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The National Geographic Magazine 



mittee of educated Filipinos once filed 

 with the civil governor a written brief in 

 which it was set forth that the number of 

 "ilustrados" in the islands was double 

 that of the offices — central, provincial, 

 and municipal — and therefore the coun- 

 try afforded two "shifts" of persons com- 

 petent to run the government. This, it 

 was said, made clear the possibility of a 

 good government if independence was 

 granted. The ignorance of the remainder 

 of the people, admitted to be dense, made 

 no difference. I cite this to show of how 

 little importance an intelligent public 

 opinion or an educated constituency is 

 regarded in the community and govern- 

 ment which many of the educated Fili- 

 pinos look forward to as a result of in- 

 dependence. 



THE FILIPINO IS THE ONLY MALAY RACE 

 THAT IS CHRISTIAN 



No one denies that 80 per cent of the' 

 Filipino people are densely ignorant. 

 They are in a state of Christian tutelage. 

 They are childlike and simple, with no 

 language but a local Malay dialect spoken 

 in a few provinces ; they are separate 

 from the world's progress. The whole 

 tendency under the Spaniards was to 

 keep them ignorant and innocent. The 

 Spanish public-school system was chiefly 

 on paper. They were for a long time 

 subject completely to the control of the 

 Spanish friar, who was parish priest and 

 who generally did not encourage the 

 learning of Spanish or great acquaint- 

 ance with the world at large. 



The world owes to the Spanish friar 

 the Christianization of the Filipino race. 

 It is the only Malay or oriental race that 

 is Christian. The friars beat back the 

 wave of Mohammedanism and spread 

 their religion through all the islands. 

 They taught the people the arts of agri- 

 culture, but they believed it best to keep 

 them in a state of innocent ignorance. 

 They feared the influence of world knowl- 

 edge. They controlled the people and 

 preached to them in their own dialects. 

 They lived and died among them. 



The friars left the people a Christian 

 people — that is, a people with western 



ideals. They looked toward Rome, and 

 Europe, and America. They were not 

 like the Mohammedan or the Buddhist, 

 who despise western civilization as in- 

 ferior. They were in a state of tutelage, 

 ripe to receive modern western concep- 

 tions as they should be educated to un- 

 derstand them. This is the reason why 

 I believe that the whole Christian Filipino 

 people are capable by training and ex- 

 perience of becoming a self-governing 

 people. But for the present they are 

 ignorant and in the condition of children. 



THE PROBLEM CAN BE SOLVED BY THE 

 EDUCATION OF ONE GENERATION 



There is no real difference between the 

 educated and ignorant Filipinos that can- 

 not be overcome by the education of one 

 generation. They are a capable people 

 in the sense that they can be given a 

 normal intellectual development by the 

 same kind of education that is given in 

 our own common-school system. Now 

 they have not intelligence enough to exer- 

 cise the political franchise with safety to 

 themselves or their country ; but I do not 

 see why a common-school education in 

 English, with industrial teaching added, 

 may not make the children of these people 

 capable of forming an intelligent public 

 opinion needed to sustain a popular gov- 

 ernment if, at the same time that the on- 

 coming generations are being educated 

 in schools, primary and industrial, those 

 who are intelligent are being given a 

 political education by actually exercising 

 the power of the franchise and actually 

 taking part in the government. 



The Philippine government, however, 

 has not funds enough to educate in pri- 

 mary and industrial schools all the pres- 

 ent generation of school age, and unless 

 some other source of funds than govern- 

 mental revenues is found it will take 

 longer than a generation to complete the 

 primary and industrial education of the 

 common people. Until that is done, we 

 ought not to lift our guiding hand from 

 the helm of the ship of state of the Phil- 

 ippine Islands. 



The language selected for the schools 

 is English. It is selected because it is the 



