THE OFFICIAL GAZETTE. The Official Gazette has been in existence a little more than one year, having been established by act of the Commission on September 2, 1902. The office force provided for the Gazette consists of an editor at $1,800 per annum, one clerk at $720 per annum, two clerks at $600 per annum each, and one clerk at $300 per annum. It is printed at the Government printing plant in English and Spanish, and is at present issued to 2,182 subscribers, of whom 1,028 are officers of the insular government, on the "free list," 989 provincial and municipal governments, and 165 private persons. Laws of the Commission, executive orders, such decisions of the supreme court and court of customs. appeals as may be designated by the judges, proclamations of the civil governor, resolutions of the Commission, opinions of the attorney-general, circular letters, orders, notices, etc., of the different bureaus are presented to the subscribers of the Gazette within a week after they are ready for publication. The price of the Gazette has been fixed by law at $6 U. S. currency per annum, or 15 cents per single copy. Provincial and municipal governments are required to subscribe for at least one copy weekly, and by this means are enabled to follow more closely the operations of the central government. On March 5, 1903, the editor was authorized by the Commission to make exchanges of the Gazette with similar periodicals with a view to collecting and placing on reference file useful information on political, social, and economic questions, and a number of publications of the Orient are now received regularly. Extracts from reports of bureau chiefs and other government officials on different subjects of interest and value to provincial and municipal officials and other subscribers will be printed from time to time in the Gazette. The Gazette is by law made a part of the public records of each provincial and municipal government, so that in each municipality and province there will always be a continuous record of necessary information for ready reference. The following are the appropriations for and the receipts and expenditures of the Gazette during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1903: Amount of appropriations.. Expenditures $3,000.00 3, 303. 76 2,704.22 The total cost of printing the Gazette from the date of its establishment to June 30, 1903, as returned by the public printer, was $9,690. For details in regard to the Official Gazette, reference is made to the report of the editor attached thereto, marked "Exhibit F," and made a part of this report. Respectfully submitted. JAMES F. SMITH, Secretary of Public Instruction. EXHIBIT A. REPORT OF THE GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION FOR THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS FOR THE PERIOD SEPTEMBER 1, 1902, TO SEPTEMBER 30, 1903, WITH ACCOMPANYING REPORTS AND PAPERS. AIMS OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN THE PHILIPPINES. MANILA, P. I., September 15, 1903. SIR: I have the honor to submit the annual report for the bureau of education for the Philippine Islands, which is the third annual report to be made by the general superintendent since the introduction of an American public-school system in these islands. Within the past year the public schools' work has twice suffered the loss of a general superintendent. In December last Dr. Fred W. Atkinson, after two and one-half years' service in this capacity and after having organized the public-school system practically as it stands to-day, resigned his position in order to return to the United States and continue there his profession as a public educator, which was interrupted by his acceptance of duty here. He was succeeded by Dr. Elmer B. Bryan, then principal of the Manila Normal School, who, to the great disappointment and regret of every one interested in education, was obliged, by serious ill health, to resign his position August 13 last. The undersigned was appointed to succeed him, and has been in charge of the work only a few days over one month. In reviewing the history of the islands for the past three years, one is immediately struck by the great emphasis placed upon public schools, first, by officers of every rank of the United States Army who administered this Archipelago during the first two years of American sovereignty, and subsequently by the United States Philippine Commission and the civil government of the islands. This emphasis upon the public schools is undoubtedly the result of the primary importance which they play in American civilization and the supreme confidence which Americans feel in the necessity, to this and to every aspiring people, of a democratic, secular, and free-school system, supported and directed by the State. It has resulted that the school system of these islands is the most typically American institution which our government has here established. Spanish precedents and previous institutions have been followed to a strikingly less degree than in the organization of local and insular administration, the constitution of the courts, or any other branch of administration. The definite purposes in introducing this educational system are unique in the history of colonial administration. Professedly, openly, and with resolute expectation of success, the American Government avowed its intention through public schools to give to every inhabitant of the Philippine Islands a primary, but thoroughly modern edu cation, to thereby fit the race for participation in self-government and for every sphere of activity offered by the life of the Far East, and to supplant the Spanish language by the introduction of English as a basis of education and the means of intercourse and communication. Almost as impossible as such great results may have looked and still look to the outsider, and thoroughly as they have been the objects of criticism, the Bureau of Education and the Philippine Government is more thoroughly committed to this policy now than at any time during the past five years, is more certain of success, and is almost able to demonstrate by the results already achieved that the ends early set up can and will be reached. It is the general character and reasons for this system of primary schools which I wish to discuss in this first part of my report. Such an educational plan would never have been practicable had it not been in fact the demand of the Filipino people themselves. Thoroughly American as our school system is, it represents the ideas which theoretically command the desires of the Filipino. His request was for free, secular schools, open to all inhabitants and teaching the English tongue and the elementary branches of modern knowledge. His struggle with Spain had sufficed to convince him that he was limited in thought and action by a medieval system which is no longer recognized as of binding force in the modern world, and this feeling has caused his prompt acceptance of whatever appeared to him or was presented to him as of modern type. The Filipino is essentially a radical. Contrary to what has been stated of him, he is one of the least conservative types of mankind. In readiness to seize the new, to welcome change, and in ambitious pride, he is closer to the Japanese than any other nationality. The last half century of Spanish rule brought to the Filipino people great changes that made possible the striking revolutionary events of the last seven years. The race made a great advance between 1860 and the end of the century-an advance due primarily to the enlightened efforts of the liberal element in Spanish political life. The reactionary policy which followed the fall of republican government in Spain and the Cavite revolution of 1872, which aimed to suppress the rapidly rising ambitions of the Filipino people, has greatly obscured the intelligent and deserving efforts made by the liberal element in the Spanish administration toward developing both the mental and spiritual interests of these islands. As a matter of fact, for nearly forty years Spain's policy in these islands was one of reform. A serious and disinterested policy strove to remove the economic hindrances which had so long checked the development of the Archipelago, and to enlighten and elevate the race. We see the first of these changes in the opening of Manila to foreign trade in 1837. This was the beginning of the advancement of the islands, and was followed by the development of the commercial products which have made the Philippines famous-hemp, tobacco, sugar, and copra. An almost uninterrupted era of economic prosperity followed down to the end of Spanish rule. The Philippines received many governors of liberal political ideas, conspicuous among whom was Claveria, 1844 to 1849. From his governorship we may date the final relief of the islands from Moro piracy, the reform of Philippine administration, and the beginnings of the great changes in the aspirations of the Filipino people themselves. But of equal importance with any other change was the opening of education to the Filipino. Previous to the middle of the last century there was, practically speaking, no education among the Filipinos. The famous collegiate institutions of this city, which date almost from the foundation of Manila itself, were designed, not for the Filipino, but for the children of the Spaniard and mestizo. Education in the parishes had been left solely to the direction of the cura-párroco, or village friar, and was limited to elementary religious teaching. But, in 1860, a system of public primary instruction was established by the famous Spanish minister of war and colonies, O'Donnell. A primary school for boys and one for girls was decreed for each pueblo of the Archipelago. In these schools instruction was to be given in the Spanish language. A superior commission of education was formed, consisting of the governor, the archbishop, and seven other members added by the governor himself. Spanish plans work out into actual results. very slowly, and it took years to fully realize the ideas which appear in these first orders and decrees, but at the end of Spanish rule practically every pueblo in the Philippines had its two public schools for boys and for girls, with Filipino teachers who had been educated in the Spanish language and elements of knowledge, and on every little plaza or town square there stood, along with the tribunal, the jail, and the far more pretentious and older church and convent, public buildings for schools. These schools by no means conformed, however, to American ideas of a public educational system. In the first place, they were hopelessly inadequate to give enlightenment to the entire population. Filipino pueblos are in reality townships or districts that sometimes extend over many square miles of country, and contain scores of small hamlets or barrios scattered at considerable distances from the centro de población. It does not seem to have been the Spaniards' effort or intention to educate the children of these obscure and humble hamlets. Buildings at the center, while sometimes well constructed, were small and usually employed not more than one man and one woman teacher. Forty to 60 pupils in each is certainly not underestimating the school attendance in the towns whose population varies from 8,000 to 20,000 souls. The result was that these schools gave to the children of Filipinos of means, who could afford to build and maintain homes in the town center, an opportunity for elementary education and a preparation to pass to the more pretentious colegios of important cities and, above all, of Manila. The result, combined with the economic changes that were taking place, was in some ways unfortunate. The continually rising plane of material prosperity which followed the opening of foreign commerce and the development of new commercial products was participated in by only one class of the Filipinos themselves. This was the old petty aristocracy, the class known anciently among the Tagalog as the "majarlica," who became under the Spanish administration the principales of the pueblo and who are to-day known by such quaint designations as "gente ilustrada" or "pudientes." pudientes." This class it is that not only has monopolized the great gains in material prosperity, but such enlightenment and education as well as the race has gained. The result has been more sharply than ever to divide society among the Filipinos into two well-differentiated classes-a very small number of educated, who own rich haciendas, buildings, and other sources of wealth, who live in beautifully built houses adorned with the artistic woods of the islands, who speak the Spanish language, who have possessed themselves of the charm and grace of Spanish manners, and who seldom fail to attract and delight the guest that with unfailing hospitality they receive into their homes. This class is, however, but the merest fraction of the race itself-ten to a dozen families, usually, in towns of from ten to twenty thousand people. The rest of the population, the tao, have been left in an unchanged condition of ignorance and poverty, and their dependence upon and submission to the dominance and control, both economic and intellectual, of the "gente ilustrada" has been continually accentuated by each added gain acquired by the wealthy class. In the second place, the Spanish school system, though founded and supported by the Government, was never secular in character. The Spanish friar, who was the pueblo curate, was always the local inspector of the school, and not only directed its conduct but determined the subjects which should be taught. In the brief and imperfect course of primary instruction which was given in these little schools church catechism, church doctrine, and sacred history were emphasized almost to the exclusion of the other subjects which are necessary to fit the Filipino child for his position in life, whether it be humble or fortunate. This, however, was not the sole unfortunate effect of this arrangement. Whatever may be said in praise of the work of religious orders in these islands, it can not be denied that their attitude during the last fifty, and particularly the final thirty years of their influence here, was excessively hostile toward the enlightenment of the Filipino. They actively sought to debar the Filipino from any sort of modern knowledge, from gaining a position of independence and self-respect, and from entrance into any kind of leadership of his own race. It was, in fact, this obstructive and reactionary policy on the part of the class that most immediately affected their lives that provoked the Filipino into open hostility and rebellion. Thus, while we find much to commend in the public school system established by the excellent O'Donnell over forty years ago, it is apparent that it neither gave opportunity to the little child of the humble fisherman and husbandman, nor did it lift the Filipino toward that truth, the knowledge of which makes free. In building up here an American system of public schools, we necessarily form our purposes with a view to the failures of the past, and this previous experience compels us to adopt certain ideals which may be briefly stated at this point. In the first place, American schools must be public and secular. Very grave doubts were at first entertained whether it would be possible to maintain here a system of schools which did not give religious instruction and which did not place dependence upon the assistance of the Church. The government, in its opening efforts, was gravely advised and admonished that the Filipino would support no form of instruction that was not primarily Roman Catholic in character. There has been no case of greater misrepresentation. The experiment of secular public schools in these islands is now nearly three years old, and the result is seen that the Filipino father, while with few exceptions, sincerely desirous that his child shall be trained in a knowledge of those religious precepts and ceremonies which have for centuries formed the only higher life of the great mass of this population, is nevertheless equally desirous that his intellectual advance should be unaffected by ecclesiastical control, and that the instruction |