64 



MANILA DAILY BULLETIN 



Philippine Public Schools 



BY W. W. MARQUARDT, DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION 



SINCE this article is to be brought to the 

 attention of Americans in the United 

 States.it is desirable to emphasize at the 

 outset two points which are matters of common 

 knowledge in the Philippines but concerning 

 which very erroneous impressions exist in the 

 minds of those in America who are not thor- 

 oughly conversant with Philippine affairs. 

 Due perhaps to the fact that the present sys- 

 tem of public instruction in the Philippines was 

 instituted by American teachers and super- 

 intendents, and that this system is still main- 

 tained with their assistance, the impression 

 that the United States Government extends 

 financial support to the Philippine public 

 schools prevails in the minds of many Ameri- 

 cans. As a matter of fact every cent spent 

 for public education in the Philippine Islands 

 has been furnished wholly from Philippine 

 revenues. The schools have been supported 

 entirely by appropriations of the Insular 

 government, by municipal taxation, and by 

 generous voluntary contributions in the form 

 of cash donations, free labor for the con- 

 struction of buildings, and gift of buildings 

 and land. 



The second point about which there is a 

 wrong impression is the language of instruc- 

 tion in the public schools. Few Americans 

 who have not come in intimate contact with 

 Philippine affairs know that in the public 

 schools of the Philippine Islands English is 

 the language of instruction. The reasons 

 why all instruction is in English are obvious. 

 The people of the Philippines speak many 

 dialects, so a common language is necessary 

 for economic progress and political develop- 

 ment. The poverty of the dialects requires 

 the teaching of some other tongue as the com- 

 mon medium of communication. At the 

 time of American occupation Spanish was 

 neither spoken nor written by more than 

 ten per cent of the entire population, so that 

 the adoption of English as the language for 

 the public schools presented fewer difficulties 

 than the adoption of Spanish. Moreover, 



A CHAMPIONSHIP GAME OF INDOOR BASEBALL, WHICH IS A FEATURE 

 GIVEN GIRLS IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 



English being the language of democracy is 

 fast becoming the commercial language of 

 the world, and particularly the commercial 

 language of the Far East, a field where Span- 

 ish is declining in importance as a business 

 asset. 



The building up of an English-speaking 

 Filipino teaching staff is a distinctive achieve- 

 ment reflecting credit on Filipinos as well 

 as on Americans. A large percentage of 

 Filipino teachers have had little or no actual 

 training in regular normal schools or in other 

 special schools for the preparation of teach- 

 ers. Each year,' however, one thousand 

 teachers are selected from all over the Islands 

 for attendance at the Teachers' Vacation 

 Assembly in Manila. Atthe assembly, which is 



THIS SEWING CLASS IS INDICATIVE OP THE PRACTICAL NATURE OF THE VOCATIONAL TRAINING GIVEN GIRI.S IN THE 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS 



held in the Philippine NormalSchool, emphasis 

 is placed on primary and on intermediate 

 methods, on physical training, and on the 

 latest developments in industrial work. 

 When the teachers who attend the assembly 

 return to their provinces, they in turn be- 

 come instructors in the division normal insti- 

 tutes, in which nearly all of the teachers 

 receive at least four weeks normal training 

 each year. This training has been of the 

 greatest importance in the improvement of 

 methods of instruction. The institute train- 

 ing is augmented by participation in pro- 

 fessional reading courses, by close contact 

 with supervising teachers, by visiting days, 

 by the observance of the work of model teach- 

 ers, and by teachers' meeting of various kinds. 



The facilities for training teachers are 

 constantly better. The Philippine Normal 

 School has sent forth more graduates during 

 the last three years than during all of the 

 other fifteen years of its existence. The 

 Philippine School of Arts and Trades and the 

 CYntral Luzon Agricultural School are turn- 

 ing out teachers of woodworking and teach- 

 ers of agriculture in larger numbers. Most 

 of the teachers sent to the Department of 

 Mindanao and Sulu are graduates of the 

 Central Luzon Agricultural School. The 

 sending of five hundred Filipino teachers 

 to isolated sections of Mindanao and Sulu 

 is one of the most significant features in the 

 problem of unification or nationalization of 

 the many diverse elements of the population. 



The number of Filipino supervising teach- 

 ers increased from 200 in 1915 to 294 in 

 1918, while the number of American super- 

 vising teachers decreased from 120 in 1915 

 to 41 in 1918. The number of Filipino high- 

 school teachers increased from 61 in 1915 to 

 176 in 1918. In 1915 there were no Filipino 

 superintendents and there was no Filipino 

 in the directorate of the Bureau of Education, 



