i 5 : o The National Geographic Magazine 



policy of the friars, who, from motives 

 of their own, discouraged the learning of 

 Spanish by the natives in order that 

 they might act as intermediaries between 

 the people and the civil authorities, and 

 thus retain their influence over their 

 charges. 



A little less than one-third of the 

 Filipino males of voting age are able to 

 read and write. 



There were i , 16 r ,925 males who were 

 able to read, constituting 47 percent of 

 all males 10 years of age and over. In 

 other words, nearly one-half of the males 

 could read. The number of females 

 able to read was 1,049,509, or 42 per 

 cent of all the females 10 years of age 

 and over, a proportion considerably less 

 than of males. Of all those who could 

 read, males constituted 52.5 per cent and 

 females 47.5 per cent. 



The number of males who could both 

 read and write was 73=5,564, or 29.8 per 

 cent of the male population 10 years of 

 age and over. The number of females 

 who could both read and write was only 

 a little more than one third as great, 

 being 267,024, or only 10.7 per cent of 

 the females 10 years of age and over. 



From the above it appears that, while 

 nearly two-thirds of the males who were 

 taught to read were taught to write, 

 only about one-fourth of the females 

 received an equal degree of education. 

 Far less attention evidently has been 

 paid to the education of women in the 

 Philippines than to that of men. In the 

 United States, Cuba, and Porto Rico 

 literacy, by which is meant the ability to 

 both read and write, was somewhat lower 

 among females than among males — 

 that is, a slightly larger proportion of 

 those who were taught to read were also 

 taught to write among males than among 

 females — but the proportion there was 

 only a fraction of that which prevailed 

 in the Philippines. 



The number of males reported as 

 having received superior education was 

 59,020, or 2.4 per cent of those 10 years 

 of age and over, and of the females 



17,607, or seven-tenths of 1 per cent. 

 Education among males was thus nearly 

 three and a half times as great as among 

 females. 



The most literate tribe of the prov- 

 inces is the Pampangan, 48.4 per cent 

 of whose males of voting age were able 

 to read and write. Next to the Pam- 

 pangans are the Tagalogs, with 43. r per 

 cent, while the lowest are the Visayans, 

 with only 32.2 per cent. Measured by 

 the proportion having superior educa- 

 tion, the Tagalogs are easily first, fol- 

 lowed by the Pangasinanes and Zamba- 

 lans, while the Visayans are still at the 

 / foot of the column. 



THE FILIPINO IS AMBITIOUS TO 

 LEARN 



According to Hon. W. H. Taft, Sec- 

 retary of War and formerly Governor 

 of the Philippine Islands, the " 90 per 

 cent of the Christian Filipinos who do 

 not speak Spanish are really Christians. 

 They are capable of education, and they 

 have no caste or arbitrary customs which 

 prevent their development along the 

 lines of Christian civilization. They 

 are merely in a state of Christian pupil- 

 age ; they are imitative ; they are glad 

 to be educated, glad to study some lan- 

 guage other than their own, and glad 

 to follow European and American ideals. 

 They differ utterly in these respects from 

 the East Indians, from the Malays of 

 Java, and the Malays of the Straits Set- 

 tlements, and thus make our problem 

 different from and vastly easier than 

 that of England and Holland." 



EDUCATION IN THE PHILIPPINES 



At the date of the census there were 

 2,962 schools in the archipelago, an aver- 

 age of three for each municipality. Of 

 these, 55 per cent were public, about 33 

 per cent were private, and the remainder 

 were under the control of the Roman 

 Catholic Church. Of the total enroll- 

 ment 6 per cent were reported for the 

 primary schools. There are but two 

 institutions devoted to higher education. 



