41 



SETTING THE PEOPLE TO WORK 



Setting the people at the tasks that they can best perform is 

 the highest duty of the schools. There is in the Philippines at 

 present a stupendous waste of human labor and of human time. 

 I saw bands of able-bodied men and women passing through 

 the rice fields reaping the grain with a knife, the process 

 requiring twenty hours for each cavan of grain harvested. In 

 other fields, I saw farmers cutting rice with a hand sickle such 

 as was used in Biblical days. Even this ancient method so 

 economized the time of the harvesters that only two hours 

 w^ere required to harvest a cavan of grain. It would seem to 

 be an easj- task to induce every farmer to make so simple a 

 change in his method if by so doing he could cut down the cost 

 of the harvest tenfold. But, with any people the change to 

 more economical waj's of conducting the operations of the farm 

 is made much easier if other and more profitable tasks are at 

 the same time provided. The necessity for economizing labor 

 or time cannot appeal strongly to one who has little else to do. 



Much of the labor of the fields in the Philippines is performed 

 by the women. Provide tasks in the house that are more agree- 

 able and more remunerative and the women will find their 

 proper place in the home and will leave the farm work to the 

 men. 



THE HOUSEHOLD INDUSTRIES 



The Filipino women are skillful, industrious, and eager to 

 learn. Already a good beginning in household arts has been 

 made. Last year almost PI, 000,000 worth of hats and some 

 f*^400,000 worth of embroidery were exported from the Phil- 

 ippines. 



The women and children of Switzerland sold f*=20, 000,000 

 worth of laces and embroidery in the United States alone last 

 year. The States imports aproximately P70,000,000 worth of 

 such articles every year, nearly all of which are house made. 

 A household industry in Japan, the silk industry, produces from 

 1,000,000 acres of land, much of which is roadside and banks 

 of streams, more wealth each year than is produced from all 

 the agricultural industries of the Philippines combined. 



Philippine manufactured articles are admitted into the United 

 States duty free, while the articles manufactured in other coun- 

 tries with which the Filipinos would compete are taxed by the 

 United States. Therefore, no other people are so favorably 



