers in that city.

April 2, 1878. Decree of the general government, approving the examinations held in September and December, 1877, in the normal school for women teachers in Nueva-Cáceres, and ordering that a teacher's certificate be sent to those pupils examined.

June 22, 1880. Royal order of the ministry of the colonies, creating the chair of the elements employed in the normal school for men teachers in Manila, and ordering that a permanent sum of money be assigned in the budget for this consideration.

September 27, 1880. Royal order, no. 875, of the ministry of the colonies, approving the definitive institution of the normal school for women teachers in Nueva-Cáceres and the regulations of the same, which were approved in the character of ad interim, by superior decree, June 19, 1875.

September 27, 1880. Royal order, no. 880, of the ministry of the colonies, ordering that twenty-five copies of the regulations approved by royal order, number 875, of the same date for the normal school for women teachers in Nueva-Cáceres, be sent to it.

March 11, 1892. Royal decree, creating in Manila a normal school for women teachers in charge of the Augustinian nuns of the Assumption established in the royal school of Santa Isabel in Madrid. See this royal decree, as well as the royal order following, and the regulations, ante, pp. 160-210.

May 15, 1893. Announcement of the superior normal school for women teachers, published in the Gaceta, giving information of the opening for matriculation in that institution, the requirements for obtaining it, the fees to be paid for it, and the material for the entrance examination.

November 3, 1893. Decree of the general government, creating the post of professor of the practice school established in the normal school for men teachers in Manila.

November 10, 1893. Decree of the general government, elevating to the grade of superior the normal school for men teachers in Manila, and approving provisionally the new regulations of that school. See this decree, with following regulations, ante, pp. 210-228.

December 1, 1893. Decree of the general government, extending to the superior normal school for women teachers the powers which the General Division of Civil Administration has over that for men teachers.

December 15, 1893. Decree of the general government, dictating orders supplementary to the superior decree of November 10, 1893, and to the regulations of the superior normal school for men teachers approved on the same date.

January 30, 1894. Royal order, no. 135, of the ministry of the colonies, authorizing the continuance in the institution of the regular resident pupils of the normal school for men teachers in Manila until the completion of their course.

January 30, 1894. Royal order, no. 136, of the ministry of the colonies, ordering that the rent of the house occupied by the normal school for men teachers in Manila be paid from the budget of the local funds.

February 23, 1894. Decree of the general government, creating a pedagogical academy in the superior normal school for men teachers in Manila.

April 18, 1894. Royal order, no. 280, of the ministry of the colonies, approving the superior decree which elevated to the rank of superior the normal school for men teachers in Manila; the new regulations for the same; the supplementary orders dictated by the superior decree of December 15, 1893; and the appointment of a professor of the practice school established in it.

April 30, 1894. Announcement of the superior normal school for men teachers published in the Gaceta, naming date and conditions for the entrance examinations into that institution, as well as for the examinations of assistants, and for the extraordinary examinations for the term of 1893-94.

June 15, 1894. Decree of the general government, modifying article 4 of the superior decree of November 10, 1893, which declared the normal school for men teachers in Manila to be a superior school; and article 2 of the decree of December 15, of the same year.

July 20, 1894. Decree of the general government, approving the organic regulations of the pedagogical academy of the superior formal school for men teachers in Manila; with citation of regulations.

August 17, 1894. Decree of the general government, declaring that the pupils of the normal school who have not passed in their examinations for confirmation which they have to take in order to obtain the teacher's certificate of elementary primary instruction, have sufficient aptitude to receive an assistant teacher's certificate.

Schools of primary instruction

December 20, 1863. Regulations for the schools and teachers of primary instruction for the natives of the Philippine Archipelago. See these regulations, as well as the interior regulations of the same date, and the decree of the superior civil government of February 15, 1864, approving the regulations for the municipal girls' school of Manila, with citation of regulations, ante, pp. 96-125.

March 15, 1864. Decree of the superior civil government, appointing the members of the Superior Board of Primary Instruction.

May 17, 1864. Circular of the superior civil government, addressed to the provincial and district chiefs, giving rules for the better establishment of the plan for primary instruction established by royal decree of December 20, 1863, and the regulations of the same date.

June 20, 1864. Royal order, prescribing the model for the staff and equipment of the municipal school for girls in Manila.

October 19, 1864. Decree of the superior civil government, authorizing the Conference of St. Stanislas Kostka [70] of the Society of St. Vincent of Paul, to establish a school for primary instruction for boys in the suburbs of San Sebastian of Manila.

December 2, 1864. Decree of the superior civil government, in regard to the special organization and powers of the provincial commission of primary instruction in Manila.

March 1, 1865. Circular of the superior civil government, ordering the provincial and district chiefs to send two reports of the villages of the territory under their charge, in which schools for boys and girls could be established, determining their respective category in accordance with the accompanying models.

January 6, 1866. Royal order, approving the expense of 250 escudos, charged to the local funds for defraying the expenses of the prizes of the girls of the municipal school who show most progress in their examination.

March 1, 1866. Decision of the superior civil government, ordering the director of the normal school for men teachers in Manila to assign an examination for assistant teachers for the first days in June of that year.

March 23, 1866. Decree of the superior civil government, fixing at one escudo per month the quota which must be paid by the children of wealthy families who attend the school of primary instruction established in the normal school for men teachers in Manila.

January 20, 1867. Decree of the superior civil government, prescribing the rank of boys' schools according to the number of inhabitants in each village.

February 15, 1867. Circular of the superior civil government, to the provincial and district chiefs, in regard to the dwelling house for the men teachers, construction and repair of buildings for schools, and purchase of furniture and equipment for the same.

February 16, 1867. Decree of the superior civil government, ordering that the local funds pay the men teachers one peso per year for each boy who attends the writing class, for school supplies and equipment.

June 22, 1867. Decree of the superior civil government, prescribing when it shall proceed to establish in the villages schools for girls; and in regard to the appointment of women teachers to take charge of them.

August 12, 1867. Circular of the superior civil government, to the provincial and district chiefs, determining that they shall send monthly reports of the number of boys attending the schools.

August 30, 1867. Circular of the superior civil government, giving rules for the good discharge of school supervision. See this circular, ante, pp. 125-142.

October 30, 1867. Circular of the superior civil government, ordering the provincial chiefs to have the gobernadorcillos proclaim and, moreover, affix to the street corners and in the courts, an edict whose purpose is to stimulate school attendance and the teaching of Castilian; with citation of edict.

November 5, 1867. Royal order, creating a girls' school under the advocacy of Santa Isabel in Nueva-Cáceres, in charge of the sisters of charity, under the supervision of the reverend bishop of the diocese.

November 12, 1867. Decree of the superior civil government, ordering that those who pass in the examinations for substitute women teachers and do not obtain a place for lack of vacancies, be authorized to occupy the first vacancy which occurs.

January 4, 1868. Circular of the superior civil government, recommending the provincial chiefs to send monthly reports of school attendance, and charging them to arouse the zeal of the provincial and the local commissions of primary instruction, so that Castilian may be taught in the schools.

March 14, 1868. Decree of the superior civil government, revising article 26 of the school regulations, so that married women of any age and single women after they have reached the age of twenty years may be appointed teachers.

March 14, 1868. Decree of the superior civil government, ordering that publication of works in the dialects of the country, with the exception of prayer and devotional books and others similar to them, be only permitted when they are printed in two texts, namely, in the dialects and in Castilian, and that such books shall never be assigned for use in the schools.

April 26, 1868. Circular decree of the superior civil government, in regard to the examinations of substitute men teachers; and approval of the regulations of the same, with citation of regulations.

July 18, 1868. Circular of the superior civil government, ordering the publication in the Gaceta of a statistical report [ensayo] of the schools; and charging the provincial chiefs to send monthly reports showing the number of children present in the same, and stating that Castilian is taught in the same.

August 4, 1868. Statutes for the college-school of Santa Isabel in the city of Nueva-Cáceres.

Título I. Creation, object, and dependency of the college school.

Título II. Of the school of primary instruction for day-school girls; their admission, studies, school hours, and holidays.

Título III. Of the college and of the resident scholars. Object of the college, conditions for admission therein, clothing, board, and food.

Título IV. Interior life of the scholars.

Título V. Studies; distribution of time.

Título VI. Of the frequency of sacraments, attendance, spiritual exercises, holidays, vacations, and absences.

September 2, 1868. Decree of the secretary of the superior civil government, publishing by order of his Excellency in the Gaceta a pastoral of his Excellency, the bishop of Nueva-Cáceres, in which the latter urges the parish priests of his diocese to observe very earnestly the duties imposed upon them by the legislation in force for the education of children and the progress of schools.

September 4, 1868. Circular of the superior civil government, to the provincial and district chiefs, charging them that the respective documents accompany recommendations for the issuing of certificates to teachers, and show the pay, between the fixed maximum and minimum in each case, which ought to be granted them.

September 4, 1868. Decree of the superior government, ordering that petitions for money in order to satisfy the rent of the house for men teachers, school equipment, etc., be sent to the sub-intendancy of ways and means.

September 22, 1868. Circular of the superior civil government, to the provincial and district chiefs, recommending to them the exact fulfilment of the circular and regulation for substitute men teachers of April 26 of the same year; that they compel the children of wealthy families to go to school and pay the teacher the prescribed fee; that they contrive to have edifices built for the schools in the villages where there are teachers; and that they inform the latter of their obligation to supply necessary free equipment for writing to the pupils, granting to the substitute as to the normal teachers, one peso annually for said expenses, so that they may be able to exact from them this obligation.

September 30, 1868. Decree of the superior civil government, ordering that substitute teachers be furnished with their corresponding certificates.

October 24, 1868. Decree of the superior civil government, ordering that in case of insolvency, the same methods be employed for the collection of the quotas to be paid by the wealthy pupils to the teachers, that are used for the realization of the public imposts.

October 27, 1868. Decree of the superior civil government, ordering that pupils may attend schools of primary instruction until the age of eighteen, voluntary attendance being from the age of fourteen.

August 5, 1869. Decree of the superior civil government, conferring a commission upon the member of the Superior Board of Primary Instruction, Don José Patricio Clemente, so that he may enter upon an extraordinary visit of supervision of all the public and private institutions of primary education of the province of Manila.

July 16, 1870. Circular of the superior civil government, ordering that when the teachers ask leave to attend to their own affairs or because of a proved illness, they present paid substitutes for themselves.

July 20, 1870. Decree of the superior civil government, ordering that for the lack of assistants with circular, substitute assistants may be appointed for the schools that have more than eighty pupils, by the provincial and district chiefs, at the recommendation of the local supervisors, after conferring with the respective teachers. They shall be given eight escudos per month without right to any other fee.

September 13, 1870. Decree of the superior civil government, ordering that the women teachers shall be paid one peso per year from the local funds for each girl that attends the class in writing, for school equipment.

November 5, 1870. Circular of the superior civil government, recommending the provincial chiefs to request the necessary money for the payment of the teachers from the time that they begin their duties, their salaries, rental for their dwelling house and other emoluments.

December 2, 1870. Order, no. 1179, of the ministry of the colonies, approving the commission conferred by the superior civil government of these islands on Don José Patricio Clemente, for a tour of inspection of the schools of primary teaching in the province of Manila.

December 5, 1870. Order of the supreme government, decreeing the appointment of a board ad interim of public instruction, and decree of "cúmplase" [71] of the superior civil government, dated February 23, 1871, in which the above board is appointed.

December 7, 1870. Decree of the superior civil government, authorizing the establishment of a free school of primary instruction for girls, in charge of the sisters of charity in the school of Purísima Concepción [i.e., the most pure conception] installed in the site called La Concordia.

December 17, 1870. Decree of the superior civil government, prescribing that men and women teachers are entitled to receive their salary from the day on which they prove by means of the local supervisors that they have presented themselves and taken charge of the school which they have obtained.

February 23, 1871. Decree of the superior civil government, dissolving the Superior Board of Primary Instruction and ordering that all the antecedent decrees in its possession be surrendered to the ad interim Board of Public Instruction.

March 2, 1871. Decree of the superior civil government, ordering that the ad interim Board of Public Instruction of these islands, apply so far as may be possible, the regulations approved January 26, 1867, for the island of Cuba; with citation of regulation.

March 4, 1871. Decree of the superior civil government, ordering the publication of the plan of studies dictated for the island of Cuba, July 15, 1863, with commands to observe it, so far as might be possible and applicable. Title of the above-cited plan referring to primary education.

April 27, 1871. Royal order of the ministry of the colonies, prescribing the sums which must be paid for the installation of the girls' school of Santa Isabel established in Nueva-Cáceres.

May 7, 1871. Decree of the superior civil government, in regard to the creation of schools and procedures which must be followed by the documents which are drawn up for this purpose; the formation of reports of the existing schools; the establishment of classes for adults and allowances for the teachers for this extraordinary work; the teaching of the Castilian language; supervision of the schools; examinations of the same and rewards for the teachers and pupils who distinguish themselves in them; the pay of the teachers; construction of schools and dwellings for them; material and equipment which the schools must have; compulsory attendance at them; the teaching of Castilian; charge that teaching be free to the poor; exact pay for the teachers.

June 12, 1871. Decree of the superior civil government, ordering that the men and women teacher substitutes be given their corresponding certificates.

July 1, 1871. Decree of the superior civil government, prescribing the textbooks which are to be used in the public schools of primary instruction.

July 19, 1871. Decree of the superior civil government, explaining article 14, of the seventh of May, of this year, relative to the pay of monthly quota by the presence at the school of the wealthy children.

August 26, 1871. Decree of the superior civil government, determining that the rights prescribed in articles 13, 14, and 15, of the seventh of May, of this year, alone be granted, and extended to the teachers graduating from the normal school, and to the substitutes examined with certificates.

September 26, 1871. Decree of the superior civil government, recommending to the provincial commissions of primary instruction, strictness in the examinations of substitute teachers, and that the mark which each one shall merit be placed in the minutes of examination.

October 9, 1871. Decree of the superior civil government, ordering that no petition be admitted asking for permission to print and annotate the text in these islands of works of different nature, whether literary or devoted to public instruction, unless such is directed by the proprietors or authors themselves or by those who are fully authorized by such.

October 12, 1871. Royal order of the ministry of the colonies, asking the superior civil government of these islands for the names of the teachers who distinguished themselves by their zeal for the good of teaching, their intelligence and power to work, in order to inform the Ministry of Public Works [Fomento], so that, if it deems it advisable, it may reward them as those of the Peninsula, by sending them collections of books for the formation of popular libraries.

January 13, 1872. [72] Circular of the superior civil government, arousing the zeal of provincial and local authorities, and the parochial clergy so that they may urge forward the propagation and progress of primary teaching and the construction of ways of communication.

February 14, 1872. Decree of the superior civil government, ordering that the president of the provincial commission of primary instruction in Manila be present at all the meetings held by the commission, with power to delegate for other urgent occupation his authority to the most important member of the ayuntamiento; that two members of the ayuntamiento be present as members [of the board]; that the secretary of the civil government of the province be a member ex-officio of said commission; that announcements be published for the convocation to a meeting; and that such meeting may be held by the president, three members, and the secretary.

September 30, 1872. Decree of the superior civil government, granting to the provincial and district chiefs, right of participation in the taking of possession and leaving by the teachers of primary instruction.

February 21, 1873. Decree of the superior civil government, in regard to the salaries of teachers, men and women, and their assistants.

March 12, 1873. Circular of the superior civil government, recommending that the Castilian language be taught in the schools of primary instruction.

May 27, 1873. Circular of the superior civil government, ordering that the provincial commissions of primary instruction propose the most advisable measures so that teaching may be obligatory for all and gratuitous for the poor.

May 30, 1873. Circular of the superior civil government, ordering the provincial chiefs to send a report made in accordance with the subjoined model, in which shall be given the number of villages and schools in each province, the men and women teachers who taught in them, and the number of children who attended and those who studied Castilian.

June 10, 1873. Circular of the superior civil government, charging the provincial chiefs with the exact observance of the superior decree of February 21 of the same year, in regard to the salaries of teachers and assistants.

July 26, 1873. Decree of the superior civil government, ordering the governors of the archipelago to send a detailed note of the names, qualifications, and circumstances, of the regularly-appointed teachers, who shall distinguish themselves most in each province, in order that he may recommend them to the government of his Majesty, so that if he considers it well he may reward them with popular libraries according to the royal order of October 12, 1871.

October 10, 1873. Decree of the superior civil government, charging the provincial supervisors of primary instruction to acquire a Quadro sinóptico de las islas Filipinas [i.e., Synoptical chart of the Filipinas Islands] by Don Leon Salcedo, for teaching in the schools.

September 9, 1874. Decree of the general government, prescribing that appointments, issuing of certificates, licenses, promotions, and other things belonging to those functionaries, as well as in general all the affairs of government and progress, belong to the General Division of Civil Administration.

September 24, 1874. Decree of the general government, ordering that the vice-presidency of the ad interim Board of Public Instruction be held by the director general of civil administration.

March 31, 1875. Decree of the general government, ordering the provincial chiefs to construct schools and dwelling-houses for the teachers.

October 29, 1875. Royal order, no. 648, of the ministry of the colonies, copying the royal decree of the same date, in which among other extremes, referring to secondary education and to superior education, the powers entrusted to the ad interim Board of Public Instruction be declared ended.

January 15, 1876. Decree of the general government, declaring at an end the powers entrusted to the ad interim Board of Public Instruction.

January 15, 1876. Decree of the general government, ordering among other extremes bearing on secondary and superior education, that the matters referring to public and private instruction be managed and despatched by the general government in its functions of civil administration, and that the Superior Board of Primary Instruction be called Superior Board of Public Instruction of Filipinas, with the organization which is prescribed.

May 17, 1876. Royal order, no. 388, of the ministry of the colonies, ordering that the zeal of persons conversant with the various dialects of the archipelago be stimulated, so that a grammar may be compiled in each dialect for the teaching of the Castilian language in the schools of primary letters, for the purpose of obtaining the diffusion of said language; and that, with like object, the reforms which it is advisable to introduce in legislation in regard to primary instruction, be proposed.

June 7, 1876. Royal order, no. 324, of the ministry of the colonies, ordering among other extremes referring to secondary and superior education, that the Superior Board of Primary Instruction be reestablished in the manner prescribed in article 15 of the royal decree of December 20, 1863.

July 22, 1876. Circular of the general government, giving rules for the observance of royal order, no. 388, of May 17, of the same year.

August 16, 1876. Decree of the general government, reëstablishing the Superior Board of Primary Instruction, and designating the persons who were to compose it.

June 5, 1877. Royal order of the ministry of the colonies, approving the preceding decree.

September 10, 1878. Circular of the General Division of Civil Administration to the provincial chiefs, ordering them to furnish localities for the schools, either by renting or constructing buildings; that the teachers be paid their salaries and fees promptly; that a proof report, in accordance with the subjoined form, be sent of the situation of each province, to the department of primary instruction; and that the petitions of the teachers, asking for some favor or demanding their salary, be sent to said center with the fitting information.

November 6, 1878. Royal order, decreeing that instructors of primary education in the colonies be paid half their salary during the time that they are on leave in the Peninsula for sickness, and the other half to those who act as substitutes for them.

May 20, 1879. Royal order of the ministry of the colonies, in which is shown the pleasure with which his Majesty heard that a boys' school had been started in Nueva-Cáceres, at the expense of the reverend bishop of the diocese.

July 14, 1880. Royal order, no. 625, of the ministry of the colonies, in regard to places for the taking of possession by the teachers, transfers, cessation of duties, and licenses that the same may enjoy.

July 14, 1880. Royal order, no. 668, of the ministry of the colonies, ordering that the provincial chiefs proceed to the construction of edifices for schools, with dwelling-houses for the teachers, by making use of the personal services [of the natives]; charging the gobernadorcillos of the villages with the keeping and conservation of the equipment; paying the expenses with the amount of a fourth part of the fee paid to the teachers by well-to-do children; ordering that the teachers be paid monthly a sum equal to the fourth part of their salary for school equipment; imposing on them the obligation to keep an inventory book of the apparatus and equipment of their respective schools, as well as other books of matriculation and daily attendance; ordering that the General Division of Civil Administration make annually at auction the purchase of the necessary school supplies; and dictating other important measures for the purchase, distribution, and conservation of school equipment and supplies.

September 1, 1880. Circular of the General Division of Civil Administration, animating the provincial chiefs to contrive to have Castilian taught in the schools by all the means in their power.

October 5, 1881. Circular of the secretary of the royal Audiencia of Manila, communicating the decision of the entire tribunal of September 23, of the same year, by which it is ordered that the judges of first instance may avail themselves for written recognizances of the [services of] men teachers with certificates who have graduated from the normal school.

December 27, 1881. Decree of the General Division of Civil Administration, ordering that the boys' schools of Manila and its suburbs have a competitive contest.

March 10, 1882. Circular of the secretary of the royal Audiencia, transcribing a letter of the supreme tribunal, in which it was communicated that the government assembly of the same had approved the decision of the entire tribunal of the abovesaid Audiencia, of September 23, 1881, in reference to the fact that written recognizances be made by men teachers graduating from the normal school established in the villages.

March 24, 1882. Circular of the General Division of Civil Administration, prescribing the salaries to be received by substitute teachers without certificates.

September 12, 1883. Decree of the general government, in regard to compulsory teaching of the Castilian language in the schools; punishments of the teachers who do not keep it; annual inspection of the governors of the schools, giving account of the result in each one of them; examinations in the same, and the rewards and recompenses for the scholars and teachers who distinguish themselves in them; provision of the ascenso schools and término schools of second class for aid and correction to the parents of children from seven to twelve years old who do not attend the schools. Declaration that those employes who cannot talk, read, and write Castilian, cannot receive their prescribed pay. The provincial chiefs are ordered to send a proof report of the primary instruction in their respective territories and a secret memorandum in regard to the same matter. An assembly shall be called for a gathering, in which the authors of the best grammars written in the dialects of the country for the teaching of Castilian shall be rewarded; it is recommended to the General Division of Civil Administration that it study and recommend the increase which it is advisable to give to the pay of the teachers, and the creation of a special body of paid provincial supervisors.

September 25, 1883. Circular of the General Division of Civil Administration, sending to the provincial chiefs the form to which the proof report of primary instruction in their respective territories, which they were to make by virtue of the order in the first transitory prescription of the preceding decree, must conform.

September 25, 1883. Decree of the General Division of Civil Administration, convoking an assembly for rewarding the [authors of the] best Castilian grammars written in the principal dialects of the country for the schools, and fixing the conditions of said assembly.

October 6, 1885. Decree of the general government, granting to the original Hispano-Tagálog grammar, of the right reverend father Fray Toribio Minguella, [73] the privileges established in rule 6 of the preceding decree; holding a new assembly for the reward of Castilian grammars written in the Visayan, Cebuyan, Ilocan, Vicol, Pangasinan, or Pampango; and marking the conditions of this new assembly.

February 17, 1886. Circular of the General Division of Civil Administration, recommending to the provincial supervisors of primary instruction to immediately copy for the local reverend or learned supervisors the orders received from said center in regard to teachers.

June 30, 1887. Decree of the general government, encouraging the provincial chiefs and the reverend parish priests, to contrive by all means to have the Castilian language taught in the schools, imposing on them the obligation of personally making the tour of annual inspection, at least to the schools, and another tour by the secretaries of the [local] governments, giving account afterwards of the progress in said teaching and recommending at the same time recompenses or punishment which the teachers deserve on account of their interest or neglect.

July 11, 1887. Circular of the General Division of Civil Administration, charging the provincial chiefs with the exact observance of the orders dictated in regard to primary instruction for the purpose of having Castilian spoken in all the villages; they shall employ rigor in the examinations of substitute teachers, and be careful that the assistant substitutes who are appointed be persons suitable for teaching.

January 13, 1888. Decree of the general government, declaring a competition in the boys' término school of the first class among teachers with certificates from the normal school, who shall have had one year's practice in teaching and giving rules for the holding of said competitions; with programs for the oral examination in said competitions.

July 31, 1888. Circular of the general government, addressed to the provincial chiefs ordering that they make an extraordinary inspection of the school, after which they shall remit to the said general government the various data which are expressed, so that an exact idea of the condition of those schools may be formed.

January 16, 1889. Decree of the general government, ordering that the allowances which they receive in hard cash for school equipment be not paid to the men and women teachers; and creating a board for the purchase of said equipment, and prescribing rules for the provision of the above-mentioned supplies to the schools.

January 16, 1889. Decree of the general government, ordering that the sums which are given in coin for the rewards of the pupils, cease to be given to the teachers, and that the administrative board of school supplies created by the preceding decree, purchase in the public market for said object, primers of agriculture, and then grammars, geographies and other useful books.

January 29, 1889. Royal order, no. 75, of the ministry of the colonies, enjoining the most punctual observance of the orders dictated for obtaining the diffusion of the Castilian language among the natives of these islands, and ordering that the ministry be informed of the results of the visits, which the provincial chiefs are obliged to make to all the schools of the territory under their command, in order to be able to judge rightly the progress which is obtained, and to grant the due recompense to the teachers.

February 4, 1889. Decree of the general government, making regulations for the schools of primary instruction in the archipelago. Division of the various schools into sections and subjects which are to be taught in each one of them; copy books; textbooks; compulsory attendance at the schools; class hours; classes in religion; books of matriculation; and daily register of attendance.

February 4, 1889. Decree of the general government, approving the schedule to which the examination of regularly-appointed women teachers must conform.

February 5, 1889. Decree of the general government, prescribing rules for the construction and conservation of supplies for the schools, making use for this of the services of the personal tax, and the gratuitous cutting of timber in the public mountains, and recommending the reverend parish priests to watch over the schools and see that this decree is fulfilled.

February 9, 1889. Circular of the General Division of Civil Administration, prescribing the stamp tax which must be paid for the certificates of men and women teachers, and assistants, and for the credentials of the same.

March 5, 1889. Decree of the general government, prohibiting boys and girls in the schools from going out to receive the authorities; ordering that whenever any authority who may inspect the schools comes to the village, all the scholars of the same schools assemble therein with their respective teachers; and that the provincial governors impose a fine of ten pesos on the gobernadorcillos and teachers who infringe this decree.

March 30, 1889. Decree of the General Division of Civil Administration, communicating the decision of the superior government, in which it is ordered that the teachers be paid their salaries, house-rent, etc., in the same villages of their residence, by the gobernadorcillos, with the sums collected by imposts of the local treasury, and prescribing rules for effecting said payment.

December 14, 1889. Circular of the general government, ordering the observance of what is prescribed by articles 31 to 34 of the regulations of schools in 1863; that the teachers keep a register of matriculation and another of daily school attendance in accordance with the subjoined forms, and an inventory book giving values of the equipment and supplies in their schools; another of the books given to the children as prizes, and a blank book, in which to copy the orders dictated in regard to primary instruction; that the admission of children to the schools be preceded by a written order of the religious or learned parish priest; that the teaching be divided into the section determined by the superior decree of February 4, of this year; that the class hours be from seven to ten in the morning and from half past two to five in the afternoon; that the provincial supervisors send monthly proof reports of the schools; that the teachers may sell the textbooks which are sent them at the price fixed by the board; that they may make petitions for the supplies that they need every three months; that instruction be compulsory for children from six to twelve years old, while those from four to six and from twelve to eighteen may attend voluntarily; and that private schools be subject to the orders in force for titular schools.

June 30, 1890. Decree of the General Division of Civil Administration, recommending the observance of the circular of the general government, of December 14, 1889, and publishing it again in the Gaceta.

July 3, 1890. Circular of the General Division of Civil Administration, ordering that the copies written by the children in the schools be dated and signed by the same and conserved by the teachers.

January 16, 1891. Royal order, no. 58, of the ministry of the colonies, relating to the provincial and municipal budgets of these islands for said year, in which is ordered, among other extremes, the constitution of an administrative board of school supplies.

May 1, 1891. Decree of the general government, designating the persons, who being electors, were to form part of the administrative board of school material.

March 2, 1892. Royal order, no. 116, of the ministry of the colonies, approving the monthly allowance granted to the secretary and clerks of the administrative board of school supplies.

July 29, 1892. Decree of the general government, increasing the salaries of men and women teachers and assistants which were to be assigned in the projects of the budgets of 1893; and ordering the form of the provision of those places and the creation of territorial examining commissions of teachers in Vigan, Nueva-Cáceres, Cebú, and Jaro.

August 3, 1892. Decree of the general government, giving information that the ministry of the colonies had authorized by telegraph the increase of the salary of the teachers proposed by said government.

August 8, 1892. Decree of the general government, giving information that the ministry of the colonies had given telegraphic authorization to increase the sum for school supplies to 100,000 pesos.

August 11, 1892. Decree of the general government, granting annual allowances to men and women teachers with good marks, and more than fifteen years of service.

October 19, 1892. Decree of the general government, ordering the constitution of territorial examining commissions of teachers in Vigan, Nueva-Cáceres, Cebú, and Jaro, prescribing the persons who are to form them; as well as the creation of examining commissions, also of substitute and assistant teachers in the normal schools in Manila and Nueva-Cáceres; said commissions giving rules for examinations of substitute and assistant teachers; and ordering that the provincial commissions of primary instruction cease their duties of examining them.

December 8, 1892. Royal order of the ministry of the colonies, approving the creation of a girls' school in Yap (Carolinas).

February 27, 1893. Decree of the general government, prescribing the distribution and classification of the schools of primary instruction of the archipelago, and giving rules for their provision; with a table of distribution and classification of the schools.

February 27, 1893. Decree of the general government, approving the schedules for the examinations of men and women teachers, substitutes, and assistants of primary instruction; with schedules cited.

March 29, 1893. Decree of the general government, declaring the book entitled El pez de madera [i.e., The Wooden Fish], [74] as a textbook in reading for the public schools of the archipelago.

May 1, 1893. Decree of the General Division of Civil Administration, granting free examinations for obtaining certificates as elementary women teachers in the superior normal school for women teachers in Manila, who shall be submitted to the schedules of that institution, and only during the first two years following its installation, namely, in the courses for the years 1893-94 and 1894-95.

July 28, 1893. Decree of the General Division of Civil Administration, allowing competition between various boys' schools of the rank of término of the first and second class and término schools, and contest for boys' and girls' ascenso and entrada schools.

August 21, 1893. Decree of the General Division of Civil Administration, allowing competition in the boys' school of Bacalor (Pampanga).

August 23, 1893. Decree of the General Division of Civil Administration, continuing for a fortnight the period for the admission of petitions in the contest for teachers, decreed July 28 of the said year for the provision of ascenso and entrada schools.

August 31, 1893. Decree of the General Division of Civil Administration, continuing the time for the admission of petitions of men and women teachers who wish to take part in the competitions announced by the decree of July 28, and August 21, of the same year.

September 5, 1893. Schedules for the competitions at the girls' término schools.

September 29, 1893. Decree of the general government, in regard to the pay of salaries to teachers' assistants.

November 1, 1893. Decree of the general government, declaring a pamphlet entitled Sistema métrico decimal de pesas y medidas [i.e., Decimal Metrical System of Weights and Measures] [75] a textbook for the public schools of the archipelago.

November 24, 1893. Decree of the general government, allowing those who are more than sixteen years of age and less than twenty and have a teacher's certificate to manage schools in the character of ad interim.

May 14, 1894. Decree of the general government, declaring the book entitled Cartilla higiénica [i.e., Hygienic Primer] [76] a textbook of compulsory reading for the public schools of the archipelago.

July 20, 1894. Decree of the general government ordering two previous payments to be made for traveling expenses to men and women teachers and assistants who may be appointed to the charge of schools located in provinces distant from those in which they reside, and who petition it.

[Grifol y Aliaga's book concludes with two appendices. The first appendix contains several official documents concerning legislation in education, the titles of which are as follows:]

May 17, 1864. Circular of the superior civil government, to the provincial and district chiefs, giving rules for the better establishment of the plan of primary instruction established by royal decree of December 20, 1863, and regulations of the same date.

November 29, 1864. Circular of the superior civil government, directed to the provincial and district chiefs, dictating rules for the provision of the places of regular resident pupils of the normal school for men teachers in Manila.

May 20, 1865. Royal order, number 175, of the ministry of the colonies, approving all the measures adopted by the superior civil government for the inauguration of the normal school for men teachers, and expressing the pleasure with which her Majesty saw the zeal shown in the installation of said institution.

[The second appendix consists of an enumeration of the textbooks for the superior normal school for men teachers in Manila; for the normal school for women teachers in Manila; and for the schools of primary instruction.]

DOMINICAN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS, 1896-1897

STATISTICS OF THE STUDENTS WHO STUDIED IN THE COLLEGES OF THE DOMINICAN FATHERS IN THE YEAR 1896-1897

College and University of Santo Tomás

The college was founded by the corporation of the Dominicans in 1612, and its foundation approved by King Felipe IV, in December, 1623, [77] as appears from the Recopilación de las Indias (ley liii, título xxii, libro i). It was declared a university by brief of his Holiness, Innocent X, in 1645, and King Carlos II received it under his protection and royal patronage in 1680. Finally, King Carlos III, by a decree of March 7, 1785, conferred on it the title of Royal, giving it the titles and honors of the universities of the Spanish monarchy. The collegiates with beca (free) numbered thirty-six in 1896.

Pupils matriculated in 1896 in the different courses

Courses Degrees conferred

Course in Theology 15 2 ,, ,, Canons 7 3 ,, ,, Jurisprudence 1,298 17 ,, ,, the Profession of Notary 244 4 ,, ,, Medicine 857 8 ,, ,, Pharmacy 169 2 ,, ,, Philosophy and Letters 160 ,, ,, Sciences 54 Practitioners of Medicine 205 ,, ,, Pharmacy 38 Midwives 12 ----- ---- Total 3,059 [36]

College of San Juan de Letrán [78]

This college was founded under the title of San Pedro y San Pablo in the year 1640, for the purpose of giving primary instruction to the poor and orphaned children of Spanish parents. The most reverend master-general, Fray Tomás Turco, confirmed its erection in 1644. The provincial chapter of 1652 accepted it as a house of the province at the request of the governor-general with the approbation of the archbishop of Manila. In the year 1683, it was called the college of San Juan de Letrán, and it has been so called to our day. [79]

Course for 1896-1897

Rector and father professors 13 Brother masters of primary instruction 4 Resident [internos] collegiates 220 Half Resident ,, 50 Filipino assistants (servants) 8 --- [Total] 295

Class of day pupils

Matriculated in general studies for the bachelor's degree 5,363 Matriculated for practical studies (specialists) 337 ----- Total 5,700

Titles conferred

Bachelor of Arts 149 Professors of secondary instruction 4 Skilled agriculturalists and appraisers of lands 2 ,, merchants 17 ,, mechanics 5

College of San Alberto Magno

This college was founded by the Dominican corporation in the year 1891, in the village of Dagupan, in the province of Pangasinan. The building was from the first constructed for the purpose for which it was destined.

Course of 1896-1897

Rector and teachers 8 Brother master of primary instruction 1 Resident pupils 96 Matriculated 842 --- Total 947

School of Santa Catalina de Sena [80]

This school is directed by the Dominican sisters and was founded in 1698. In the year 1896 it had:

Nuns who acted as teachers 16 Lay sisters 15 Girls in residence 140 Servants and florists 52 --- Total 223

School of Nuestra Señora del Rosario, of Lingayén (Pangasinan)

(Founded by the corporation, in 1890)

Nuns who act as teachers 7 Resident pupils 53 Non-resident pupils 13 Servants 10 -- Total 83

School of Nuestra Señora del Rosario of Vigan (Founded in 1893)

Nuns who act as teachers 7 Pupils in residence 65 Servants 7 -- [Total] 79

School of Santa Ymelda of Tuguegarao (Cagayán) (Founded in 1892)

Nuns 8 Pupils in residence 77 Non-resident pupils 10 Half pensioners 4 Servants 11 --- [Total] 110

REPORT OF RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS, 1897

Relation of the houses and number of pupils [81] whom the sisters of charity had in a school here in Filipinas in the year 1897.

1. Here in Manila, they had all the schools which they have at present, namely, the school of La Concordia, that of Santa Ysabel, that of Santa Rosa, and that of Looban.

2. In the school of La Concordia, there were 39 sisters and 300 pupils.

In that of Santa Ysabel 14 sisters and 150 pupils.

In Santa Rosa, 11 sisters and 200 pupils.

In the school of Looban, 11 sisters and 170 collegiates.

3. In addition, they had here in Manila the military hospital, the hospital of St. John of God, the municipal school, and the hospice of San José.

In St. John of God, there were 27 sisters and 400 patients.

In the military hospital, 24 sisters and 300 patients.

In the hospice of San José, 14 sisters and 250 destitute people, counting poor, patients, and orphan children.

In the municipal school, there were 10 sisters and about 300 girls attended it. At present they still have these charitable houses with the exception of the military hospital and the municipal school.

4. Besides these houses here in Manila, they had in the provinces, the schools which they still have.

In Jaro (Iloilo), the school of San José, in which were 12 sisters and 150 scholars.

In Cebu in the same capital, the school of the Immaculate Conception, with 28 sisters and 200 scholars. They have also the hospital and the house of relief.

In Nueva Cáceres (Camarines), the school of Santa Ysabel, in which were 13 sisters and 170 scholars.

In Cavite they also had the hospital of St. John of God, and that of Cañacao. In the former were 16 sisters and 170 patients, and in the latter 16 sisters and 200 patients.

Relation of the number of pupils in the seminary schools here in Filipinas in the year 1897.

1. All the seminary schools were in charge of Paulist fathers, except that of Vigan. In the seminary of this city of Manila there were 5 fathers and 3 brothers, while the pupils or seminarists numbered about 40. In addition they had the house which they own at present, in San Marcelino. There were 6 fathers and two brothers whose efforts were devoted to propagating and extending worship, and directing as well the sisters of charity.

2. In the seminary school of Jaro, there were, in the said year, 9 fathers and 2 brothers, and about 600 pupils of whom 200 were regular.

3. In the seminary school of Cebú, there were also 9 fathers and 2 brothers resident, and the number of pupils was about 800, those resident numbering about 300.

4. In that of Nueva Cáceres there was the same number of fathers and brothers as in the seminaries of Jaro and Cebú, while the pupils numbered about 700.

[Endorsed in English: "Congregation of St. Vi[n]cent of Paul."]

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF THE RECOLLECTS

Beaterio de Santa Rita

It is located on the ground plot of San Sebastian, in a district of the same name, outside the walls of Manila, where the Augustinian Recollect fathers have a convent whose foundation dates from the year 1621, and a magnificent iron church dedicated in the year 1891, in which is venerated the miraculous image of our Lady of Carmel.

This beaterio, separated from the convent only by the portico which gives entrance to the church, was founded about the year 1730, and was due principally to our father Fray Andrés de San Fulgencio, who, acceding to the reiterated urgings and petitions of some pious women, who desired to live in retreat from the excitement of the world, built them a house, and gave them the habit of manteletas, or Tertiaries of the Augustinian order.

The preferred occupations in which those pious women who have had the good fortune to take our holy habit in this beaterio, have busied themselves, have been, and are at present, beside their own sanctification, the solid and Christian instruction and education of a certain number of girls; the cleaning and renovating of our church of San Sebastian; and the propagation of worship and devotion to our Lady of Carmel, for whom they act as the perpetual attendants.

They lead a very austere life, and one completely abstracted from the world, scarcely ever leaving the beaterio unless to go to the church, and it is a very remarkable circumstance that in the two hundred years almost, which have elapsed since their foundation, no sister who has taken the habit has abandoned it in order to return to the world.

The inspection and direction of the beaterio belong to the father prior of the convent of San Sebastian, who, with the consent of our father provincial, dictates the suitable provisions for maintaining in that holy house the spirit of piety with which it was founded.

School of San José of Bacolod, Negros

In the intermediary chapter, celebrated in the convent of Manila, October 31, 1895, the installation (in Bacolod, the capital of the island of Negros) of a college of primary and secondary instruction, was determined upon. That determination of the chapter was approved by the most reverend apostolic father, commissary-general of the order, December 18, of the same year 95. January 28, 1896, the very reverend father provincial, Fray Andrés Ferrero, now his Excellency, the bishop of Jaro, petitioned his Excellency the governor-general to have the kindness to authorize him as founder of a school of primary and secondary instruction in the province of Negros under the advocacy of San José, in which they could establish all the courses, the study of which was required in order to obtain the degree of bachelor of arts.

The superior government acceded to the petition by a decree dated February 21, of the same year, on condition of first receiving a favorable report from the very reverend father rector of the royal and pontifical university of Manila. In June of the same year they proceeded to the opening of the school of Bacolod, which was placed under the said university. The disasters that occurred in this archipelago in consequence of the insurrection, have been the cause of this school running for only two years.

Seminary school of Vigan

The corporation of Augustinian Recollects had in its charge the seminary of Vigan between the years 1882 and April, 1895. During that time various courses were added, and, in July, 1892, the complete plan of studies for secondary instruction was established in the said seminary, and it was officially placed under the university of Manila.

School of Santa Rosa

The foundation of this school having been authorized by a royal decree of September 22, 1774, its direction and government (besides that which by right belongs to the diocesan ecclesiastical authority) was committed to the senior auditor, who was afterwards called the president of the royal Audiencia. He was aided by a council of four votes. Thus it continued until December 17, 1891, in which in accordance with a royal order of October 6, of the same year, the general government of these islands appointed as president of the assembly the very reverend father provincial of the Recollects. From that time all the intervention and authority which thitherto had been held by the presidents of the royal Audiencia, were delegated to him.

The individuals composing the Administration Board are appointed by the archbishop of Manila, at the proposal of the father president. The Board informs his reverend Excellency, of the most important decisions which are made so that he may approve them.

THE FRIAR VIEWPOINT

I

EDUCATION

The truth in this matter. If the means are sufficient and efficacious, the ends will be obtained. Uniformity in the method.

There are matters of importance so transcendental in the progressive evolution of peoples, and which determine in so efficacious a manner the greater or less future and civilization of those peoples, that they cannot be less than regarded by men who govern with the most profound attention and persevering study, converting them into the object of their studies, of their zeal, and of their energies. Perhaps nothing occupies the foremost place with more reason and right than education. The desire of happiness is as natural as it is legitimate in man. That desire is so noble and elevated an aspiration, and man feels that desire in the bottom of his soul with so irresistible a force than one may say without any kind of exaggeration, that even unconsciously he is dragged along by it. Hence, every new step that he takes, every ray of light that he perceives, every unknown point that he discovers in that road, induces one to believe that it is one factor more for arrival at a safe port, one greater facility which he acquires for the attainment of that end. And since that end in man cannot be more than the highest end, hence it is that he feels in an invincible manner the necessity of its possession, which is that which constitutes the highest perfection of that privileged creature [man]. Now, then, in order to attain possession of that end, it is necessary to know it, and in order that it may have a practical result, one must know the means which conduce to it, and perfect them so that the result may be complete. Most marvelously is this trust filled by the teaching which has as its direct object the education and perfection of the faculties of man, which are the only means conducive to the knowledge and possession of God--the supreme end, hence, the highest happiness of man. Education is the object and noble finality of teaching, the unfolding and perfection of the faculties of man, both in the physical order, and in the intellectual, esthetic, and moral; to develop the physical energies, producing the most perfect health and robustness of the body, to extend the horizons of the intelligence, the greater number of points of knowledge conducing to the discovery of truth proportioning it; increasing and ennobling man's sentiments for beauty, and directing the will along the road of the good and the just, and removing it from their opposites, the evil and unjust. It is the primordial object and noblest end of every man who governs to endeavor to broaden, extend, and perfect instruction among the peoples under the control of his government and direction.

It is the most sacred duty of every gubernatorial authority to excogitate and choose the most suitable, safe, and correct methods of teaching for the attainment of so sacred an end. It cannot be even doubted that the authors of our traditional legislation for the Indias had other motives than the accuracy and rectitude in the creation of the laws concerning instruction, or other primordial end in it than the knowledge and adoration of God, the supreme end of man on earth; and as a means, the knowledge of the divine mysteries, of the revealed truths, in a word, of the Catholic religion, among the human beings of the New World. Rapid without doubt was the progress which the Catholic faith made in the immense territories of that unknown world, notwithstanding the interminable series of difficulties which our fervent missionaries, covetous to gain souls for God, were to meet in the evangelization of so many races and so numerous peoples divided by so diverse languages, which were so many other obstacles superable by their strong desire and never-satisfied zeal. In order to conquer those difficulties, and that that zeal might be more productive for the cause of religion, and more advantageous for the believers, fifty-eight years after the immortal Colón had discovered this world full of marvels, the first law was dictated in regard to the creation of schools for the teaching of Castilian, signed by Carlos V while governing at Valladolid, June 7, and reproduced July 17, 1550. Such is law xviii, título i, book vi, which reads as follows.

"Having made particular examination in regard to whether, even in the most perfect language of the Indians, the ministers of our holy Catholic faith can explain themselves well and fittingly, we have recognized that that is impossible without committing great discords and imperfections; and although chairs are founded where the priests who shall instruct the Indians may be taught, this is not a fitting remedy because of the great diversity of languages; and having resolved that it will be advantageous to introduce the Castilian language: we command teachers to be given to the Indians, in order to teach those who wish of their own accord to study it, in the way which will be of least trouble and without expense to them. It has appeared that this can be well done by the sacristans, as in the villages of these kingdoms they teach reading, writing, and the Christian doctrine."

But one can immediately understand that teachers who taught without any charge, who might be sacristans, and Indians who wished to study voluntarily, were not fitting factors to attain the most praiseworthy end which the legislator proposed to himself; and in fact it could not have given the desired result since eighty-four years afterwards, law v, título xiii, book i, was issued by Felipe IV, without indicating the means, in Madrid, March 2, 1634, and repeated two years afterward, on November 4, which reads as follows: "We ask and request the archbishops and the bishops to provide and order the curas and missionaries of the Indians in their dioceses, by the use of the mildest means, to arrange and direct that all the Indians be taught the Spanish language, and in that language the Christian doctrine, so that they may become more capable of understanding the mysteries of our holy Catholic faith and so that other advantages may be gained for their salvation, and follow in their government and method of life." The fulfilment of both laws [was] recorded by the royal decree of March 20, 1686, [82] and those laws were at the same time extended to Filipinas, since the desire of the legislator was the same in both parts, namely, "to consult upon what is the most efficacious means for destroying the idolatries incurred at present by the majority of the Indians as was true at the beginning of their conversion, etc.," as is said in the above-mentioned royal decree. From that decree one infers a wholesome instruction for Filipinas; but it is no wonder that the Filipinos have not learned Castilian, and that they abandon their primitive superstitions with difficulty, when the Americans of greater capacity than they, with greater means, with a powerful and constant stream of Christian civilization, carried by numerous missionaries, and a greater European emigration, after two centuries did not know the Castilian speech, and the majority were sunk in their idolatries, a thing which does not occur with the masses of the Filipinos, although they are not a little superstitious, a quality exhibited in more or less degree by numerous peoples of Europa after so many centuries of illumination.

For the same end and filled with the same spirit was issued the royal decree of April 16, 1770, which, like the preceding one, was also extended to Filipinas, as were also other later ones, all of which were animated by the most Christian zeal, so that the Indians might learn better the mysteries and doctrinal points of the Catholic religion, for the easier and surer salvation of their souls. Without danger of taking from these laws any valuable data, in accordance with the necessity which counsels it, let us reduce ourselves for the moment to a review of the orders given directly for Filipinas which are found in the celebrated ordinances, first in those given by Corcuera in the year 1642, revised by Cruzat in 1696, and added to by their successors. Among them is one, the 52d, of Governor-general Solis, marquis of Obando, dated October 19, 1752. Among other things that ordinance says: "Through my desires of aiding with the greatest exactness the spiritual and temporal welfare of those vassals, supplying them with all the means of acquiring and consolidating it, I have resolved to order, as by the present I do order and command, said governors, corregidors, alcaldes-mayor, and other justices of these islands, that exactly and punctually, and without interpretation or opinion, they give and cause to be given the most opportune measures, so that in the villages of their districts they demand, establish, and found, from this day forward, schools where the children of the natives and other inhabitants of their districts may be educated and taught (in primary letters in the Castilian or Spanish language), seeing to it earnestly and carefully that they study, learn, and receive education in that language and not in that of the country or any other. They shall work for its greater increase, extension, and intelligence, without consenting or allowing ... this determination to be violated, or schools of any other language to be erected or started, under penalty of five hundred [pesos?] applied in the manner decreed by this superior government.... For that purpose, and so that it may have the fullest effect, I revoke, annul, and declare of no use and value ordinance 29, which declares that Spaniards shall not be allowed to live in or remain in the villages of the Indians; for in the future they must be admitted to such residence. The alcaldes-mayor and justices shall see to it that such people live in a Christian manner and according to the commands of God; and they shall arrest, punish, and exile those who fail in this matter. This is to be understood of the schools which are to be supported and maintained at the cost of the villages themselves and of the funds which the communal treasuries shall have assigned for those of the languages of the country (for as abovesaid the latter must cease and shall cease in proportion as the schools for teaching in the Castilian language shall be built and established); and for the attainment of the duties and posts of governors and other honorable military posts it shall be a necessary qualification that those on whom they are conferred be the most capable, experienced, and clever in being able to read, talk, and write, in the above-mentioned Spanish language, and such posts must be given to such persons and not to others," etc.

In accordance with all that which is faithfully quoted in regard to this particular, is ordinance 25 of the zealous Raón in 1768, which reads as follows: "As it is very important that there be good schoolteachers for the teaching of the Indians, and as it is advisable for them to learn the Spanish language in order to know the Christian doctrine better, and since the salary of one peso and one cabán of rice, which it is the custom to give them from the communal funds each month, is very little, it is ordered that the alcaldes, with the intervention of the curas, or missionary ministers, make a computation of the salary which can be given in each village (in proportion to its tributes) to the schoolteacher, giving an account thereof to the superior government for its approval.... For, with the increase of salaries, better teachers can be had and the end of law xviii, título i, book vi, as will be related hereafter, can be better attained." This is fulfilled at greater length in ordinance or article 93, reading as follows: "In accordance with section 52 of the ancient ordinances, and 17 of those drawn up by governor Don Pedro Manuel de Arandía, it is strictly and rigorously ordered the alcaldes-mayor, and asked and petitioned from the father ministers, that each one, in so far as concerns him, shall apply his zeal to the end that in all the villages there should be one schoolmaster well instructed in the Spanish language, and that he teach the Indians to read and write in it, the Christian doctrine, and other prayers, as is ordered by the king, our sovereign, in his royal decree of June 5, 1754, because of the most serious disadvantages which result by doing the contrary to the religion and the state. For the attainment of so important teaching, the salary of each teacher shall be paid punctually from the communal funds, namely, one peso and one cabán of rice per month. Permission is given to the above-mentioned alcaldes-mayor so that, in the large villages and in proportion to the capacity of said teachers, they may increase their salary by giving information thereof to the superior government for its approval, as is stated in section 25. The above-mentioned teachers shall be informed that, if they do not teach the Indians, and instruct them in the Spanish language, they will be condemned to make restitution of the pay which they shall have received, and shall be deprived of holding any post in these islands and punished at the will of said alcaldes. The latter, especially in their visit to the villages of their provinces, shall investigate with particular care the observance of the abovesaid, and shall inform the superior government.... It is to be noted that for any slight omission of the alcaldes in regard to this most important point, they shall incur the indignation of the superior tribunals, and shall be rigorously punished and fined in proportion to their lack of zeal and fulfilment of this section; for experience has taught that for particular ends and unjust laxity or neglect they have proceeded hitherto with little zeal and with total want of observance of law xviii, título i, book vi, which is corroborated and confirmed by many royal decrees and by the abovesaid sections of the ordinances preceding that law."

Since we are decided to make an exact and complete adjustment of accounts treating of this matter, we transcribe here, in order to attain that, whatever has to do most especially with both ancient and modern legislation, in order to remove at once the mask under which the detractors of the religious orders have been masquerading, blaming them openly for the backward state of the Filipino villages, for their deficiency in education and especially for the ignorance of Castilian, without other proof than the completely gratuitous assertion that those religious orders have constantly opposed the development of education and, in a resolute manner, the study of Castilian. [83]

In order to prove this supposed opposition, they adduce as an argument (which is negative, and, consequently, of no value) the fact that although the teaching (and with it the Castilian speech) was ordered from the beginning of the conquest with evident insistence and under heavy penalties, the established laws have not given the abundant results which were to be desired. Now, because those results have not been obtained, are the missionaries to blame? The supposition made in order to hurl this crimination upon the religious orders is not serious nor can it be cited by persons who esteem themselves as sensible and reasonable beings.

Before that criminal supposition and that groundless crimination it is fitting to ask: "Were those laws, given with the most just desire and the most holy finality, as is that of christianizing those idolatrous souls and guaranteeing them in the faith of Jesus Christ, suitable for the production of the desired ends? Were the means, which were proposed in those laws, conducive to the end which was being prosecuted? Nay, more, granting the sufficiency of those laws and the propriety of those means for the American districts, since those laws were given for them, was it within the bonds of reason to adapt them with equal propriety and sufficiency to Filipinas?" If it is impossible to grant the first, it is evidently impossible to assent to the second as certain.

It has been shown that law xviii was given in the year 1550, or fifty-eight years after the discovery of the New World. One hundred and forty-two years later that order was repeated by means of law v, of 1634, the fulfilment of which was recorded in 1686, or one hundred and ninety-four years after our arrival on the American coasts. Those laws had been, if not barren, of little fruit, whenever the cause for repeating that law was to banish the idolatries in which the majority of the Indians are now sunk, as they were at the beginning of the conversions. How can that development in instruction be acquired "with Indians who would like to learn, when taught by teachers without pay, and which, so that the teachers might not cost anything, could be well done by the sacristans," who would immediately be Indians like the pupils, doubtless stupid in learning and incapable of teaching the Catholic doctrine in Castilian? Now then, if those laws were inefficient in the American districts, a country more compact, could they be more efficient in Filipinas, which is composed of many islands; could those means exercise more influence on the intellects of those islanders who are of less capacity than the Americans, and the latter were directly invaded by a constant and powerful stream of civilization, catechised and administered by a numerous pleiad of missionaries when the islands of Urdaneta and Legazpi did not receive more than the residues or crumbs, which, both of the former and the latter, came by way of Acapulco--in America with an invader who carried almost all before him, and who tended by his number to cause the pure primitive race to disappear, exactly the contrary to what occurs in the Filipino country, where the native race, in an imposing mass, is above all absorption, this idea being sufficient only so that not even with very many means more powerful than those hitherto placed in practice can they attain the effects which the laws demand?

Consequently, the laws were not adaptable to that country for which they were not made, and not even was that country known when law xviii was given. Neither have the means or factors which have been put in play since, been in relation, even remote relation, with the ends whose attainment is desired.

On one hand, the great scarcity of missionaries scattered among so numerous islands (each one occupying a most extensive territory, with scarcely any communication [with one another], with a work both arduous and multiple, in all the orders, especially in the learning of so diverse and most difficult languages, and the adaptation of these languages in regard to their characters, phonetics, pronunciation, etc., to our characters, spelling, etc., a knowledge attained afterward by prolonged and constant phonological and philological studies), abandoned to their own resources and energies, since it is known that for many dozens of leguas there was no other Spaniard than the missionary, occupied preferably in the administration of sacraments and evangelization and the conservation of so numerous fields of Christendom; on the other hand the means which the laws granted them, entirely null and void, as has been shown, as is also the result obtained by the last royal decree of 1686, by which it is newly ordered "that schools be established and teachers appointed for the Indians, in order to teach the Castilian language to those who would voluntarily wish to learn it, in the way that may be of less trouble to them and without expense;" and with this clause of voluntary instruction, without trouble and without expense, since the natives were scattered in so many and so distant villages or reductions, and had no teachers, not since they knew the Castilian language, but that they could not even know it except by a rudimentary method in their own language: was there any possibility even that that beautiful language whose knowledge would have freed the missionary from so many sorrows, from so painful labor, from so continual anxieties as the detractors of those orders cannot even imagine, could be taught? Notwithstanding, it will be proved by unassailable documents that those missionaries with some useless laws, most of them deficient, have obtained what no one else could have obtained. Those religious orders, then, have not been the enemies, but the great friends, of instruction. They Have not been opposed, nor only slight lovers of its development, but decided well-wishers, and even enthusiasts in its greater development; and in order to achieve that, the missionaries and parish priests have done that which very few, perhaps no one, could have done: namely, to create schools wherever they preached the gospel; to support them by all means, and even pay them from their scant savings; to bring to a head all classes of philological work; to compile methods, grammars, innumerable dictionaries, books of doctrine, of doctrinal discourses, and many others which besides illuminating the understanding, strengthened the souls in the faith, in accordance with the spirit of those laws.

Furthermore, do the detractors of the religious believe that, if the alcaldes, corregidors, and justices, threatened with very severe penalties by those laws, were convinced of the fact that the missionaries were opposed to the teaching in that part which was viable or feasible, they would not have used their authority to punish, correct, or prevent, that opposition? The ordinances above copied are a copy of the laws given for America, as already mentioned, and suffer in great measure from their peculiarity and lack of application, especially in what regards the teaching of Castilian.

It was in every point impossible that, with the elements possessed by the alcaldes-mayor, corregidors, and governors, they could have observed ordinance 52 of the marquis of Obando. That ordinance contains orders that are positively impracticable and even contradictory. On one side it is ordered "that schools be erected where the children of the natives may be educated (in primary letters in the Castilian language) seeing to it that in this language and not in that of the country, or in any other, they study, be taught, and educated, and that schools of another language be not erected or started under penalty of 500 [pesos?] applied at the will of this superior government." This is ordered absolutely and without any limitation in immense districts where there is not a single school of Castilian, nor methods, nor grammars, nor dictionaries, nor any other method of teaching that language, nor teachers to teach it, nor scarcely any Indians who have been able to learn it, as they have not had any great familiarity with Spaniards who were prohibited by ordinance 29 from residing in the villages of the Indians. This happened in the year 1752. That prohibition was suppressed by the above-mentioned ordinance 52. By the same ordinance was prescribed the quota which the communal funds were to pay to the teachers, which makes one see immediately the contradiction of the finality of the preceding order with that stating "because as abovesaid, these languages must cease and shall cease in proportion as schools for the Castilian language shall be erected and established;" the only ones who were ordered to pay.

It results, therefore, quite evidently, both from the context of the latter ordinance and from ordinance 17 of Arandía, and 25 and 93 of Raón, that in the Filipino provinces and districts there were no means of establishing instruction in Castilian; and that the only schools which were ordered to be paid from the communal funds were those which should be established with that instruction. Consequently, neither the alcaldes and other justices threatened with very severe penalties, and "the anger of the superior tribunals" nor the teachers "condemned to make restitution of the pay which they had received," and punished according to the order of the alcaldes, could make in their promises and villages those laws, given in the Peninsula and in the official residence of the first authority of the islands, viable or practicable. How many laws are there which are very good and of elevated ends, but barren and unpractical, as they lack practical meaning! However, in the midst of so many contradictions and difficulties, in the midst of a work so toilsome and without rest, in spite of the penury and scarcity which God alone can, and knows how to, appreciate, in constant struggle with the elements and the Moros, having to create it and conserve it all, it can be no less than contemplated with pride by every good Spaniard that those heroic and humble sons of España attended from the beginning of the conquest to teaching with a zeal worthy of all praise.

A precious testimony of this is that mentioned by the erudite father Augustín María, O.S.A. in his Historia del Insigne convento de San Pablo de Manila [i.e., History of the glorious convent of San Pablo in Manila], which is preserved unedited in the archives of said convent, when he says: "In the same year (1571) was founded this convent and church of San Pablo, which is the chief one of this province, the capitular house for novitiates, and of studies in grammar, arts, theology, and canons for Indians and creoles, until the Jesuits came and opened public schools." Passing by those teaching centers created in Manila by the religious orders scarcely yet born in those islands, omitting the introduction of printing, a powerful means for progress, by those orders, some decades after their establishment in the islands, and limiting ourselves only to the creation of schools and the progress of primary instruction, we do not fear to affirm that before our legislators occupied themselves in giving laws for teaching in Filipinas, laws had been proclaimed in the assemblies of the religious orders. Before the famous ordinances of Obando and of Raón had been published, the printing houses of the said orders had already printed works entitled: Práctica del Ministerio que siguen los religiosos del orden de N. P. S. Agustín en Philippinas [i.e., Practice of the ministry followed by the religious of the order of our father St. Augustine in Philippinas]; and the Práctica de párrocos dominicana [i.e., Practice of the Dominican parish priest]. Before treating of one or the other it is a duty of historical justice to discard the two above-cited laws given for the New World, the first in 1550, fifteen years before the conquest of Filipinas, and the second in 1634, and both recorded in the royal decree of 1686, [84] given likewise for América and all extended to the archipelago of Legazpi. Now then, much before those last dates, the Augustinian order in its tenth provincial chapter, held May 9, 1596, in which the reverend father, Fray Lorenzo de León, was elected provincial, among the acts and resolutions which it established, which are capitular laws, compulsory on all the religious of the province, was the following: "It is enjoined upon all the ministers of Indians, that just as the schoolboys are taught to read and write, they be taught also to speak our Spanish language, because of the great culture and profit which follow therefrom." That document was providentially conserved in the secretary's office of the convent of San Pablo in Manila, notwithstanding the devastation which that convent suffered and the loss of precious documents during the English invasion.

They did not cease to hope for the abundant fruits which resulted from such wise rules as the above, and the schools were created and continued to increase in a remarkable manner. In order that there might be uniformity in the method of teaching, in the Augustinian provincial chapter, held in Manila in August 1712, the practice of the ministry prescribed in the [provincial] chapter of April 19, 1698, was ordered to be observed in definite terms. That was directed even in the chapter held May 17, 1716, in which it was ordered by minute 21 that the provincial elect, reverend father Fray Tomás Ortiz "should make a Práctica del Ministerio" [i.e., Practice of the Ministry] and after it was made to send it through the provinces, "so that all the religious might observe it;" he did that, signing the circular which accompanied said Práctica, at Tondo, August 10, of the abovesaid year. From this Práctica, we copy the following paragraph in regard to the schools: "Number 79. Not only by a decree of his Majesty, but also by his own obligation, the minister must use all diligence and care in promoting and conserving the schools for children in the villages. And when he encounters difficulty in this, it will be advisable, and many times necessary, for him to make use of the alcaldes-mayor, so that they may obtain by their influence what the ministers could not obtain in this matter by their own efforts. And if the parents refuse to send their children, the ministers shall also be able to inform the alcaldes-mayor [i.e., sub-alcaldes] of it in order that the latter may force them to do it. And above all, the minister ought to be very happy in contriving to conserve the schools, and in suffering with patience the great resistance which is found among the natives to the schools. It will be well to care for them with some expenses for their conservation, for they are very useful and necessary." Beyond this valuable paragraph are prescribed the days for school and the hours and exercises in which the children are to be employed.

This same Práctica del Ministerio remarkably increased by its author, the reverend father Fray Tomás Ortiz, was printed in "Manila, in the convent of Nuestra Señora de los Angeles [i.e., Our Lady of the Angels], in the year 1731," and we copy from it, for the eternal and most valuable testimony in proof of our assertion, the principal paragraph, which reads as follows:

"158. The father ministers, in fulfilment of their duty, are obliged to procure, by all means and methods possible, and, if necessary, by means of royal justices, that all the villages, both capitals and visitas, shall have schools, and that all the boys attend them daily. If the natives of the visitas refuse or are unable to support schools, the boys of those visitas shall be obliged to go to the schools of the capitals, for in addition to the schools being so necessary as are attested by ecclesiastical and secular laws, the absence of schools occasions many spiritual and temporal losses, as is taught by experience. Among others, one is the vast ignorance suffered in much of what is necessary for confession in order that they may become Christians and live like rational people.

"In order to be able to conquer the difficulties which some generally find in maintaining schools, it is necessary for the father ministers to procure and solicit two things: one is that ministers be assigned with salaries suitable for their support; the other is that the children have primers or books for reading and paper for writing. When these two things cannot be obtained by other means than at the cost of the father ministers, they must not therefore excuse themselves from giving what is necessary for the said two things. For, besides the fact that they will be doing a great alms thereby, they will also obtain great relief in the teaching of the boys, and will avoid many spiritual and temporal losses of the villages, to which by their office they are obliged. And if the end cannot be obtained without the means, so also the schools cannot be obtained without any expense, or the teaching of youth without the schools, or the spiritual welfare of souls without the teaching, etc. For the same reasons respectively, endeavor shall be made to maintain schools for little girls, which shall be held in the houses of the teachers where they shall learn to read and pray, for which great prudence is necessary."

Another very notable paragraph, in which are prescribed the days for school, attendance, method, subjects, etc., follows this paragraph which is worthy of the highest praise. That paragraph imposes the obligation on the children of great practical sense, that after "mass is finished (which they were to hear every day) they shall kiss the father's hand. By this diligence the latter can ascertain those who do not attend, and force them to attend, etc."

In order that one may see the rare unanimity existing among the religious corporations in a matter as transcendental as is that of education, it is very fitting to transcribe here some paragraphs of the instructions which the reverend father, Fray Manuel del Río, provincial at that time of the Dominicans, gave to his religious under date of August 31, 1739, which were printed in Manila in the same year, and which we have entitled Práctica del párroco dominicana [i.e., Practice of the Dominican parish priest] as the valuable copy which we possess has no title page. It reads as follows:

"The king, our sovereign, orders that there be schools in all the villages of the Indians in order to teach them reading, writing, and the doctrine. In those schools the ministers must work zealously and earnestly, as it is a thing which is of so great importance for the education and spiritual gain of their souls. Schools shall also be established in the visitas, especially if they are large or distant from the capital, and in those visitas which are furnished with no schoolteacher because they are small or near the capital, the lads shall be obliged to attend the school at the capital. All the lads, whether chief or timaoas, must attend the school, and they, and their parents or relatives must be obliged to do so, so that they may not be exempted from that attendance by any excuse or pretext, except the singers, who will be taught to read and write in the school of the cantors. For the more exact fulfilment of this, a list shall be made of those who ought to attend the school, and a copy of it shall be given to the said teacher. This shall be read frequently in the school, noting those who fail in order to punish them.

"In order to maintain said schools and the attendance of the lads therein without the excuses which some generally offer of not having primers, pens, or paper for writing, it is necessary for the minister to solicit the one who has those things for sale in the village, for those who can buy them. Those who find it impossible to do so shall be furnished by the minister with those articles by way of alms, and in that, besides the merit acquired by this virtue, he will gather the fruit of the welfare and the gain of their souls.

"Girls' schools shall also be formed by causing them to go to the house of their teacher, so that they may learn to read and sew, and also learn the doctrine. But they shall not be obliged to attend church daily, as are the boys, but only on Saturday or any other day assigned for the reciting of the rosary and the examination in the doctrine."

It is to be noted that both provincials, as well as their successors, imposed on their subjects the obligation to faithfully observe what is prescribed in the Práctica and respective instructions, which the ministers of the Lord fulfilled with especial solicitude and constancy, since only in this way could they gather the most copious fruits which we all admire.

The unity of thought and action which the religious corporations had in a matter so primordial as is teaching is also to be noted. Evidently it is to be inferred from those beautiful periods that the religious were trying to pay the teachers, having recourse even to the alcaldes when that was necessary; and when that could not be obtained they themselves paid the teacher the fruit of his labors as well as supplying also the children with everything necessary for their instruction, such as primers, books, papers, pens, etc. For that, no quota was put in the budget, since, as is seen, that most essential datum is not mentioned in the laws, ordinances, and royal decrees above given. It is also to be noted that, in the rules above cited, there is no mention of other than boys' schools, but none for girls, while all were alike considered, both of those of the capital or villages and those of the barrios, with an equal vigilance by our missionaries, who from the first, established compulsory attendance as absolutely indispensable, in contradiction to the old laws, in which was noted the tendency to liberty or non-compulsion, as is inferred from the royal decree of November 5, 1782, [85] given for Charcas (Méjico) and extended to Filipinas confirmed by the law of June 11, 1815, which cites it in its two extremes.

In this way those humble religious worked out the laws as much as possible, although it cost them much, by rectifying what was not viable and by supplying the deficiencies of those laws, especially in the matters pertaining to the salaries of the teachers, and payment for school supplies, which, on account of the scarcity of funds from the treasury, the legislature was compelled to establish as is established in this last royal decree above cited: "That, for the salary of teachers, the products of foundations, where there shall be any, be applied in the first place, and for the others, the products of the property of the community, in accordance with the terms of the laws." But since the foundations, in case there were any, existed only in the capitals, which were at the same time the episcopal residence, and the communal funds were in general exhausted, it was the same thing as determining that the parish priests would continue to pay the expenses from their poor living, or find some means which would give that so desired and difficult result. This penury of the treasury which was felt equally in España and in Filipinas obliged his Majesty to extend to these islands the royal decree of October 20, 1817, which reads as follows:

"The existing state of exhaustion of my royal treasury does not permit that so great a sum be set aside for the endowment of these schools as would be necessary for so important an object; but the convents of all the religious orders scattered throughout my kingdoms may in great measure supply this impossibility...." There was no need to put this royal decree in force in the Filipinas, since, in the majority of the convents or parish houses, schools for boys had already been established in their lower part, and those for girls in the houses of the women teachers, and other houses made for that purpose. It is but right to note how much the missionary always labored for the education of the woman whose better gifts he recognized always. He created numerous schools for her instruction, and paid for them from his living, quite contrary to the total inattention which the administration paid to the schools and teachers for girls, until the regulations of December 20, 1863 were formulated, the eighth article of which orders that "there shall be a boys' school and another school for girls in every village, whatever its number of souls."

Article 2 of these regulations, [86] quite distinct from the path of the ancient legislation, recognized, in accordance with the conduct and laws of the religious orders, the necessity of establishing compulsion in primary teaching; and firm in this principle, it ordered that "the primary instruction should be compulsory for all the natives, to the degree that the inattendance of the child might be penalized by virtue of art. 2, with the fine of from one-half to two reals." Neither is the legislation exclusive with relation to the study of Castilian, as is seen by the context of its art. 3; it ordains education gratis to the poor by art. 4; and the well-to-do shall pay the teacher a moderate monthly fee, which shall be prescribed by the governor of each province, after conferring with the parish priest and gobernadorcillo. Paper, copybooks, ink, and pens shall be given free to all the children by the teacher, who, at the proper time, shall receive for this service one duro per month, for every child who writes, in accordance with the ruling made by a decree of the superior government, February 16, 1867. Very suitable measures were to be taken, all in accord with the action of the parish priest, in order not to give any occasion for fraud. That was a very well taken resolution, for it stimulated the zeal of the teacher, who received on this account a sum not to be despised, which, together with the quota of the well-to-do children and the monthly pay which he received, according to art. 22, consisting of 12, 15, and 20 pesos, according as the school of which he was in charge was entrada, ascenso, or término, he received a pay quite sufficient for his needs, enjoying in addition, by art. 23, a free dwelling-house for himself and family, and in due season the pension prescribed by art. 24.

Article 32 determines the powers of the parish priest as local supervisor, which, although they were conceded with a certain timidity, were perhaps believed to be excessive or unnecessary, and it seems its abolition was clearly agreed upon by art. 12 in declaring the municipal captain "supervisor of the schools." This blow must be judged as a very strong one in the lofty governmental spheres of the islands, for the genuine representation of the parish priests in the villages is one of the functions most natural to their charge, both as teachers of the Catholic doctrine and ethics, and in the role of traditional supporters of the schools, although in art. 102 was established the following as an explanation to art. 12 of the decree: "Without prejudice to the supervision which belongs in the instruction to the parish priests according to the regulations of December 1863, whose powers are not at all altered, the tribunal shall watch carefully over primary instruction; shall demand the teaching of Castilian in the schools; shall oblige the inhabitants to send their children to them; and shall stimulate instruction by means of adequate examinations and rewards. Said tribunal shall place in operation the most practical means for the diffusion of the Spanish language among the inhabitants, deciding upon those means in meetings with the parish priests and the delegates of the principalía."

At first view one observes the good desire which the author of said article shelters when he says that the powers conceded to the parish priest as supervisor of schools by art. 20 of the regulations of the same shall not be changed in any point, without perceiving that directly afterward it created another authority in opposition to that of the parish priest, if not with all the powers of the latter, because those which he possesses as teacher in ethics and the doctrine do not admit of transmission, yet clearly of all the others, and in them with prior rank.

It is evident that, by the context of this article, the power of "watching carefully over primary instruction" is conceded to the captain, which is identical with the first part of art. 32 of the school regulations conceded to the parish priest which reads as follows: "To visit the schools as often as possible." This is the first part of that article, and the second part "and to see that the regulations are observed," whose art. 3 orders that "the teachers shall have special care that the pupils have practical exercise in speaking the Castilian language," is of identical meaning and effect with the power conceded to the captain, which declares, "he shall demand that Castilian be taught in the schools." This power is followed by those of "he shall compel the inhabitants to send their children to the schools, and shall stimulate instruction by means of adequate examinations and rewards;" both powers similar to those which are conceded to the parish priests by the third part of said art. 32, which declares, "To promote the attendance of children at the schools." To supplement this with the compulsory virtue, he is authorized by art. 2, explained and ratified in No. 3 of the decree of the superior government of August 30, 1867, to be able to admonish and compel parents, who are slow in sending their children to the schools, by means of fines from one-half to two reals, and that which is conceded to him, in accordance with annual examinations, by art. 13, and art. 7 of the decree of the superior government, of May 7, 1871, which declares: "The reverend and learned parish priests, accompanied by the gobernadorcillos and by the principalías of the villages, shall visit the schools monthly, shall hold examinations every three months, etc." By this one can see that the parish priest conserves the first place, even in this, over the gobernadorcillo and principalía, by whom he is accompanied, in order to give more luster to the ceremony. That happens in no act or meeting of the present municipality, in which the parish priest has no other functions than those of intervention and counsel, included in that which is signified in the last paragraph of the above-mentioned art. 102, which says when referring to the municipal captain: "He shall put in force the most practical means for the diffusion of the Spanish language among the inhabitants, agreeing upon those means in meetings with the parish priests and delegates of the principalía;" and although it is established that the creation of the Sunday schools of which art. 29 of the regulations speaks, which are also of the intervention of the parish priest, as are the boys' schools, falls completely to his share, as the means, if not sole, yet the one most efficacious and of practical application, it would result as in all the other powers which have been enumerated as conceded to the parish priest by the school regulations and to the captain by decree and municipal regulations--it would result, we say--at each step in an encounter and rivalry in which the parish priests would come out second best, for the simple reason, repeated to satiety in innumerable articles of the decree and municipal regulations, that the action of the parish priest is nothing more than supervision and counsel, [87] with the added abasement that "his presence shall not be included in the number of those who shall concur in the validity of the deliberations," as is prescribed by art. 49 of the decree and 64 of the regulations. Sad then, is, and at once, graceless, the function of the parish priest compared to the action of the captain and of the board which is executive.

It seems unnecessary to say that the action and powers of the parish priest in his duties as local supervisor of schools result in the theoretical legal sphere of action, completely null and void, and that action carried to the practical field of action exposes it to continual rivalries, numerous frictions, and even deep quarrels between two authorities, who in that, as in everything which belongs to the multiple affairs of the village, ought to be in perfect accord, as is demanded jointly by the lofty interests of religion and of the fatherland, of the spiritual welfare and of the material order and peace of the villages.

And as that duality, besides being shameful and lowering for the parish priests, is inviolable, and since by another part art. 12 of the decree and 102 of the regulations, both above cited, in the form in which they have been compiled, do not fill any need or space, as all that which is ordained therein is a repetition of what has been already decreed, there is no reason for their existence, to the evident common harm, and to the small shame of the parish priest, who deserves eternal gratitude for his labors, for his solicitude, and for the zeal which he has ever displayed, and in the midst of the greatest sacrifices, for the instruction.

Nearly three centuries, since 1565, when the first Augustinians, the companions of Legazpi and Salcedo reached the Filipinas shores, until 1863, the year in which regulations were first made for primary instruction, outlined only hitherto in numerous laws and royal decrees which it was impossible to fulfil, as is proved, for almost three centuries, we say, of bold zeal bordering on the inconceivable, of constant anxiety and watching, of unusual effort, which borders on the heroic, and with remarkable expenses never paid back, ignored by most people, and recognized and praised by very few: are these not sufficient, not only so that the liberty to exercise the noblest charge which Church and fatherland have confided to them for centuries in the teaching of the schools, which is intimately associated with the teaching in the pulpit, be conceded to the parish priests, but that also by justice illumined by gratitude, the necessary law, moral force, aid, and support, for the exercise, with perfect repose and without any impediment, and more, without any asperity and struggle, of that sacred duty so full of trouble and bitterness for him, so full of results most beneficial for religion and fatherland, be conceded to him? If, then, one desire to concede to the parish priest the position which is in justice due him in education, if there is to be granted to the missionary that which the most rudimentary gratitude urges, it is of imperious necessity that that mortifying and abasing duality be radically destroyed, for it renders useless all the energies of the parish priest supervisor, and stifles his noble and disinterested aid offered without tax for the service of the holy ideals of God and fatherland. Perhaps the parish priest is deprived of this salutary intervention because such intervention is believed unnecessary, superfluous or prejudicial to the lofty interests of the fatherland or of the well-being of the native? Today necessarily more than ever, through the deep-colored dripping of the blood of the insurrection, [88] one can see with the clearness of noonday that the intervention of the parish priest ought to be established in all the orders, in order that it might again take the lofty position which was overthrown thirty years ago. Is it, perhaps, because the intervention of the parish priests will be a barrier, or obstacle, even to the sustained mark of true progress in education in general, or of Castilian in particular? But this is perfectly utopian, and even an argument now of bad taste. The religious orders enemies of true progress! Perhaps they are not the ones who in their teaching have created everything today existing in Filipinas? Are not the religious corporations those who have always formed their ranks in the vanguard of science, and today especially both in the Peninsula, and in the Magellian Archipelago, do not numerous colleges nourish with special predilection on the part of the public? As an incontestible proof of this truth, let one concede without difficulty what shall afterwards be proposed as a supplement of that existing today.

The argument of Castilian is a mythical argument of more than long standing, since it has been proved quite clearly during the preceding centuries that there has been an absolute lack of material for teaching it. The patronizing enthusiasts of the Castilian, who think it to be a panacea, so that the Indian may learn everything and obtain the social height of the peoples of another race and of other capacities, and who are persuaded, or appear to be so, that "what is of importance above all else is that the Indian learn Castilian in order to understand and to identify himself with the Castila," are laboring under a false belief. We sincerely believe that the native, if he once come to understand the Castila in the genuine meaning of the word, will never come to identify himself with them. Thus it was explained by a distinguished man of talent, both illustrious and liberal, Don Patricio de la Escosura, [89] the least monastic man in España and the one most favorable to the friars in Filipinas of his epoch, as he himself declared in most ample phrase; a man of government and administration, who throwing aside as was proper the vulgar opinion that the friars were opposed to the teaching of Castilian, assigned in his famous Memoria on Filipinas "of the parish priests, I say, little must be expected in this matter;" in order to affirm as follows: "And by this I do not pretend, and much less, deny to them their apostolic zeal, their desire for the common good, and the importance of the services which they have lent to religion and the mother country, and are lending and may lend in the future;" and adding some years later in his prologue to the small work Recuerdos [i.e., Remembrances] which could better be entitled Infundios [i.e., Fables] of Señor Cañamaque: "Let the friars in the archipelago be suppressed, and that country will soon be an entirely savage region of the globe, where there will scarcely remain a vestige or perhaps a remembrance of Spanish domination. That is a truth, for all those who know and judge impartially concerning the archipelago, of axiomatic authority." And that truth established, he immediately asked: "Why then is not that force utilized, in whose existence and supreme efficacy all agree? Why are not the friars charged as much as possible with the responsibility of the immense authority which they in fact exercise by associating them officially and in reasonable terms with the governmental and administrative action in Filipinas?" Why? For a very simple reason. Because governments, like ministers of the crown and royal commissaries in Filipinas, like Señor Escosura, suffer prejudices and embrace opinions so original and vulgar as that of the opposition of the religious corporations to the teaching of Castilian, a universal panacea as abovesaid, to knowing everything, and which will enable the native to conquer every sort of obstacle; for this most clear talent, and we say it truly, caused to be based on the ignorance of Castilian "so much ignorance and so absurd superstitions at the end of three centuries, and in spite of the efforts of the Spanish legislator to civilize the Indians. So long as the Indian," he adds, "speaks his primitive language, it is approximately impossible to withdraw him completely from his prejudices, from his superstition, erroneous ideas, and the puerilities belonging to the savage condition. So long as he understands the Castilian with difficulty, ... how can he have clear notions of his duties, and of his rights--he who cannot understand the laws more than by the medium of some interpreter?..."

What candor and how little understanding of the native, or what excess of political or party idea!

That illustrious statistician believed that the knowledge of Castilian and the unity of the language could not be in any time a favorable base for the insurrection, which was one of the contrary arguments which he was opposing, for, he was asserting in general that "neither the population through its number, nor the native race through its nature and special conditions, are here capable of independence at any time. This country is not a continent, but an archipelago. Its diverse provinces are for the greater part, distinct islands; ... and so long as there is a Spanish military marine in these waters, supposing that any serious insurrection should arise (which seems to me highly improbable) there is nothing easier than to circumscribe it to the locality in which it should be born, and consequently to stifle it in its cradle." A few lines afterwards he says: "The Indians here, I repeat, can never become independent. They feel that also for the present, although perhaps they do not understand it; and furthermore by instinct they prefer at all times Spaniards to foreigners, on whom they look moreover with unfavorable caution." What an illusion, and what an enormous disillusion! How great would be the deception of Señor Escosura if he would come to life in his grave! Without troubling us with the argument of the Castilian, or taking into account the circumstances that he lays down in regard to the multiplicity of islands which are extremely unfavorable for their defense, according to his way of thinking, what would he say now if he lifted his head and observed that the knowledge of Castilian has been considerably extended--perhaps four times as much as when he went as royal commissary to Filipinas, in order to write that Memoria; that, if not the lawyers, the men of most letters and knowledge of Castilian, the intelligent, and those of the most cultured native society, in which figures a numerous pleiad composed of advocates, physicians, pharmacists, painters, engravers, normal and elementary teachers, municipal captains, past-captains, cuadrilleros, [90] and hundreds more of those who understand one another and are in the way of identifying themselves with the Castila, as Señor Escosura would say, are the leaders, are those who captain and direct the enormous native multitudes who are related to them in thought and action, and stimulate and spread that bloody rebellion which is spreading through all the islands like an immense spot of oil, in spite of the fact that they are so numerous and are defended by a respectable squadron; of that insurrection, which scarcely born and without arms, presents itself powerful, and armed in the greater part of Luzón and certain other provinces, and latent or masked in all the remaining provinces; of that insurrection which without any preamble of liberties, and of little more than two years of limited exercise of municipal autonomy, is beginning to proclaim and demand independence, and passing to active life is establishing a government and is exercising perfect dominion for more than one-half year in an entire province a few leguas from Manila, at the very foot of a strong fort and under the fire of its arsenal, in spite of the numerous squadron which touches its coasts. What would the author of that Memoria, abounding in liberties and so ample in his criticism, say? He would say much of that which he then censured in his opponents. He would ingenuously and solemnly assert in the face of the bloody panorama of so enormous hetacombs that he had been deceived, and he would even add that it is at least rash to sow the winds, which become, as a logical sequel, fatal whirlwinds to finish us; that the implanting of a certain class of reforms and liberties is a rash work; and would adduce the reason which he gave in the above-cited prologue when treating in regard to the difficulty of implanting with result in those islands "certain literary and scientific professions;" namely, "that given the physical and intellectual qualifications of their race, it would be rash to expect that they would ever compare with Europeans. The Indian learns much more readily than we do; but he forgets with the same readiness, and retrogrades to his primitive condition." It seems impossible how a man of so clear judgment and so exact concepts in regard to persons could stumble so transcendently as is found throughout in his Memoria. How powerful is the strength of consistency. The political ideal, like the sectarian, annuls the deepest and most righteous convictions.

But let us turn backwards a piece to pick up an end not allowed to fall to chance. We said that, as a proof that the religious orders have neither now nor ever been opposed to the teaching, one would concede without difficulty what we are going to set forth as a supplement of what exists today.

It is known by all, and is demonstrated quite clearly, that the traditional laws for teaching, if admirably penetrated by the spirit, profoundly Catholic, of their epoch, were very deficient, and in no small measure impracticable in Filipinas, because they lack almost all the means indispensable for the happy attainment which legislators and missionaries ardently desired; equally notorious is it, and also demonstrated, that the absolute lack of legal rules and regulations to facilitate their obligation accentuated more strongly the deficiency of those laws. We say legal, because the few regulations that there were, and which were practiced, were those of which mention has already been made in the Práctica del Ministerio of 1712, circulated as was compulsory, by their provincial among the Augustinian parish priests, revised in the provincial chapter of 1716, and amplified and printed in 1731; and the Instrucciones morales y religiosas [i.e., Moral and religious Instructions], [91] printed in 1739 for the use of the Dominican fathers--a lamentable lack which disappeared with the publication of the regulations of December 20, 1863.

This law which was successively perfected by numerous decrees of the superior government of the islands, especially by generals Izquierdo, Gándara, and Weyler, who were filled with the praiseworthy desire for the teaching; this law together with the opening of the Suez Canal, which has produced a notable increase in the European population, [92] and by this and by the facility of numerous communications and most valuable commercial transactions, has been an abundant fount of education and progress, which must be perfected and heightened so that what ought to be an abundant and beneficial irrigation for so valuable possessions may not be converted into a devastating torrent.

But even after this which we might call a giant's step in the history of the Filipinas, their progress and their relations with Europa, within the islands even, very much still needs to be done. It is a fact that the coasting trade steam vessels have acquired an increase more considerable than could have been imagined twenty years ago, while the sail-coasting trade has not been diminished for this reason, but increased. But just as the maritime communications have acquired great facility, communications by land have deteriorated not a little, and the neighborhood roads of all the islands have been falling into complete neglect since the day when the days of forced labor began to be reduced, and this tax became redeemable [in money].

If the greater number of roads in good condition with their corresponding log bridges over the creeks and the simple plank over the narrow valleys are absolutely indispensable for commercial transactions, for the advisable development of primary instruction, the capital is the constant attendance of the children at the school. In order that this may be attained, it is quite necessary to construct those roads, for in their majority they have no existence, and where they have fallen into neglect they must be made passable alike for the dry season and for the rainy season, prohibiting and rigorously fining the owners of the adjacent fields who cut the roads in order to make fields or runnels of water for the same. This being done, it is equally necessary that the small barrios and isolated groups of dwellings be grouped together, thus forming large barrios; or those already existing be united in such manner that they form districts of seventy to eighty citizens as a minimum.

Not a little labor and repeated orders will it cost to form these groups, since it is known that the native feels as no one else the homesickness for the forest, an effect perhaps of his humid temperament, perhaps the reminiscence of his primitive condition; and when this is done, to establish municipal schools for both sexes in all the barrios which consist of more than one hundred citizens, or uniting two for this purpose, which are distant more than three kilometers from the central schools or from the village, which is the distance demanded by the law for the compulsory attendance of the children. These Schools, with the necessary conditions of ventilation, capacity, and security, ought to be erected by the respective municipalities, in accordance with the simple lithograph plans which must be furnished gratis by the body of civil engineers which shall be conserved, as was formerly done, in the archives of said tribunals, in order that they might be used when the time came. The men and women teachers who shall be normal [graduates] shall have the option of petitioning these posts, and if they should not be supplied with them, the former teacher may petition them under the condition of capacity, which they shall prove by a preceding examination held before the provincial board of primary instruction, in case that they shall not already have stood a prior examination. Both of them shall be suitably paid according to circumstances, and that quota shall be completed with another small particular quota from each well-to-do child.

It is of great convenience for the ends of fitness, and especially of morality, that men or women teachers shall not be appointed either in the villages or in the barrios of the villages, without a previous report of the parish priests of their native towns, to the effect that they do not fall short of the age of twelve years, and naming the villages where they shall have been resident; and that the parish priests have the power of suspending them, according to the tenor of the second authorization of art. 32 of the school regulations and the superior decree of August 30, 1867, informing the provincial supervisor for the definitive sentence, if this last measure of rigor shall have been used; naming or recommending, according to the cases of casual or definitive suspension, the substitute with his respective pay.

An unequivocal proof that the religious corporations not only are not trying to escape the instruction, but that they are promoting it with all their strength, is that they believe and sustain both in Manila and in the provinces, numerous schools and refuges for both sexes. And so that so praiseworthy desires, as the said corporations are found to possess in this matter, may have a happy outcome, and so that the provinces may reckon an abundant seminary of the youth of both sexes, which in due time shall be converted into an intelligent and capable staff of teachers, which shall have as its base morality and unconditional love for España, who shall cause those two sacred loves--love of virtue and love of fatherland--to spring up in the hearts of their pupils, not only should the above-mentioned corporations be empowered but also furnished all the means of establishing normal schools for men and women teachers in the principal provinces of the archipelago, under the direction and care of those corporations, in order by this means to assure the Catholic and social education, which carry with themselves a deep and abiding love for España.

No one, in better conditions than the religious orders, who by means of the parish priests are at the front of the villages, can proceed with more accuracy and knowledge of the cause in the selection of the youth who shall people those schools, for no one, better than the parish priests, has a more perfect knowledge of the moral and intellectual conditions of those youth and of their inclinations and ancestral inheritance from their forbears, the absolutely necessary factors for obtaining the beneficent result which it is desired to obtain, namely, the most complete moral, intellectual, and truly conceived patriotic regeneration, profoundly disturbed by a not small number of causes, which rapidly developing within the envenomed surrounding of masonry, and powerfully pushed forward by that impious sect, have produced grievous days for España and Filipinas, in which the precious blood of their sons has been abundantly shed, causing thereby enormous expenses to the Peninsula, and a half century of retrogression for the islands, together with the infamous blot of the highest ingratitude of its rebellious sons. Now more than ever is this means of regeneration demanded.

And we faithfully believe that that means of regeneration ought to be placed in practice as soon as possible, the government removing on its part every kind of obstacle, especially of documents and information. That is the point on which these initiatives are wrecked, or are indefinitely detained, as happened to the zealous and untiring Señor Gainza in regard to his school of Santa Isabel--the normal school for women teachers in Nueva Cáceres--who after having struggled for a long time in the offices of the superior government, of administration, instruction, and engineers, was compelled to resolve his cherished project by presenting it personally to Queen Doña Isabel, who fully and kindly acceded to his supplication, and even thus with the valuable license of her Majesty communicated in due form, that eminent prelate still met all sorts of difficulties, from the provincial chief, which only disappeared with his departure from the same. In order that these labors might have a homogeneous result and those normal schools respond efficaciously to the concept of the fatherland, it is not advisable that the instruction in them be given by others than Spanish corporations, and consequently, by Spanish religious, who are the ones who can really impress that love, prohibiting, as a consequence of this standard, the teaching of the schools already established, be they private or not, from being given in any other language than the Spanish, or in ordinary conversation, that any other language than the Castilian be used, without this at all preventing other languages from being taught.

For the better order, progress, and homogeneity, it is indispensable that one bear in mind the capacity of the natives, in order to assign the list of studies which they are to take. That must be proportioned in all institutions to their nature, and those studies, as is evident, must be suppressed, which either give an unadvisable or useless result, because of being outside the intellectual sphere of the native. Still more evident is the necessity of the instruction for the natives obeying a uniform plan of method and social education, in order to avoid ill feeling among the teaching communities, and peculiarities and comparisons, which by themselves are always odious, and which cause not a little mischief among the natives, who, if they are not distinguished by their character and reasoning, yet are by nature very observant, and lay great stress on all external details, so that without troubling themselves in seeking the cause, they form their opinion or standard; and from that time on they will not be inclined toward those things which the masons and separatists are pursuing with the greatest of rancor by finding in those same things more obstacles for the attainment of their evil purposes.

The list of studies, as well as the method of teaching and of education will be the first and immediate end of the studies, opinion, and formula which the Superior Board of Public Instruction shall bear to its conclusion with singular interest. This board shall form the consequent schedules and above-mentioned methods, which it shall subject to the approbation of the general government of the archipelago.

The abovesaid superior board may be composed of the following gentlemen: the archbishop of Manila; the intendant of the public treasury; the president of the Audiencia; civil governor of Manila; secretary of the superior government; one councilor of administration; the provincials of the Augustinians, Franciscans, Dominicans, and Recollects; the rectors of the university, of the normal school, and of the seminary. To it shall be submitted the revision of the present schedules, both for the normal schools and in so far as the schedules of the studies of primary and secondary and higher education need to be revised; and at the same time the method of teaching and of education for both sexes, the execution of which, as I have just said, will be accomplished under the character of its importance and immediate necessity.

The attention of every studious and observing man, who has lived in residence in the Filipino provinces, is not a little struck by the excessive number of young men, who having taken more or less courses in Manila, but without concluding the course begun, or even taking the degree of bachelor, after their parents have spent considerable sums on them, return to their villages with very little or no virtue, but with many vices. At first sight one notes in these young men an irritating radical attitude and a freedom mixed with unendurable arrogance and vanity. Their fellow countrymen, whom they disdain because they possess, although in a superficial manner, the Castilian speech full of phrases and sounds, which would make the most reserved Viscayan laugh, and of high-sounding words which they use without understanding their real significance, immediately look up to them as so many Senecas. They are persuaded that they are perfect gentlemen, for by dint of seeing them practiced they have learned a few social formulas; they wear a cravat, and boots, and pantaloons of the latest style. For the rest, they are completely devoid of fundamental knowledge, and of the fundamentals of knowledge in the studies which they have taken, and have acquired only a slight tint of the part, let us say the bark of those studies, which they conclude by forgetting in proportion as time passes and their passions increase. These young men who forget what they have learned with so great facility, do not, as a general rule, devote themselves to any work, for they do not like work and cannot perform any; for the habits that they have contracted are very different--habits of pastime, idleness, and the waste of their paternal capital. In such condition are those who, as a rule, furnish the contingent of the staff of those who are employed without pay, of aspirants, and amanuenses with little pay of the offices and municipalities, while the most intelligent and skilful devote themselves to making writs for parties in litigation, a very handy matter, and one never finished among the natives, not even by force of many deceptions and the loss of great interests.

And that our opinion is not formed from the smoke of straw, and lightly, is proved by the numerous lists of matriculations which accompany the conscientious and well written memorials by trustworthy Dominican fathers, especially those which were published in the years 1883 and 1887, because of the expositions of Amsterdam and Filipinas, in Madrid. We cannot resist the temptation to transcribe here a valuable paragraph, which wonderfully meets our purpose. It is taken from the writing signed by the excellent Dominican, Father Buitrago, for the last-mentioned exposition. It is as follows: "The first thing which offers itself to the consideration of the reader, is the multitude of the inscriptions of matriculation, and the small proportionate number of approvals. On this point, the first thing that offers is to investigate the causes of that disproportion, which is a great surprise to those who are ignorant of the special conditions under which secondary teaching in this country is found. Many of the young men who matriculate for it, have scarcely any or no desire to obtain a passing mark in their courses, their only object being to learn the Castilian language, and to know, in order that they may afterward occupy a more important position in their villages, some of the customs of the Spaniards. Those who come to Manila with the decided intention of terminating a literary career are relatively very few. In this matter their families exact but little also. And then there is added the method of living in this place, crowded together in their greatest part in private houses under the nominal vigilance of their landlords or landladies, as they call the owners of the houses in which they are lodged. Consequently, not few in this capital are reared in idleness and learn the vices of Europeans without taking on their good qualities. The rector of the university can do nothing on this point, for the rules allow students to matriculate two or three times or even more often, in the same course, in spite of their not passing in it."

Before such an inundation of wise men, whose scholastic modesty suffers with a serene mind and with immovable resignation [resignación de estuco] three and more failures in one study, there is no other means, since the lash cannot be legally used, or the oak rod of the oldtime dominie, than to put in practice a salutary strictness in the examinations of the secondary education, and to revise the regulations more strictly, in order thereby to free the provinces of that inundation of learning which parches the fields for lack of arms to work them, uses up the savings of the wealthy families, fills the villages with vampires who suck the sweat of the poor or careless with impunity, increases the lawsuits and ill feeling in the villages, makes of the municipalities and offices a workshop of intrigue, and gives a numerous contingent to the lodges and to separatism.

And as the above-mentioned author of the said Memoria adds: "It is apparent to us at times that (the rector) actively negotiated to subject the lodging houses for students to one set of regulations, in order to watch over their moral and literary conduct better; but such efforts have had no result;" it is thoroughly necessary to create a law, in which the rector shall be authorized to extend his zeal, vigilance, and action to such houses, and also to subject all the day students of Manila, without distinction of establishments, to the university police of the rector and his agents, reëstablishing in this regard the ancient university right. For that purpose, full powers ought to be given to the rector, so that, now by himself in faults of less degree, and now by the university Council in the greater, he may impose academical fines, and even ask the aid of public force in case of necessity, beginning by demanding from each young man who wishes to matriculate, the certificate or report of good conduct given by the parish priest of the village whence he comes. This requirement is of exceptional advisability, not only for the general ends of the instruction, but also for the more perfect selection of the persons who, on devoting themselves to the noble employment of teaching, shall form the understanding and the heart of future generations.

Only in this manner can we succeed in getting the Filipino youth to acquire the conditions and habits of morality and study, until they reach the end of their capacity. Only in this manner can we succeed in giving to the fatherland, grateful children, to Filipinas, honored citizens, to society, useful members, to families, children who honor the white hairs of their parents, and to the public posts a suitable staff, without pretensions, and faithful in the performance of their duties; and that they shall be consequently, fervent Catholics, who shall never forget what the parish priest taught them when they were children, in his simple doctrinal lessons, and who shall be heard afterwards to repeat to their teachers, to bless the divine cross which illumined their intellects and saved their souls, and to bless España, which amid the folds of its yellow banner or crowning its standards, brought the cross triumphant to those shores, and with it Christian civilization and true progress.

II

"Until the end of the year 1863 in which was dictated the memorable royal decree, which established a plan of primary instruction in Filipinas, and which arranged for the creation of schools of primary instruction in all the villages of the islands, and the creation of a normal school in Manila, whence should graduate well-educated and religious teachers who should take the foremost places in those institutions, it might be said that there had been no legislation in regard to primary instruction in these islands. For, although it is certain that precepts directed to the attainment of education by the natives, and very particularly the teaching of the beautiful Spanish language, are not lacking (some of those precepts being contained in the Leyes de Indias, and in the edicts of good government), it is a fact that those precepts are isolated arrangements without conclusions, the product of the good desire which has always animated the Spanish monarchs and their worthy representatives in the archipelago for the advancement and prosperity of these islands, but without resting upon a firm foundation for lack of the elements for its existence.

"Before the above-mentioned epoch the reverend and learned parish priests of the villages came to fill in great measure and voluntarily the noble ends of propagating primary instruction throughout these distant regions by the aid of their own pupils, the most advanced of whom dedicated themselves to the teaching of their fellow citizens, although they received but very little remuneration for their work and care, and there was no consideration of teachers or titles which accredited them as such." [93]

In fact the religious corporations in Filipinas were those who busied themselves with the interest which the matter deserved in primary instruction, which was abandoned almost entirely by the authorities until the year 1863, notwithstanding the repeated recommendations, orders, and laws of our monarchs and of the Councils of Indias. The religious were the first teachers of primary letters in Filipinas, as they were afterwards in secondary instruction, in the superior teaching with faculties, and in the principal arts and trades which the Indians learned. By the advice of the religious, the villages constructed the first schools. The religious directed the works; they gave the instruction, until they had pupils who could be substituted for them and leave them free for the spiritual administration of the faithful; and they, the religious, paid the wages of those improvised teachers, without official title or character as such, but sufficiently instructed to teach the tiny people their first letters, and to succeed in obtaining that seventy-five per cent of the inhabitants [of the Filipino village] might learn how to read and write correctly. Señor Hilarión, [94] archbishop of Manila, was able to say to the most excellent Ayuntamiento of that city when provincial of the calced Augustinians: "There are multitudes of villages, such as Argao, Dalaguete, and Bolhoon, in Cebú, and many in the province of Iloilo, in which it is difficult to find a single boy or girl who does not know how to read or write, an advantage which many cities of our España have not yet succeeded in obtaining."

The pay that the religious could give to the teachers educated by them was moderate, but in faith none of the detractors of the monastic corporations of Filipinas had given as much, or even the half, for so beneficial a work. The religious not only provided large, roomy, and ventilated places for the primary instruction of the two sects, and acted as teachers until the most advanced pupils could use something of what was supplied them in teaching, but also provided the schools with the suitable and necessary furnishings in which the industry and genius of the parish-priest regular came to aid their pecuniary appeals and the absolute lack of the materials for teaching. There was no ink, paper, or pens. The first was not necessary for the new papyrus, which was no other than the magnificent leaf of the banana, and the pen was a small bit of bamboo cut in the manner of a pen. From each leaf of the banana they could get twenty or thirty pages of a larger size than those of Iturzaeta. On the other side of the leaf, covered with fine down and smooth as that of velvet, the Indians wrote their letters with the bamboo cut in the form of a pen or of the ancient stylus. What was thus written was not very permanent, nor was there any need that it should be, for the copy pages were not kept as a justification of the expenses of writing allowed by the teachers according to rule later, because of the distrustful or cautious official administration. Since the material was plentiful and free the children were allowed to write as many pages as they wished. More, in fact, they would be seen seated and writing at all hours of the day, not only in their houses, but also in the square, in the street, on the roads, for in all parts they had ready at hand bananas and bamboos, and a stone or any other kind of an object was used as a desk. And, since the aptitude of the native Filipino is so remarkable for imitation, and his patience so great, they did not stop their writing until they imitated ours with the greatest perfection. The religious also wrote the books and primers for their reading, formerly in manuscript, then printed in their own dialect, so that they might profit from the maxims and doctrine, and history and religion, in proportion as they became proficient in reading.

Notwithstanding, after 1863, when the government took charge of education, and the normal school directed by the Jesuit fathers provided the villages with normal teachers under official title and pay, the religious ceased to continue to foment education in their villages, yet not only as local supervisors, with which character they were invested by the memorable decree of that date--the foundation of all the circulars, decrees, and instructions which afterward fell upon that historical document in a vast jumble--but also since the boys and girls of the barrios distant from the villages twenty kilometers and sometimes more, were not able on account of the distance to be present at the official school, did the parish-priest religious, attentive and vigilant, hasten in their anxiety to supply with their pecuniary resources the official deficiencies in every barrio or visita. They had schools built of light materials but solid and well built, in which teachers, both male and female, appointed and paid by the parish priests, gave primary instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic; and sewing and embroidery to the girls. Finally, the parish priests also supplied them with paper, pens, ink, books, thread, needles, and all the other materials needed in teaching. The said schools were visited by the parish priests, if not periodically, yet whenever the duties of their ministries would permit. All the boys and girls of the nearby barrios attended those schools. Every Sunday after mass, masters and mistresses, with their respective scholars presented to their parish priests their copy books, sums, sewing, and embroidery, which they had made during the week. In order to comprehend the significance of all that has been set forth to this point, one must bear in mind that the population in Filipinas is found much scattered in groups of houses called barrios or visitas, more or less densely populated, and separated by a greater or less distance from one another. So true is this that of the fourteen thousand inhabitants of the village of Ogton, verbi gratia, scarcely four thousand lived within the radius of the village. This scattering of the inhabitants throughout the jurisdiction of the villages, if it were meet and convenient at the beginning of the conquest, in order that the barrios or the visitas might become the nucleus of future villages, yet had no reason for existence, during the last half of the past century in the very densely populated provinces like that of Iloilo and others. The inhabitants of the barrios distant from the village, from authority, and from the parish priests, could not be watched and attended to by the paternal solicitude of the latter, so much, or so well as those of the village, who lived under his immediate eye. Many of the priests themselves were suspected by the authorities as breeders of evil doers and criminals, for in the distant barrios people of evil life gathered, combined their thefts, and concealed the thefts. They were the pests of the civil guard and of the local authorities, and the constant preoccupation of the parish priests who saw that they were not fulfilling their religious duties as good Christians, and who, in order to administer the sacraments to them, had to go on horseback, by chair [horimon] or by hammock, whether it rained in torrents, or the equatorial sun melted their brains. Many times, and in distinct seasons and occasions, the superior authority of the islands ordered that the barrios be incorporated into the villages. Not being able to succeed in that, they ordered the small barrios to be fused into the greater, and roads to be opened which would put them in communication with the mother village. Not even this could they obtain because of the inborn passivity of the Indians. The one most harmed by that order of things was the parish priest who had the duty of watching over those scattered sheep, and giving them the food of the spirit to the danger of his health, and the exhaustion of his purse, by paying the wages of the teachers and for the materials used in teaching for the schools of the barrios. [95]

When the schools were already running with regularity, and the fruits which were produced under the accurate direction and immediate inspection of the parish priests were plentiful, the superior government of the islands took possession of the department of education, and in the above-mentioned decree of 1863, gave official character to the schools instituted by the parish priests. It conceded titles as teachers ad interim to those who were then in charge of the schools appointed by the religious. It assigned them a moderate pay, but one much greater than that received from the parish priests, whose resources were certainly very meager, and with which they had to attend to other duties which their ministry imposed on them. But the government left in most complete abandonment the settlement of the barrios composed generally of two-thirds of the total number of souls. We have already related how and in what manner the parish priests supplied the governmental omission. Teachers ad interim were gradually substituted by the normal teachers as they graduated from the normal school. Indeed in the last years of the past century there were but few schools not ruled over by teachers of the normal school. Did education gain much by the semi-academical title of the new teachers? Did the language of the fatherland become more general? At first, we must reply with all truth that while the normal teachers remained under the immediate supervision of the parish priests, authorized by the official rules to suspend them and fashion them suitably, education made excellent progress. But when they were emancipated from the supervision of the parish-priest religious by the decree of sad memory countersigned by Señor Maura in 1893, creating the municipalities to which passed the supervision and management of the schools and the teachers, education went into a decline. [96] The presence of the children became purely nominal in the triplicate report which the masters and mistresses sent monthly to the government of the province. That report had to be visoed by the parish priests, but the governors received and approved them without that requisite, disdaining and despising the signature of the parish priests. In that the latter understood that the visto bueno [i.e., approval] was a farce, which, taken seriously, lessened the reputation of and gained ill will for them, without any profit to the teachers and municipal captains. Consequently, it was all the same for the results whether they signed the said reports, or did not sign them. But if was painful to contemplate the empty benches in the school, from which those regular and interminable rows of four hundred or five hundred boys, and two other rows of as many or more girls, reduced afterwards to two or three dozen at the most, no longer went to the church after the afternoon class. That happened and we have seen it. It was one, and not of the least serious, misfortunes that came upon the country because of the unfortunate decree in regard to the Filipino municipalities.

On the creation of the normal school the government proposed as its principal object the rapid and quick diffusion of Castilian as the bond of union between the mother country and the colony. The end was good and praiseworthy, but a mistake was made in the means by which it was to be obtained, for those means were neither sufficient nor efficacious. Departing even from the false supposition that all the normal teachers constantly directed their efforts to teaching Castilian to the children, nothing serious and positive could be obtained. In the schools the children read and wrote in Castilian, learned the grammar by heart, and some teachers gave the explanation in Castilian also. The teacher asked questions in Castilian, and the scholars replied in certain dialogues, which they learned by heart. [97] But what was the result? The children did not understand one iota of the master's explanation. They answered in the dialogue like parrots, and the few phrases which they learned in the harmonious language of Cervantes, they forgot before they reached home, if not in the very school itself, because they did not again hear them either when playing with their comrades or in their homes, or in the school itself. For the constant and daily presence in the school left much to be desired, especially during the last decade of Spanish rule. Before the creation of the municipalities to which Señor Maura gave the local supervision of the schools, the parish priests visited them frequently. Every afternoon when the boys and girls were dismissed from school they went to the church in two lines, and the parish priest observed and even counted the number of those who were present, and when many of them were absent, they asked the teachers for their report of the absent children, called on their parents, and with flattery, admonitions, or threats, succeeded in getting the latter to see that their children were punctual in attendance. Furthermore, they clothed at their expense the poor boys and girls who excused their non-attendance at school because they had no pantaloons, or were without a skirt with which to cover the body. Later, with the municipalities, neither the municipal captains nor anyone else took care of the daily attendance of teachers and scholars in the school. If primary instruction in Filipinas had gone on in this way for considerable time it would have pitifully retrograded.

We have already seen the intervention which the parish priests had in primary education before the decree of 63, after that date, and also after the never sufficiently-deplored decree in regard to the municipalities, proposed for the royal signature by the then minister of the colonies, Don Antonio Maura, in 1893. But, notwithstanding that, there are many Spaniards who blame the parish-priest religious for the ignorance of the Indians of Castilian. Why this charge, both gratuitous and unjust? Some have argued that the parish priests should personally teach Castilian to the native children. In order to understand the absurdity of so great a pretension, one need only bear in mind that the parish-priest regulars in Filipinas had in their charge the spiritual administration of the villages, the number of souls in the smallest of which was not less than six thousand, and for the greater part reached ten thousand, fourteen thousand, and even twenty thousand, and more. For that work only a few parish priests had a coadjutor, and those among the Tagálogs, two or three Indian coadjutors, who aided them in the administration of the sacrament to the well and sick. It was also the duty of the parish priest to reply to consultations, give advices, direct communications, exercise the duties of alcaldes, justices of the peace, decisions, etc.; for in all that they had to take action, as neither the municipal alcalde nor the justice of peace of the village understood Castilian, and least of all, understood the orders, reports, acts, and measures. And it is asked us, if, after attending to so varied occupations, some peculiar to their ministry, others imposed by charity and by necessity, the parish priests would have time, willingness, or pleasure, in officiating as masters of Castilian without pay; however, there is still more. The parish priests were the local presidents of the boards of health and of locusts, public works, industrial and urban contribution, citizen and tributary poll, etc., etc., and we are asked, I repeat, if with all these trifles and mummeries the parish priest would have time even to rest, at the very least.

Others carried their pretension even to meddling with sacred matters of the temple and interfering with the parochial dwelling, demanding from the parish priests that the theological moral preaching, and the explanation of the Christian doctrine be in Castilian, as if it were the duty of the parish priest to please four deluded people, and not to instruct his parishioners who, not understanding Castilian, would have obtained from the catechism and from the sermon that which the negro did from the story. The same is true of the demand that the religious should address their servants in our beautiful language. Seeing that the Indian servants did the reverse of what their Spanish masters ordered them, and seeing the desperation of the latter for the said reason, why should the religious have to be subjected to like impatience when they could avoid it by addressing their servants in their own language? So general was the opinion that the religious were opposed to the Indians learning Castilian that Governor-general Despujols, in his visits to the Ilonga capital, apostrophized the parish-priest religious harshly, who had gone in commission to salute him. "You," he said to them, "are the ones who oppose the diffusion of Castilian in the country." Such were the words of that Catalonian, who claimed that a colony separated from the mother country by thousands of miles, and almost abandoned for that reason until the opening of the isthmus of Suez, should know and speak the Castilian, which is not known or spoken as yet in Cataluña, or in other provinces of España. It was very convenient for the Spaniards who went to Filipinas on business or as employes, and even necessary for them to understand the Indians, and they demanded that the latter learn Castilian. It was also very convenient and comfortable for the religious, since the learning of a dialect of the country cost them at least a year's study and practice. But was it not easier and more just that forty or fifty thousand Spaniards learn the language of the country since they needed it to live and do business in it, than to make six or seven millions of Indians, very few of whom needed to know it, learn Spanish?

Father Zúñiga [98] already declared in his time: "It has been ordered that books be not printed in the Tagálog language, that the Indians learn the doctrine in the Castilian language, and that the fathers preach to them in that language. The religious, in order to observe that command preached to them in Spanish and in Tagálog, but to ask them to confess some Indians who only knew the doctrine in a language which they did not understand and that the parish priests should be satisfied by preaching to their parishioners in a language of which the latter were ignorant, was almost the same as asking them for that which Diocletian asked from the Christians, and they would rather die willingly before fulfilling it.... In order that one may see the inconsistency of those who rule, it is sufficient to know their method of procedure in regard to plays. These Indians, as I have said, are very fond of plays, and the most influential people are those who become actors. Since such people do not generally know the Castilian language, they petition that they be allowed to play in their own language, and there is not the slightest hesitation in allowing plays in the Tagálog language in all the villages of this province, even in that of Binondo, which is only separated from the city [of Manila].

"And it is asked that the parish priests preach in Spanish!" [99]

In 1590, we find in the records of our province the following most note-worthy minute of the provincial chapter: "Likewise, it shall be charged upon all the ministers of the Indians that, just as the lads of the school are taught to read and to write, they also shall learn to talk our Spanish tongue because of the great culture and profit which follow therefrom (Archives of St. Augustine in Manila)." This was the rule made by the Augustinian fathers in 1590, and still there are some who accuse the religious of having been opposed to the diffusion of Castilian in Filipinas.

The decree in which the religious were charged to teach Castilian in the kingdoms of Indias is as follows: "By Don Felipe IV, in Madrid, March 2, 1634; and November 4, 1636, law v. That the curas arrange to teach the Indians the Castilian language and the Christian doctrine in the same language.

"We ask and charge the archbishops and bishops to provide and order in their dioceses the curas and instructors of the Indians, by using the gentlest means, to arrange and direct all the Indians to be taught the Spanish language, and that they be taught the Christian doctrine in that language, so that they may become more apt in the mysteries of our Catholic faith, and profit for their salvation, and attain other advantages in their government and mode of living."--Book i, título xiii.

"We could cite other dispositions [100] but these are sufficient to cause the noble propositions of our governors-general and the first apostles of Christianity in that country to be appreciated. Apart from the fact that in former times the friar could not alone carry the weight of the extraordinary labor, which is inferred from the teaching of a language which can be contained in the head of but very few Indians, the aspiration that our language supplant the many which are spoken in Filipinas can be only completely illusory."

We cannot resist the desire to reproduce here some paragraphs of the Carta abierta [i.e., open letter] which was directed through the columns of La Época by Señor Retana to Don Manuel Becerra, who was then minister of the Colonies. [101]

"I do not see, Señor Don Manuel, that a single Spaniard exists who would not be delighted to know that peoples who live many leguas from ours use the Spanish language as their own language. Why should we not be proud when we are persuaded that in both Americas live about forty millions of individuals who speak our beautiful language? Consequently, I esteem as most meritorious that vehement desire of yours to effect that there in Filipinas the Malays abandon their monotonous and poor dialects, and choose as their language that which we talk in Castilla. Very meritorious is it in fact among us to sustain so fine a theory; and I say, among us, for if you were English and set forth your laudable propositions in the House of Lords, or the House of Commons, of diffusing the language of the mother-country among the natives of unequal colonies, you may be assured, Señor Becerra, that on all sides of the circle there would come marks and even cries of disapproval. For it is a matter sufficiently well known in Great Britain and in Holland; and in a certain manner in France also, it is not maintained, not even in theory, that it is advisable for the conquered races to know the language of the ruling race. The great Macaulay, a liberal democrat, freethinker, a sincere and enthusiastic man, published his desire that Christianity be propagated in India, but he never spoke of a propagation of the English language in the Hindoostan Empire.

"Think, Señor Don Manuel, and grant me that if it were possible to please all the Spaniards to have our language propagated in all quarters of the world, there may be some persons who, thinking like the English, may conceive that that propagation would be unadvisable, from the viewpoint of politics.

"But by deprecating such tiquis miquis [102] since I hold, so far as I am concerned, that today our fellow countrymen who think in the English fashion in this manner are exceptional, let us come to the real root of the matter. It is an easy thing for you, Don Manuel, to see that it is practicable in a brief space of time to place the Castilian in the head of seven millions of Filipino Indians. Permit me to make a citation which is of pearls. Not many months ago the director of the royal college of the Escorial, or, to be more explicit, Fray Francisco Valdés, a man of superior talent who has lived in Filipinas for eighteen or twenty years, said: 'Our language cannot be substituted advantageously for the Tagálog, so long as the social education of that people does not experience profound and radical transformations.' And the same author adds: 'And since the total transformation of the customs and manner of living of a race is not the work of one year, much less of one century, hence, our firm conviction that great as may be our strength and much as the fondness of the Indian for Castilian may be exaggerated, the latter will never be the common idiom of Filipinas.'

"Do you think of tearing out the entrails of seven millions of individuals by giving them other new ones in this manner all at once? For the peculiar idiom is born in the peculiar country, and develops with the individual, and there is no human strength, which in many years can tear it out. At one step from us lie Cataluña and Vascongadas, where no success is had in making the speech of Cervantes common to individuals for whom the resonant drapery of our rich language is very loose, and whom it suffocates. Much less could it be so [in Filipinas]!

"Those who make the greatest propaganda are not, indeed, the masters. As many masters as there are in Cavite, there are in Bulacan, for example, or more, and in Cavite the people talk fairly good Castilian, while in Bulacan they scarcely talk any. Why? Because in Cavite there are many Spaniards who live there, while in Bulacan there are perhaps not fifty. For the rest another citation and the conclusion. The famous student of Filipinas, now the bishop of Jaca, Fray Francisco Valdés, says: 'There are many Indians who come to know quite well the material of the Spanish word; but the internal signification and the logical character of our beautiful language is for them an undecipherable secret. Our meanings [giros] and phrases are opposed to their peculiar fashion of conceiving and correlating ideas. From this discrepancy in the association of ideas, they produce literary products as nonsensical as the one below. This example is chosen from among innumerable others of the same kind, as it is the work of a master who passed among those of his class and was really one of the best instructed. The matter is an invitation elegantly printed and gotten up on the occasion of the mass called vara which the gobernadorcillos usually cause to be celebrated with great pomp on that day when they receive from the governor the vara or staff of command. It is as follows: On the nineteenth day, in the morning, and of the present full moon, the mass of my vara will be held in this church under my charge, for God has gratuitously granted me this honorable charge. I invite you, therefore, to my house, so that from that moment the vacancy of my heart having been freed, it may become full by your presence, until my last hour sounds on the clock of the Eternal.'" Come now Don Manuel, what do you say to this? [103]

"We might extend our remarks to much greater length [104] in this important matter in order to prove that the 'Ordeno y mando' [105] of those who govern always falls to pieces before insuperable difficulties, and therefore to accuse the religious of being the reason why Castilian is not popular in Filipinas when we have the most eloquent data that in the villages ruled by secular priests of the country, there is less Castilian spoken than in the parishes ruled over by the friars, is an immense simplicity into which only the malevolent can fall or those who do not know those races by experience.--Consult Barrantes's La Instrucción primaria en Filipinas; and Father Valdés's El Archipiélago Filipino." [106]

If the Spanish government desired that the Castilian language be rapidly diffused in Filipinas, the normal school or the teachers who graduated from it were not the most efficient and suitable means, but the establishment in the Filipino villages of five hundred thousand Spanish families. The servants of those families, and familiarity and converse with the native families would have done in a short time, what never would have succeeded by means of the normal teachers, and which the other educational schools in which the native dialects would not be allowed to be spoken, would have taken centuries in obtaining. It was observed that in the ports and in the capitals where the Spanish element was numerous, almost all the Indians spoke Castilian. Consequently, this same thing would have happened in the villages in which fifty or one hundred Spanish families would have been settled. Neither was it the mission of the parish-priest religious to teach Castilian to the Indians, nor did they have time to dedicate themselves to it. Neither would they have succeeded in that in a long time, not even with all their prestige and competency. Nor did they need as parish priests that the Indian should know Castilian, although as Spaniards they desired it, and very greatly. For, very strongly did it come to them that language, religion, and customs, are strong chains which united mother countries to colonies.

No one could be in a position to know the needs of the country, to feel its forces and appreciate its progress as could the parish-priest religious. Individual members of respectable communities consecrated to the spiritual and material happiness of the Indians, passed, but the spirit which guided their footsteps toward so noble an end, without separating itself any distance from the preconceived plan, always existed. When the opportunity to give greater amplitude to education, and to open up new and vaster horizons to the studious youth of the country, came, the parish priests were the ones who recognized that need and satisfied it. By a royal decree of June 8, 1585, King Don Felipe II arranged for the foundation of the college of San José, which was destined for the education and teaching of the children of Spaniards resident in Filipinas. Lessons in Latin, rhetoric, and philosophy, were given in that college by distinguished Jesuit fathers. The restrictions placed as to the number and quality of the pupils did not satisfy the need for more centers of learning, which the Filipino youth urgently demanded within a little time. His Excellency, the archbishop of Manila, Señor Benavides, a Dominican, projected the foundation of the college of Santo Tomás, aided by his Excellency, Don Fray Diego de Soria of the same order, bishop of Nueva Segovia. [107] With the one thousand pesos fuertes donated by Señor Benavides and the four thousand by Señor Soria, and the acquisition of the libraries of both, the works were commenced in the year 1610. In 1617, the college was in condition of being admitted as a house by the province of the Dominican fathers in the islands. In 1620, having been provided with professors, it opened its halls to the Filipino youth without distinction of race. King Don Felipe IV took the college under his special protection by a royal decree of November 27, 1623. Some years later, its royal protector obtained from his Holiness, Pope Innocent X, the fitting bull given November 20, 1644, by which the said college was erected into a university, and the latter decorated with the honorable titles of Royal and Pontifical. By a royal decree of May 17, 1680, it was admitted solemnly under the royal protection, and his Majesty, the king, was declared its patron. By another royal decree of December 7, 1781, the statutes approved by the government of the colony, October 20, 1786, were formed. It continued and is at present in charge of its founders, the learned and virtuous Dominican fathers. That royal college and pontifical university has a rector religious, and all the professors except those of medicine and pharmacy are also Dominicans.

The studious youth who saw in the new center of teaching the glorious future which invited them by the golden laurels of learning, came in crowds to fill the cloisters of the new university, which, narrow and reduced for containing within their halls so many young men desirous of learning and instruction, begged the aid of another institution which should share with the university in the task of the teacher. The time urged, the necessity was pressing, there was no time to think of the construction of a new edifice for circumstances did not permit it. Then there was fitted up as a college the school of primary instruction instituted by the illustrious Spaniard, Don Gerónimo Guerrero, of glorious memory, whose name should pass to posterity so that he may be blessed eternally by Spaniards and Filipinos, since he dedicated his wealth, his labors, and his care to their instruction and education, not only instructing them in the primary letters, but also supporting them and clothing them with his own resources and with the alms which other charitable persons who were desirous of contributing in so deserving a work gave him. The efforts of that remarkable Spaniard deserved the protection of the government of the mother country and the support of the Council of Indias. The king remunerated them by granting him an encomienda in Ilocos as an aid in that blessed establishment, and God rewarded it by conceding him the religious vocation which induced him to take the habit in the order of the Dominican fathers. He ceded to the latter his schoolhouse, his encomienda, and all his goods, with the sole condition that the said fathers were to take charge of the gratuitous education and teaching of the poor Spanish and native boys. The condition having been accepted by the Dominican fathers the schoolhouse of the worthy Spaniard and now virtuous religious was erected into a college under the advocacy of San Juan de Letrán, July 18, 1640, by license from the governor-general and from the archbishop. Since that college was a school, it had also as its object the elemental instruction and education of abandoned and poor children, in order to make of them good citizens and excellent military men for the defense of the plaza of Manila, and the colony. Erected into a college, the students continued therein the study of philosophy, theology, and canons, in order that those who showed aptitude and merited that dignity, might be ordained as priests. Later, all the young men who cared to devote themselves to the study of secondary education were admitted as pensioned inmates. At the end of that course, and after they had taken their degree, they went to the university of Santo Tomás to take up the higher branches. The above-mentioned college was always very useful and commendable. A blessed asylum in its origin, it has always been until today the institution of secondary teaching in which the Dominican fathers, subjecting themselves rigorously to the urgent, although ancient plan of studies, have been able to mold themselves to the peculiar capacity of the natives, directing with exquisite prudence, their native qualities to the professional studies which most harmonize with them.

Thus, in proportion as the necessities for education were exacting, the monastic orders, ever attentive to every movement which could be of interest to the colony, continued to create centers of instruction: the Jesuit fathers in the Ateneo and in the normal school in Manila; the Dominicans in the university, Letrán, and Dagupan; the Franciscans, in Camarines; the Augustinian Recollects, in Negros; the calced Augustinians founded in Iloilo colleges of secondary education directed by themselves, which promised to be the dawn of a new era of civilization and culture, if the last Indian rebellion, provoked by the obstinate governors and supported by the Americans had not caused its ruin with a secular work, the wonder of the world, with the colleges, with the Spanish domination, with the country, and with all the existing things gained quietly yet at the cost of great hardships, and of enormous sacrifices in self-denial and virtue. [108]

The weak sex also were attended to according to their merits by the religious orders. From before the middle of the eighteenth century dates the institution of the school of Santa Rosa, or of Mother Paula, as its foundress was called. She was a religious of the tertiary branch of St. Dominic, who went from Cataluña to Manila to consecrate herself to the welfare of her own class. Having arrived at Manila, she saw that the greatest benefit which her flaming charity could produce was the education and instruction of the young Indian women. In reality, she labored with pious and burning zeal, until she obtained a house, in which she made the foundation of the beaterio school in which the young Indian women received a Christian education. In the holy fear of God, they learned the doctrine and exercised themselves in the labors peculiar to their sex, in order to later dedicate themselves to God and to the moral education of their sex, or to become married, in which estate they gave application and example of the excellent maxims and sane principles which they learned from their glorious foundress. Mother Paula endured many persecutions which she suffered with resignation and patience. She gave her name to the beaterio, which continued as an educational institution and as a retreat for the girls who desired to embrace it temporarily.

Before the beaterio of Santa Rosa, or of Mother Paula, was founded that of Santa Catalina de Sena. The former was the complement of the latter, which in its beginning only took charge of the education of young Spanish women, It is said that its foundation was due to a certain number of women of the tertiary branch of St. Dominic who retired to a house in order to devote themselves to pious exercises, and from which they went out only to hear mass. Others attribute the foundation of that beaterio school in 1696 to the solicitude of Mother Francisca del Espiritu Santo, and to the reverend father, Fray Juan de Santo Domingo. The illustrious author, Fray Joaquin Martinez de Zúñiga, recognizes as foundress of that beaterio in 1694, Doña Antonia Esguerra, but from any of those three opinions which we follow it will always result that the said beaterio school of Santa Catalina de Sena was dedicated from its beginning to the education and teaching given by women religious to the Spanish girls primarily, and admitted afterwards into its classes Indian and mestizo girls. All learned to read, write, reckon, and the work peculiar to their sex.

The prodigious increase of the Filipino population and of the general prosperity of the country, and even more the advanced extension made by culture in all social classes made the above-mentioned beaterio schools insufficient, and, just as other monastic orders came to the aid of the Dominican fathers when the needs of the times demanded it, so also, the sisters of charity came to the aid of the tertiary mothers, and founded the schools of Luban and Concordia in Manila, in Tuguegarao, Pangasinan, Camarines, Iloilo, Cebú, and Ilocos-Sur.

The monastic orders, charged with the superior rule of almost all the literary profession, directors of the scientific movement of the country, could not have forgotten one class of the greatest utility at any time of the scarcity of religious, although it never corresponded as it ought to the desires of its professors, or to that which the high spiritual interests of the Church and of the faithful demanded and hoped from it. The bishops of the country all proceeding from the monastic cloisters founded the conciliar seminaries directed by religious of all the orders, in which the native clergy was educated, instructed, and formed, as an aid to the regular clergy in the beginning, and as parish priests and administrators after the missions and ministries surrendered to the miters by the religious orders.

All the above-mentioned centers of education gave a suitable increase for the end for which they were created. All attained in a short time so high a degree of splendor, that but seldom or never is seen in cultured Europa. They counted their regular pupils by hundreds, and their day pupils by thousands. The confidence of the families in the solid instruction and morality of the religious professors, in the method and facility in the explanation by expert professors who knew the qualities and defects of the scholars, and even the language of the country, and in the moral and religious regimen to which they rigorously submitted both regular and day pupils contributed to so happy a result.

With respect to the condition of education in the last third of the past century, some affirm that it was highly satisfactory, while others have asserted that its backward state and abandonment were pitiful. If we consider that the courses were made, if not by the rule of the statutes approved by the general government of the colony, October 20, 1786, at least by a plan of almost as respectable an antiquity, the secondary and university education had to result as deficient for modern times. If we add the small capacity of the Indians for the sciences, the chronological defects will show up more clearly through the little gain of the scholars in spite of the enlightened efforts of the eleven doctors, and eighteen licentiates of the royal and pontifical university of Santo Tomás.

As if led by the hand we have now come to touch upon one of the Filipino problems discussed so often and with so great heat, and yet without result to the satisfaction of all. We speak of the aptitude and capacity of the Indians for the letters and sciences.

Has the Filipino Indian that aptitude and sufficiency?

Before entering fully upon the question, we ought to advise that we have lived in several Visayan villages for the space of twenty-three years; that we speak the language fluently; that, as a parish priest, we have necessarily had among our duties to treat with Indians of all social classes, from the most enlightened to the rudest; that we have merited their confidence; that we have studied them and observed them at their domestic fireside and in public life; that we know their customs, their passions, their defects, and their good qualities. And if all this, and much more which we could add, is not sufficient to form an exact and definite judgment on the nature of the Indian, we will say that we have consulted the experience of our predecessors, and the parish-priest religious brothers of the habit, friends, and associates who took part in the sacred ministry in villages of other provinces, and we have found our opinions upon this particular in accord with their more valuable opinions. We will say also, in order that our opinion may not be censured as partial, that by the divine grace we wear the habit of our glorious founder, St. Augustine, the wisest and most universal of the holy fathers, the great figure of the fourth century, the wonderful ancient author, the admiration of the moderns, from whom we have inherited our love for study and the sciences, which with prayer and contemplation constitute the foundation and essence of our institute, as it was founded by a saint consecrated all his life to letters and converted to the faith by means of a book: Tolle lege; tolle, lege. [109] Lastly, we advise that the Order of St. Augustine, to which I have the good fortune to belong, also built a school in Iloilo, dedicated to secondary education, in which it spent huge sums to make it the equal of the best schools of Europa.

Now then, having set forth these preliminaries, we enter upon the question. More than two centuries ago, the university and the colleges of San José, and San Juan de Letrán, in Manila, opened their halls to the Filipino youth. The Indians annually matriculated by thousands in the various courses which were taught by erudite professors. How many scientific notabilities have resulted from the natives up to the present from the university cloisters? How many Indian theologues, canons, philosophers, moralists [have graduated] from the conciliar seminaries? Not even one by exception, which usually is found in any general rule. At the most we have heard of some good advocate, of some regular theologue, of some mediocre canon, of some advanced pharmacist, or of some clever physician. But those whom we can consider as exceptions to the rule, never reach the top rank of their equals in other countries. This lack is not attributed to the professors, for they were always picked men, and in the university of Manila, the present bishop of Oviedo, Señor Vigil, his Excellency, the lately deceased Cardinal Ceferino, the archbishop of Manila, Father Nozaleda, the illustrious Father Orias, and very many other Dominican fathers who were the honor of their order, of their country, and of all the monastic orders, shone pre-eminently for their learning. We recognize more sufficiency in the European mestizo and the Sangley or Chinese mestizo, than in the pure-blooded Indian; and the mestizos of those races are the ones who distinguish themselves, some notably, as authors, advocates, physicians, canons, and among other literary professions, in which not one single pure-blooded Indian has been found. What does this signify, if not that the deficiency exists in the race, and not in the professors or in the books. [110]

When we have tried to demonstrate to them some abstract truth, a mystery, a catholic dogma, some philosophical thesis, with the greatest simplicity, clearness, and precision, we have observed that the attention of the Indian, excited and sustained at the beginning, gradually diminished, his eyes wandered, his distraction was manifest. Giving another turn and another form to the exposition, we have succeeded in awakening those sleepy or tired minds, but always for only a few moments. By one example we obtain more than by the most exact dissertations, and by the most clear explanations; for their childish minds, their excessively acute sensibility needs something palpable to bring some light to the darkness of their understandings. We have observed that phenomenon also in the rude as well as the instructed Indians who had learned to reason by logic, and have cultivated the mind by study as far as their mental strengths can go. It must be inferred then that the Filipino Indian is a grown-up child. As a child he cannot go beyond the elemental in the sciences, for his most limited understanding cannot mount in its flight to the heights of the metaphysical. Examples, similes, and metaphors are the indirect means to make him understand the intangible, the spiritual, and the abstract. There can be no luminous philosophical dissertations, or brilliant theories, or abstruse problems, but examples, many examples to make him perceive the truth and the essence of things, causing him to touch, feel, and perceive, with eyes, ears, touch, and the other bodily senses.

There have not been lacking those who have attributed the incapacity and insufficiency of the Indians to intellectual laziness which corresponds to the laziness peculiar to an equatorial country, where the burning rays of fiery sun enervates the physical and intellectual forces. We neither affirm nor deny this, since it might well happen that the Indians possess, like children, in the beginning in potentiality intellectual faculties in their germ equal and even superior to those of the white race, but we incline to the belief that the Indian of pure blood can never reach in scientific culture to the level of the European. If he ever attains anything in the field of science, it must be because another blood inoculates in his own blood the divine breath of wisdom, and then he will be able to advance somewhat when the cross whitens his olive-colored face, has lowered his prominent cheek-bones, and elevated his flat nose a trifle. Until that time comes, the Indian will always be a grown-up child, as simple, as ignorant, and as credulous as a child, but with all the passions, vices, and defects of the adult.

"In regard to the nature and understanding of the Indians," says Retana, "speaking in general, they are more clever than the American Indians. [111] They readily learn any art, and with the same readiness they imitate any work which is placed before them. They make fine clerks and are employed in the accounting offices and other offices in that duty. For, besides the fact that they write well, they are excellent accountants, have capacity for directing a lawsuit, and very sharp in getting the parties to the lawsuit all tangled up. There are good stonemasons, and musicians among them. But in all these things, they only reach a certain degree which they never surpass, either because of laziness, or for the lack of intellect, which we must suppose to be sufficiently limited. For they never invent anything, and all is reduced to their skill of imitation. Those who give themselves to the sciences never surpass a mediocrity in their comprehension.

"He who has had to do with the Indians of Filipinas can do no less than assent to this truth. We find them more clever than ourselves in learning any mechanical work, but more stupid in whatever depends upon the understanding or on the imagination. In so brief a time do they learn the trade of artists, musicians, embroiderers, cobblers, tailors, and whatever is reduced to the mechanical, that they exercise it fairly well in little time. If they are not satisfied with it, they readily give it up and learn another trade. There are Indians who have gone through all those trades, and they have filled them all well. But not one of them has ever surpassed mediocrity. There has never been an artisan who has invented any improvement in the trade which he learned. They are most ingenious in imitating what they see, but they never invent anything. If those men had the talents of Europeans, why is it possible that one cannot find in three hundred years one who has added anything to what was taught him?

"I can affirm of the Filipinos with whom I have lived for more than sixteen years, that they are handy in every kind of mechanism which is shown to them. They are capable of imitating the most curious works, but they can invent nothing, for they lack imagination and fancy, and are very obtuse in the abstract sciences because they lack understanding.

"Some try to attribute this to the subordination in which the Spaniards hold them. I will ask such people why does not that subordination and submission prevent them from making any mechanical work with a sufficient perfection? The soldiers learn the military exercise quicker than do the Spaniards; the children learn to read readily; most of them write an excellent hand. The girls easily imitate the laces and embroideries of Europa. Why do they not imitate equally well our philosophers, our mathematicians, and our poets? Why do they not make any advance in painting, in music, and in the other sciences which require imagination and understanding? [112] More than half of the seculars of the Manila archbishopric are Indians. There are some who have become alcaldes-mayor, officers in the royal army, and advocates in the royal Audiencia. Why have none of them gone beyond a very moderate mediocrity in the sciences to which they have dedicated themselves? Just as among Europeans individuals are found for all kinds of abstract sciences, it must be confessed that in the same manner nations are found who, because of the climate in which they have lived for a long series of generations, have contracted a certain tangency of understanding which disposes them very little to receive metaphysical and spiritual ideas." [113]

This gives us the key to the fatal results obtained in education in Filipinas. Of the hundreds of students who matriculated annually in the colleges, fifteen per cent did not succeed in obtaining the degree of bachelor, and if those who gained a professional title in the university scarcely reached ten per cent, and of them the greater number were advocates without clients, and physicians without patients, they, united with those who abandoned their books and mutilated their career, were in the villages the greatest calamity that befell the country. They all pompously called themselves pilósopos for filósofos [i.e.,