“ As a fact, the Spaniards use for both their clothing and their furniture foreign stuffs and cloths; and these continual needs necessarily increase the industry, the wealth, the population, and the strength of their neighbors—who misuse these advantages, in order to keep in dependence the very nation which obtains these for them. Would not Spain behave with more wisdom and dignity if she would adopt the manufactures of the Indias? ”

“ The university has many enemies and some arguers who do not oppose it because it is directed by Dominican friars, but because they believe the study of law inadvisable. This opinion is anti-liberal and does not merit refutation. Even if it did merit it, the moment would never be opportune for a democratic revolution, which even runs the danger of going too far in its generalizations, as we have already stated. The greater convenience of a school of medicine and surgery, professions in which the Indians would probably give better results than in the forum, might be maintained. ”

“ It was only in the college of Santa Isabel, in the municipal school, and in some private schools that adequate instruction was given. Some of these colleges were houses of recreation or of rest rather than educational institutions, where not only girls, but women, both married and single, went to pass some time, for the purpose of change or to renew their clothing. Girls from the provinces often attended the schools in Manila to learn the social manners and polish of the capital, but they often failed of their purpose, for social education was frequently neglected in them. ”

“ Spanish is taught only in Manila and some of the suburbs; but there are schools for boys in the native dialects, and some as well for girls. The government salaries are not sufficient and priests and officials find it necessary to determine means for buildings, etc., and salaries are even paid from the church funds. There is no suitable director for primary education, but in reading, writing, and religion, the children are more advanced than those of Spain. The government has tried to improve the instruction in the Spanish language, and has succeeded somewhat. ”

“ If the university of Manila is the chief institution of public instruction, it is not the most ancient. From June 8, 1585, the king had ordered the foundation of a college, in which the sons of the Spanish inhabitants of the archipelago might be reared in the love of virtue and letters under the direction of the fathers of the Society of Jesus. But it was only in 1601 that that order could be carried out by the institution of the college of San José. ”

“ The second point of the conference offers no difficulty in whatever concerns the existence of a legal means for opposing a resolution of a government contrary to the native autonomy of the college. Leaving aside the attributes of the ministry to direct the services of education as it deems most suitable, [327] whenever they are sustained by the public funds, the opposition, if it limit itself to the use of the properties and funds from private origin, which today endow the institution, would have a legal mean beyond any doubt, to demand the strict observance of the law of foundation. ”

“ The customs duties and alcavalas on the silk trade at Manila amount to some 40,000 pesos a year, which would be lost to the royal treasury by the failure of that trade; it will also have no means with which to buy the rice produced by the Indians. No profit can be made on the linens and other common fabrics prescribed in the decree of 1720, as they are of little esteem in Nueva España, and the demand for them is small, as also is their value, “since in one bale of these goods only the value of sixty or seventy pesos can be contained.” ”

“ In the Visayas they dance the bagay, the music and song of which are langorous and melancholy, like that of the comintang. It is also a lover and a mistress who dance, the while they mingle their motions with cries. ”

“ They draw from it very agreeable sounds. That music, somewhat discordant, is not often wholly without something agreeable in it. We cannot help admiring men who can reach that point without having taken lessons, and of whom the majority have perhaps never had occasion to meet an artist.
The military music of the regiments of the garrison at Manila, and in some large villages of the provinces, has reached a point of perfection which is astonishing. We have never heard better in Spain, not even in Madrid. ”

“ Pope Gregory XV granted that college the right of conferring degrees of philosophy and theology. The funds of that institution are drawn from several estates, which have been conceded to it at different times. They are sufficient to provide for the maintenance of the vice-rector and of the masters, in the annual pay which is [265] granted to them, as well as to the rector, and for the maintenance of 22 free pupils. Some pay students are also admitted there at the rate of 50 piastres [i.e., pesos] per year. Philosophy, rhetoric, and Latin are taught there. ”

“ That is still more aggravated by the fact of the spoliation of the Spanish collegiates of their possession of the said college of San Joseph by erecting in it what they call a seminary for Indians, since for these and the Sangley mestizos there is the above-mentioned college of San Juan de Letran, and the conciliar seminary was already founded. By such violent spoliation, not only were the collegiates outraged, but also the inhabitants of that city exasperated, so that with such acts of despotism they hate to live there, and the islands are being depopulated of Spaniards, as is happening. ”

“ The citizens of Manila have yielded to idleness and sloth, and have allowed the idolatrous Sangleys to monopolize and manage the industries and even the commerce of the islands. Some of the mestizos had erected looms for the manufacture of the finer kinds of cotton fabrics, but the Sangleys succeeded in breaking up this enterprise. A section of the memorial is devoted to proving that the permission to Manila to trade in Chinese silks has not been and is not of use for the increase and propagation of the Catholic faith in those regions, which has flourished without Manila and its commerce ”

“ Excepting the professors of common and Roman law all the chairs of the University of Santo Tomás of Manila are in the hands of the priests, who naturally arrange not only the theological lectures, but those upon metaphysics, physics, and logic, as well, according to the principles of the Catholic Church. In the provinces every village has its public schools in which instruction is obligatory; but, besides reading and writing, only Christian doctrine and church music are taught. This instruction, moreover, is by no means generally given in Spanish ”

“ The Montescos of the provinces of the north of the island of Luçon also dance to the sound of their bamboo flutes, but their gestures and their postures are so indecent that for shame a woman never dances except with her husband. ”

“ Having for a basis religious education, at the same time that it avoids the danger of professors expounding more or less advanced theories, which in practice sooner or later, are reduced to moral ruins, both public and private, it contains the pupil within the circle of a severe discipline, in which, if some apparently see oppression and a suppression of spirit, this apparent oppression is softened by the paternal affection which the priests in charge of the instruction know how to bestow upon the natives of this archipelago. ”

“ This custom has always been observed by the Catholic sovereigns of Castilla, not only in Salamanca, Valladolid, and Alcalá, and in the other parts of España, but also in the Yndias. Considering these so forcible reasons, which are laid at your Majesty’s feet, we petition that your Majesty do not allow a university to be conceded to a religious order, although any ask it, and that the secular estate be not so abased in these islands that we should be excluded from a thing which has always been so common and so peculiar to the seculars in the Church. ”

“ The result would be that Manila either would not transport all that quantity to Nueva España, or would lose part of the profit on its shipment. The profits at Acapulco are not sufficient, on either class of commodities proposed by Cadiz, to yield the amount which is permitted to Manila as returns on its shipments. The spices can never be an equivalent (as Cadiz would claim) for the Chinese silks; for a tonelada of cinnamon, which space is occupied with only 600 libras, is worth at Manila 600 pesos, and a tonelada of silk goods is worth 4,000 pesos, if not more. ”

“ Before dying that kind-hearted man took the habit of St. Dominic, and entrusted the pious foundation which he had undertaken into the hands of that order. The latter erected it into a college, for which it obtained the protection of the king and some funds for its support. By means of a sum of 600 piastres which the alcalde of Pangasinan is charged to give annually to a Dominican who collects it, that college supports gratuitously 25 orphan boys. It also admits an unlimited number of boarders, both Indians and mestizos, who pay 50 piastres per year. ”

“ The question of their right to hold church property came up early, and Governor Taft ruled that the party which is in peaceful possession of any house of worship shall be deemed to be the rightful occupant, and the contrary must be proved in the courts before ejection can take place. More than 200 priests have joined the movement, and young native priests are being ordained with somewhat startling ease and carelessness, in the seminaries which the new Church has opened. The foremost priests and laymen have been open enemies of the United States, and some of them still advocate independence. ”