^58 ^HE PLANT WORLD 



We are in a quandary as to the best way to educate the children of 

 the natives. The native teachers are miserably paid. We should like to 

 have American teachers, but we have not a sufficient income from the 

 island to pay their salaries, and we wish the island to be self-supporting. 

 It is all very well for those who are not responsible to protest against 

 taxing the natives and le\'ying duties upon imports ; but we must have 

 a revenue from some source to keep up the roads and bridges, to make it 

 possible for our gobernadorcillos and justices of the peace to live, to feed 

 and clothe our native military company, who perform most faithfully 

 and efficiently the duties of rural police, and to pay the salaries of our 

 Administrador de Hacienda (Island Treasurer) and the clerks and writers 

 of the Recorder's office, court of justice, and island treasury. As it is, 

 the native officials of the outlying villages get only a nominal salary, — in 

 reality only an allowance for stationery, — while they have great responsi- 

 bility thrust upon them, and must take the time from their own affairs to 

 perform official duties for which they are not paid. This must neces- 

 sarily lay them open to receiving bribes from litigants, not perhaps in 

 money, but in the form of presents of eggs or fruit or an occasional pig. 



My night school is progressing finely. I teach three nights a week 

 and on the alternate nights I go to Father Palomo or to Don Juan de 

 Torres for instruction in the island vernacular, hoping to publish some 

 day a grammar of the Chamorro language which may be of use to people 

 living on this island and of interest to philologists generally.* Father 

 Palomo is a great help to us. He seconds our official orders from the 

 pulpit and tries earuestl}^ to make his people good, law-abiding, self- 

 respecting citizens. The other day I called him my Richelieu, and he did 

 not seem to be offended. 



By order of the Governor I wrote to Fray Francisco that his request to 

 return to this island and reside here until regularly relieved is not granted. 

 The Governor directed me to say that our Government does not recognize 

 the Catholic Church as a political power, and that we could take no 

 notice of the orders of ecclesiastical officials to their subordinates. He 

 reassured the friar as to the spiritual welfare of the natives, informing 

 him that more than fifty marriages have taken place since his departure 

 from the island with a view to legitimizing children born out of wedlock, 

 and that the natives more than ever before are trying to follow the cus- 

 toms of civilized society. t 



* See " The Chamorro Language of Guam," by William Edwin Safford. American Anthropologist, 

 N. S., Vol. 5, 1903, p. 289 et seq. 



t A report was made in consequence of this letter to the church authorities at Manila, and by them 

 to the United States authorities. This finally led President McKinley to direct the War Department 

 to order General Wheeler to proceed to Guam and investigate conditions existing there, the adminis- 

 tration of the United States oflficer in charge, etc. See " Report on the Island of Guam," by Brig.-Gen. 

 Joseph Wheeler, U. S. Army, War Department, Adjutant-General's OflSce, No. XXVIII, June, 1900. 



