“ In exchange, praises must be public, but not exaggerated, or told in such a manner that the teacher or the scholars shall grow arrogant. In a word, simplicity, prudence, and affability must rule these actions, the most transcendental of the supervisors’ function, for they can render sterile in a moment the cares of the government, the sacrifices of the villages, and the lofty interests of the present and future, which the education of children represents for the country and for the families. ”

“ Well now, we in the Philippines are traveling along at least three centuries behind the car of Progress; we are barely commencing to emerge from the Middle Ages. Hence, the Jesuits, reactionary in Europe, when seen from our point of view represent Progress; the Philippines owe to them their dawning system of instruction, and to them the Natural Sciences, the soul of the nineteenth century, as it has been indebted to the Dominicans for Scholasticism, already dead in spite of Leo XIII—no Pope can revive what common sense has judged and condemned.... ”

“ But where will you now find that metaphysical youth of our times, with an archaic education, who tortured his brain and died in full pursuit of sophistries in some remote part of the provinces, without ever having succeeded in understanding the attributes of being, or settling the question of essence and existence, concepts so lofty that they made us forget what was essential in life, our own existence and individuality? Look at the youth of today. ”

“ By adopting Anglo-Saxon civilization and education, Filipinos will not weaken, but strengthen themselves. The viewpoint of a people may change, and must change often in order that they may progress. To speak of special mentalities is vague and misleading. On whatever side the situation of the Philippines be considered, he says, whether political, social, or economic, it is seen that “public instruction is the chief factor, to which we should direct the most vigorous action of our energies.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All we parish-priest regulars of Filipinas saw with pain the advances which freemasonry was making in the country by means of the abandoned advocates and physicians, unfit students, ambitious caciques, wealthy fellows, ruined by their vices or by play—we know the works of the spade against the foundation of Spanish domination which were based on religion, prestige, and superiority of race. ”

“ The chief problem of the Philippines has well been said to be that of education.2 Chief among future developments must be industrial education, which will not only train rightly the great dexterity of the Filipino, but also teach him the dignity of work with the hands, whatever his rank or station, and thus help to fit him for, and hasten the time when he shall enjoy greater self-government than he enjoys at present. ”

“ Complete education must be arrived at by conserving the good and eliminating the bad. Complete assimilation cannot take place. The Filipino character cannot entirely change, for the instruction in the schools is not sufficient to cause such a radical change. Happiness does not consist in seeking easeful and unresponsible repose, but in the struggle for existence that entails work. Filipinos must learn that true progress comes through struggle and a show of energy. ”

“ 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 [274] 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 ”

“ T. H. Pardo de Tavera, before the teachers assembled at Manila in order to attend the Summer Institute, founded by the director of Public Instruction, and inaugurated this year, and published in the supplement of the issue of May 17, 1906, of El Renacimiento. His point of view of true civilization and education is in the main that they are the resultant of not one but of many factors, and that those of one race may be debtors to another race and yet not lose their identity. True progress does not consist in exclusiveness but in the admittance of all that is good notwithstanding its source. ”

“ The just initiative conceded in this matter to supervisors by the regulations, must not be used without moderation, since innovations in public instruction are of great consequence. One single error is enough to lose a generation. Fortunately, as has already been said, the fact that the functions of supervisors are entrusted to the reverend and learned parish priests is a guarantee for the state and the heads of families, that, in religion and ethics, the cardinal basis of all solid instruction, reforms of principle or method shall not be introduced arbitrarily. ”

“ Full of enthusiasm at the view of wider horizons, it studies History, Mathematics, Geography, Literature, Physical Science, Languages, all subjects that in our time we heard of with horror as though they were heresies; the greatest freethinker of my time declared all these things inferior to the classifications of Aristotle and the laws of the syllogism. Man has finally comprehended that he is man; he refuses to give himself over to the analysis of his God, to the penetration of the imperceptible, into what he has not seen, and to give laws to the phantasms of his brain ”

“ The regular resident scholars shall be obliged to fulfil their duties for ten years as teachers in the schools of primary instruction for the natives, to which they shall be assigned by the superior civil government. In case of not fulfilling that obligation they shall be indebted to the state for the expenses incurred in their education and teaching. The same thing shall happen if they leave the normal school before the conclusion of their studies without legitimate cause and by their own will or that of their parents, or are expelled from it for lack of application, or bad conduct. ”

“ It is impossible to give a comprehensive résumé of American efforts toward the education of the Filipinos. The captious critic will emphasize the mistakes which have been made and which will be made in the future, and it is yet perhaps too early to make a pronounced statement as to the results; but this much may be said, and in no spirit of American self-congratulation, namely, that the Filipino is at present enjoying the greatest opportunity that has ever been offered to him to acquire an education. ”

“ Until prudent and meditated reforms, harmonized with the respect, which deep-rooted and traditional customs merit, succeed in establishing a complete organism in the management of public instruction, the undersigned minister esteems the creation of a superior normal school for women teachers in the city of Manila as an imperative necessity, since experience proves, by that formerly created in Nueva-Cáceres, the undeniable advantages of a like nature in that country. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the extent of so vast a territory, the character and customs of a portion of its population, and the lack of an organized system of primary instruction, have been the reason why the knowledge of the Castilian language, and in consequence of the ignorance of that language, the propagation of the most elementary ideas of education remain in a remarkable condition of imperfection and backwardness. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the villages let three months pass without proposing to the chief of the province the young woman who ought to enter the normal school as a resident pupil supported from the local funds, it will be understood that they renounce this right, and the vacancy, after such announcement, shall be filled by the board of supervision and oversight. It must be kept in mind that the young woman chosen must possess all the qualifications prescribed in article 20, and, all things being equal, she who is a native of the province, to which the village belongs, will be preferred. ”

“ The truth is, the Filipinos, in the mass, are, as regards the purposes of any real education, virgin material to work upon. Not only has their national and social life not been cast over in Latin molds, but Spanish influence was just sufficient, added to their undeveloped state at the time of the conquest, so that there are no ‘Filipino molds’ of civilization. ”

“ 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] . ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If an instinctive duty counsels them to give their children bread, the duty to give them an education (the bread of the soul) is a sacred one, without which Christian man cannot live. The mothers of the family ought to be for the supervisor, under this point of view, the preferred object of their supplication, warnings, and tender and salutary counsels. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”