I The Philippine Educational Exhibit T is a striking fact that the colonists from every country maintain a higher level of education than the people from whom they spring. That this has been true of the English colonists has long been a commonplace; that it is equally true of the Spanish colonists deserves equal recognition. The Spanish-American republics, despite their enormous Indian population-often a majority of the whole-have, as a rule, as good school systems and as little illiteracy as Spain itself; and even in the Philippines, where the population is almost exclusively Malay, the ability to read is more general than in many of the provinces of Spain. The truth of this generalization is impressed upon the visitor at the Pan-American Exposition who takes the trouble to examine the educational exhibits. That made by the Chilians in particular would seem to indicate that in the line of manual training at least the "Yankees of South America" are in advance of their fellows at the North; and the exhibit sent in from the Philippines, incomplete as it is, seems to substantiate Blumentritt's somewhat favorable comparison between the popular culture in these islands and that in Spain. In the Agricultural Building the Philippine exhibit does not create this favorable impression. The implements exhibited are so primitive that, did we not recall the hand-plows shown among the relics of our Puritan ancestors, we might think that the people using them were but a few stages above barbarism. But in all such collections the desire for the peculiar and picturesque is likely to get the better of the desire for the fairly representative. In the educational exhibit, on the contrary, that which was striking both in the pictures of the buildings and in the photographs and work of the scholars was the similarity of the civilization shown to that of our own people. Soon after the writer saw this exhibit, a friend told him of a conversation he had had with a cultivated woman in Switzerland who expressed her surprise that his wife was not at all "red." Another friend of mine had had an experience almost identical in Germany. His hostess had thought that an American was at least part Indian. It occurred to me that these misconceptions of America were not much more grotesque than certain prevalent American misconceptions of the Philippines. There are relatively fewer Negritos in the Philippines than Indians in America, and the entire pagan and Mohammedan population there is hardly one-seventh of the whole people. The remainder have been Christians for generations, and while the public pro odd now employed. Five hundred additional American teachers have recently been sent to the Philippines, and Superintendent Atkinson is reported to desire a thousand more. But all of these are doubtless for portions of the islands where there are now no Americans. It is not probable that the proportion of American teachers in Manila will ever be increased, for the salaries paid them, I was told, range from $1,050 to $1,200 a year for ordinary teaching work. In other words, the mere salary of the teachers exceeds two months' income for all of the families represented vision for education has been slight only one school for each five thousand people-the popular desire for education. has made the most of the meager facilities. in the schools. No people could afford a large force of public-school teachers paid at such a rate as this, and the American people as well as the Philippine people would protest against the imposition of an extravagant "carpetbag" school system. The salaries paid to the native teachers are usually less than $25 (Mexican) a month. In other words, they are only half as great as those paid to American teachers in rural New England, and only one-sixth those paid to American teachers in the Philippines. The most complete part of the educational exhibit was that of the public schools of Manila. Here there were photographs of all the forty-odd school buildings now in use. Nearly half of them, I was glad to see, were for girls. There were also many photographs of scholars and a few of teachers both American and Filipino. The former, I am informed, Some typical photographs contained in constitute barely one-quarter of the eighty- the Manila exhibit are reproduced with tic should not be taught was patiently and accurately worked out by the Filipino pupil on the assumption that a horse could run twice as far in twenty-four hours as in twelve, that it could keep on day and night for eleven months and fourteen days, and that twenty-five horses could run further than fourteen! Needless to say, the answer indicated a speed unknown on this side of the Pacific, but the solution was apparently accepted by the American teacher as correct. But it is the work done in English which deserves the most attention. This apparently is the branch which receives the most attention; even arithmetic is already in some instances taught in our language. As educated Filipinos must already learn the Spanish language in addition to their own, the acquirement of a third tongue might be thought a good deal of an undertaking, but apparently the children are mastering it with extraordinary success. The spelling was always good, and while there were some confused idioms as well as some confused thought, the precision with which English words. were used was unusually remarkable. Here, for example, is the English version of a letter to the teacher which the pupils In the teacher's note to the collection of letters from which the above was taken, it is stated that the ages of the children writing them varied from six to thirteen years, and that "no one of them had had more than two months' connected teaching" in English, or any help whatever from the teachers in preparing the papers forwarded. Such statements as this are well-nigh incredible, but the many compositions forwarded from various points seem to demonstrate that the Filipino children have a remarkable talent for acquiring a foreign language. Such work as this, while to the credit of the schools which the Americans are supporting in the islands, is also to the credit of the previous schooling which the Filipino pupils had obtained under the Spanish Government, and often from Spanish priests. Since the outbreak of the war with Spain so much has been said in denunciation of Spanish rule, both civil and clerical, that we are in danger of forgetting that there are Spaniards and Spaniards quite as much as Americans and Americans. It was the unselfish work done for the Filipinos by the Spanish missionaries which constituted the basis for the power gathered by the Church, and it was the work of the Church which led the people to accept the sovereignty of the Spanish Government. It is true that the successors of those who acquired power through their services to the Filipino people often used this power for their own aggrandizement and for the oppression of the people. But in yielding to this temptation Spanish priests and rulers simply manifested the common weakness of human nature. While on the train returning from Buffalo, the writer happened to be reading Woodbury Lowery's excellent work on "The Spanish Settlements in the United States," and he was repeatedly struck by the high aims not only avowed by the Spanish Gov ernment but actually cherished by the Spanish priests who took part in the conquest of America. Of the latter the historian says: "Those who came to the new fields were a devoted, self-sacrificing, patient, and energetic body of men, whose confidence in their divine mission was such that no hardship or danger could appall them, and no obstacle, however insurmountable it might seem, give them pause. . . . Shod only in sandals made of the fiber of the maguey, their sackcloth gowns scant and worn, they undertook long journeys, sleeping upon rush mats, their pillow a log or handful of dry grasses. . . . While the discipline which they practiced may to-day provoke the smile of a less austere generation, it cannot but awaken admiration and respect for their force of character, their singleness of purpose, their heroic endurance, and their unfaltering faith." It was priests such as these who by their self-sacrifice won the love of the natives both in America and in the Philippines, and so built up the power of the Spanish Church and State. Have we teachers animated by nobler motives or ready to make greater sacrifices? C. B. S. |