22 8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



people who are so intelligent to-day have become so through a long pro- 

 cess of transmission and struggle. History shows that the Eomans 

 thought no better of the Germans than the Spaniards do of the Tagals, 

 and when Tacitus praises the Germans he does so in the same spirit 

 of philosophical idealizing which we see in the followers of Eousseau 

 who thought that their political ideal was realized in Tahiti. 



4. The condemnatory criticism of the Filipino by Spaniards is 

 easy to explain but appears not to be justified. Eizal demonstrates 

 this in the following way : Weaklings do not emigrate to foreign lands 

 but only men of energy who leave home already prejudiced against 

 the colored races and reach their destination with the conviction, which 

 is usually sanctioned by law, that they are called to rule the latter. 

 If we remember, what few white men know, that the Filipinos fear 

 the brutality of the whites, it is easy to explain why they make such 

 a poor showing in works written by the latter while they themselves 

 can not reply in print. If we consider, further, that the Filipinos with 

 whom the whites have dealings belong, for the most part, to the lower 

 strata of society, the opinions of them given by the whites have about 

 the same value as that of an educated Tagal would have who should 

 travel in Europe and judge all Germans and French by the dairy maids, 

 porters, waiters and cabdrivers he might meet. 



5. The misfortune of the Filipinos is in the color of their skin 

 and in that alone. In Europe there are a great many persons who have 

 risen from the lowest dregs of the populace to the highest offices and 

 honors. Such people may be divided into two classes, those who 

 accommodate themselves to their new position without pretensions, and 

 whose origin is consequently not reckoned to them as a disgrace, but 

 on the contrary they are respected as self-made men; and the conven- 

 tional parvenus who are ridiculed and detested universally. 



A Filipino would find himself ordinarily in the second of these 

 two classes, no matter how noble his character or how perfect a gentle- 

 man he might be in his manners and conduct, because his origin is 

 indelibly stamped upon his countenance, visible to all, a mark which 

 always carries with it painful humiliations for the unfortunate native, 

 since it forever exposes him to the prejudices of the whites. Every- 

 thing he does is minutely criticised, a trifling error in etiquette which 

 would be overlooked in a shoemaker's son who had acquired the title 

 of baron, and which might easily happen to a pure-blooded descendant 

 of the Montmorencys, in his case excites amusement, and you hear the 

 remark 'What else can you expect? he is only a native/ But even if 

 he does not infringe any of the rules of etiquette, and is besides an able 

 lawyer or a skillful physician, his accomplishments are not taken as 

 matters of course but he is regarded with a kind of good-natured sur- 

 prise, a feeling much like the astonishment with which one regards 



