REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION,

Manila, November 6, 1911.

GENTLEMEN: I have the honor to submit, for your consideration, the tenth annual report of the department of public instruction for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1911.

On February 4, 1911, the secretary of public instruction left for a vacation in the United States, from which date the department of public instruction was administered by the undersigned.

BUREAU OF EDUCATION.

LEGISLATION.

The following legislation pertaining to the work of public schools was enacted during the past year:

Act No. 2002, by the Commission, making available 1,000 from Act No. 1992 for the purchase of additional land for the Baguio Industrial School.

Act No. 2018, by the Legislature, authorizing municipal councils to appropriate funds for payment of travel expenses of municipal teachers attending vacation institutes.

Act No. 2029, by the Legislature, appropriating P1,000,000 in continuance of the so-called Gabaldon law (Act No. 1801) for construction of barrio school buildings; one-quarter of the total to be made available annually, beginning January 1, 1912.

Act No. 2048, by the Legislature, appropriating 50,000 for teacher scholarships in insular schools.

Act No. 2049, by the Legislature, appropriating 30,000 for student scholarships in the Philippine Normal School and the Philippine

School of Arts and Trades.

Act No. 2059, by the Legislature, appropriating 500,000 for the construction of insular school buildings in the city of Manila.

Act No. 2061, by the Commission, appropriating P60,000 for the establishment of a sales agency. This institution will handle the industrial product of the public schools.

The Legislature having failed to pass a general appropriation bill for the fiscal year 1912, the Governor General, by executive action, has made available for the current expenditures of the bureau during that year the sum of P3,610,000, the amount which was appropriated for the support of schools by Act No. 1989.

GENERAL STATEMENT.

The annual enrollment for the school year 1910-11 reached 610,493,1 as against 587,317 for the preceding year; the highest enrollment in any one month was 484,689, as against 451,938 for 190910; the highest average daily attendance for one month was 395,537, an increase of 31,489 over that for the same month of the preceding year. The total number of schools in operation was 4,404, and the total number of teachers on duty at the close of the school year was 9,086, of whom 8,403, or over 92 per cent, were Filipinos. In this large corps, all grades of efficiency are represented, but there has been a general improvement during the past year both in scholastic attainments and in ability to teach. A year ago 25 per cent of the Filipino employees had completed the intermediate grades on instruction. In most school divisions, many young men and women who have completed work of advanced grades, are seeking employment, thereby creating competition, which makes it necessary for the older teachers to continually improve their attainments. It is the policy of the bureau of education to give Filipino teachers of superior attainments opportunity to render service up to the full measure of their ability. Primary instruction, except in a few special schools, is now handled by Filipino teachers. The greater part of the intermediate instruction has, in recent months, been turned over to them, and it will not be long before the bureau will depend upon them solely for all except secondary work. There have been 148 Filipinos employed as supervisors and assistant supervisors during the past year. A few are qualified for secondary work and are so employed.

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING.

Perhaps the keynote of the present administration of the public schools is the stress laid on industrial instruction. The chief problem of the year in this connection has been to standardize the various lines of industrial work throughout the archipelago, to give the schools all over the islands the advantage of the marked success in special lines of work attained in certain Provinces. That the system of industrial training in the schools is bringing results may be seen from the following examples:

School boys in 100 towns of the Philippines are wearing hats made by themselves. The hat exports from the Philippine Islands increased from 621,475 in the fiscal year 1910 to 1,025,596 in the fiscal year 1911. What proportion of this increase is due to school influence can not be definitely stated, but the schools have had much to do with it, and the result is going to be far greater in the future.

Igorot girls weave the cloth and make the clothing which they wear in school.

Probably more than half of the desks and tables in the primary schools of the Philippines have been made by the pupils.

The primary schools of Albay are able to deliver 1,000 salable baskets on a month's notice.

1 This figure does not include 5,302 pupils enrolled in the schools of the Moro Province whose administration is independent of the bureau of education.

The industrial school at Capiz has introduced and developed the slipper-making industry in that community, and slippers to the estimated value of P4,000 were sold during the year.

Through school influence 1,072 gardens were established during the past year at the homes of people in Union Province. In November, 1910, an inspection of Albay Province developed the fact that many vegetables and fruits, capable of easy production in that district, were very scarce or entirely unknown. Small tomatoes and eggplants were sold at prohibitive prices. Fruits also seemed to be unknown, other than the banana. Of a class of 63 pupils only 3 had eaten papaya, and 2 had eaten radishes; but lettuce, ochra, and many other common vegetables and fruits were unknown. After the date of that inspection 470 school and home gardens were developed in that Province, with pronounced effect upon the food supply of the people. In the non-Christian Province of Bukidnon every school has 4 hectares of land inclosed and under cultivation. Its school farms are models of cleanliness and order, producing an abundance of rice, camotes, and other substantial foods, with which the people were meagerly supplied before these schools were established.

The school farm at Batac, Ilocos Norte, sent to Manila and had on exhibition throughout the week of the 1911 carnival a crop of vegetables superior in size and quality to anything appearing in the

Manila markets.

Upon the initiative of the Philippine School of Arts and Trades, and through the agency of provincial trade schools, a type of furniture is being generally introduced equal in finish to anything manufactured by the commercial concerns of this city.

The provincial school of Pampanga exhibited at the last carnival more than 600 samples of jellies, jams, and preserves made from Philippine fruits, as illustrative of practical school work in developing a new industry and new articles of diet for the Filipino home.

The output of embroidery from primary and intermediate schools in these islands is large and of high quality. As the art is further developed, substantial returns will be realized.

These cases will serve to illustrate the sort of thing that is being accomplished in the industrial classes of the public schools.

TEXTBOOKS.

Nearly all of the texts now used in the primary and intermediate grades have been prepared especially for this field by men and women who have had personal experience in Philippine schools. During the year two new books have been introduced-one a so-called "Primer of Industry," a much-needed aid to teachers of the youngest pupils just entering school, the other entitled "Industrial Studies and Exercises," a combined language book and industrial manual for advanced primary grades. Supplementary to the adopted texts, the bureau has found it necessary to issue bulletins from time to time which serve as manuals in special subjects covered inadequately or not at all by the prescribed texts.

INSULAR SCHOOLS.

The Philippine Normal School has continued its development during the past school year along the lines upon which it was reorgan

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ized in 1909. It has come into close touch with provincial conditions, and it has adopted effective means for the preparation of young men and women for teaching under the conditions which prevail throughout the islands. The industrial classes of the normal school are of great assistance to the administration of the bureau in solving the problem of standardization of industrial instruction. The new concrete building, costing with its equipment and improvement of grounds approximately 449,000, is now in process of construction. on Taft Avenue, and will presumably be ready for occupancy at the opening of school in June, 1912.

The normal school dormitory has accommodated 200 girls, coming, as in former years, from nearly every Province in the archipelago. A new building for the dormitory is projected, this also to be of reenforced concrete construction, and on Taft Avenue.

It is encouraging to note that, whereas the number of graduates prepared to take up teaching was in former years very small, the class of 1911 numbered 55. The class of 1912 will be still larger.

The sum of 500,000 was appropriated by the Legislature for the construction of insular school buildings in the city of Manila. The Governor General allotted P275,000 of this sum to the new dormitory. The remaining P225,000 is inadequate for the construction of the necessary new plant for the Philippine School of Arts and Trades. A petition will therefore be prepared for presentation to the next Legislature asking for further appropriation in the sum of 175,000 to complete the required amount.

Acts Nos. 2048 and 2049 make provision for the appointment of 230 pensionados, who are assigned to the two insular schools named above and to the college of agriculture at Los Baños. Most of these young men and women remain in school on pension one year only, though in special cases they are permitted to continue for two or even three years in order to complete a course. This pensionado system is a most valuable agency to the end of bringing the Filipino teaching force up to the desired standard of academic and industrial attainments. The pensionados return to their home Provinces after a period of study in Manila prepared to give instruction to their pupils and to their fellow teachers in special industrial lines such as gardening, lace making, embroidery, and weaving, and in this way they assist in passing on to remote districts approved educational ideas and methods.

The Philippine School of Commerce is growing. This institution, in spite of efficient management, has never been able to graduate a class or even bring one up to the fourth year of its course, because the pupils are in such demand for office work in the Government bureaus and in business houses that to remain in school until their courses are completed seems to them too great a financial sacrifice.

The school for deaf and blind has done excellent work with 31 pupils gathered from Manila and from several provincial districts.

NONCHRISTIAN SCHOOLS.

Act of the Philippine Commission No. 1992 appropriated 215,000 for the support of schools in the non-Christian Provinces for 1911. Act No. 1994, by the same body, provided 30,000 for construction of school buildings in those areas. Educational interests in the nonChristian Provinces, viz, Mountain, Nueva Vizcaya, and Agusan,