The Philippines: Past and Present Volume II Part 1

The Philippines Past and Present.

Volume 2.

by Dean Conant Worcester.

CHAPTER XIX

EDUCATION

No work accomplished since the American occupation is of more fundamental and far-reaching importance than that of the Bureau of Education. In order to appreciate it one must gain some familiarity with the conditions which prevailed in Spanish times.

The first evidence of the Spanish governmental att.i.tude toward education in the Philippines is found in a royal edict of March 21, 1634, [1] in which Felipe IV orders all archbishops and bishops to take steps for the education of the Filipinos in the Spanish language and in Christian doctrine.

That this decree was more honoured in the breach than in the observance is evident from another royal decree of June 20, 1686, [2] in which the king reminds civil and religious authorities that the non-observance of the decree of 1634 will be charged against them.

Neither of these doc.u.ments provided for financing the scheme of education ordained, but a decree of December 22, 1792, [3] did make financial provision for the establishment of Spanish schools for natives. The salaries of teachers were to be paid from the royal treasury, and deficits were to be made up from the communal properties and treasuries.

Although this was the first practical attempt to introduce general native education, there are evidences that individual opportunities were offered to, and embraced by, Filipinos. It is probable, too, that in certain localities the most generous of the Spaniards opened private schools.

The College of San Jose was founded in 1601, the University of Santo Tomas in 1619. Neither made provision for educating natives. They were established for the children of Spaniards only, although both later admitted Filipinos. But in the rules for the short-lived college of San Felipe (1641-1645), [4] Corcuera lays down the following: "The college servants shall be of influential Pampango families, and they shall be taught to read and write in the Spanish language, and shall be given clerkships if they show apt.i.tude therefor." We learn that when the charity school of San Juan de Letran pa.s.sed under the control of the Dominicans in 1640, native boys were admitted, on payment of fees, to share the advantages offered charitably to Spanish orphans. [5]

Primary education for Filipinos secured no real foothold until 1863. [6] In that year, by royal decree, a school system originally planned for Cuba was extended to the Philippines. It made provision for the beginnings of primary instruction in all munic.i.p.alities of the islands. A summary [7] called forth by a circular of March 1, 1866, gives information with regard to the progress actually made. This summary fixes the number of towns at nine hundred, the number of children attending school at one hundred thirty-five thousand boys and twelve thousand two hundred sixty girls, and the number of schools at sixteen hundred seventy-four, but it gives the number of buildings actually in use for schools as only six hundred forty-one. Instruction in Spanish was not always, or even generally, given.

In 1863 provision was also made for the establishment of a normal school at Manila. In 1893, [8] forty years later, the actual appropriation for the Normal School was $5525. Fourteen years after the American occupation, the appropriation for the Normal School was $56,476.42, in addition to $224,500 spent for new buildings and furniture. [9]

In 1892 there were two thousand one hundred seventy-three schools. The attendance of these schools was small and irregular. In 1896, at the outbreak of the insurrection, the Spanish had in operation a public school system which could call upon the Normal School for teachers and also upon such graduates of private schools as cared to undertake the work. Naturally the latter were few. Between 1863 and 1893, the Normal School had enrolled two thousand and one students.

This may be contrasted with the number of schools which, under the present regime, prepare the pupils for teaching, as well as for other occupations. Including the students of the Philippine Normal School, the Philippine School of Arts and Trades, the Provincial High and Intermediate Schools, nearly thirty-seven thousand pupils are now following studies which fit them more or less to undertake the work of giving instruction to others.

In addition to the Normal School, the Spanish established a Nautical School in 1820, a School of Commercial Accounting and of the French and English Languages in 1839, and an Academy of Drawing and Painting. Their final system of public instruction was not badly planned, but it was never actually put into full operation.

From the beginning of the insurrection against Spain in 1896 until the beginning of the insurrection against the United States in 1899, most of the public schools were closed. The schoolhouses were used for barracks, prisons, or hospitals. No attempt was made to keep them in repair, and what scanty equipment they had once possessed was for the most part destroyed or stolen.

Between 1899 and 1901, many of these buildings were repaired in towns which were occupied by American soldiers, and the beginnings of a public school system were made by our victorious army. Wherever our flag was raised a public school was soon established, soldiers often serving as teachers, and the moral effect of this upon the Filipinos was very great.

The city of Manila was naturally the first place to receive attention. Three weeks after our army entered it on August 13, 1898, seven schools were opened under the supervision of Father W. D. McKinnon, chaplain of the first California Regiment. In June, 1899, Lieutenant George P. Anderson was detailed as city superintendent of schools for Manila, and during the following school year he had an average of forty-five hundred pupils enrolled in the primary schools. Captain Albert Todd was detailed to act as superintendent of schools for the islands, but on May 5, 1900, in antic.i.p.ation of the transfer of the islands from military to civil government, he gave way to Dr. Fred W. Atkinson, who had been chosen by the Philippine Commission as superintendent of public instruction. This t.i.tle was changed later to that of director of education.

On January 21, 1901, the commission pa.s.sed Act 74, the basis of the present school law. It provided for the appointment of one thousand American teachers to begin the work of establishing a school system carried on in English. Appointments were made as rapidly as possible. By the end of the year, seven hundred sixty-five American teachers were at work.

When provision was made for the appointment of this large number of Americans, it was with the idea that they should act as teachers of English in schools over which there should be Filipino princ.i.p.als, but there was, at that time, no body of Filipino teachers properly prepared to carry on school work, and by force of circ.u.mstances, this plan was soon altered.

Ten school divisions were established, covering the archipelago. Each was presided over by a division superintendent of schools. The teachers were theoretically subject to his control, but the divisions were so large that it was impossible for him to exercise control very effectively. It is perhaps well that many of the teachers were left free to employ their own ingenuity in meeting local conditions.

The school system finally established represents a composite of the recommendations of hundreds of teachers scattered throughout the archipelago, and these recommendations were based on hard-earned experience.

One of the first duties of teachers was to begin the training of Filipino a.s.sistants. This took form in the organization of so-called aspirante cla.s.ses, into which the best of the Filipino youth who were old enough to teach, and who had already received some education, were gathered. These aspirante cla.s.ses were often held side by side with cla.s.ses in the primary schools first established by American teachers, and by the beginning of the year 1902 some of the brightest pupils were able to a.s.sist in primary school work. These cla.s.ses made possible the establishment of organized primary schools under the control of American teachers with Filipino teachers in the lower grades. Their graduates formed the nuclei of the first secondary schools, which were established in 1903.

The difficulties which teachers had to overcome at the outset were numerous. In some of the older and richer towns there were stone or brick schoolhouses more or less fit for occupation. In such cases a small number of old wooden benches and a few square feet of blackboard were usually available. Sometimes there were books provided by the army: Baldwin's readers in English or in rudely translated vernacular; Frye's geographies translated into Spanish; and possibly Spanish editions of the history of the United States. This stock was greatly improved during the latter half of 1902, and teachers were furnished books and supplies as rapidly as transportation facilities permitted.

In 1901 the number of school divisions was increased to eighteen, and in 1902 to thirty-six, making the school divisions identical with the thirty-six then existing political subdivisions of the islands. The organization of the public school system gradually crystallized and a.s.sumed something of the form which it has to-day. Barrio [10] schools were opened, and the work of American teachers who were detailed to supervise them was thus greatly increased.

The school system took permanent shape in 1903 and 1904. As it now stands it is controlled by the director of education, who is responsible for its conduct. Serving with him, and subject to his control, are an a.s.sistant director and a second a.s.sistant director. The directors have immediate charge of the general office, which has the following divisions: records, accounting, buildings, property, academic, industrial and publications. Each has a chief who is directly responsible for its work.

The islands are now divided into thirty-four school divisions, corresponding, except in two cases, to provinces. Each has its superintendent of schools.

The divisions are subdivided into districts, over each of which there is a supervising teacher who is responsible for the conduct of its work. Certain of the intermediate schools are under supervising teachers, while others are directly under division superintendents.

The school system to-day extends to the remotest barrios. It is organized and equipped for effective work, and ready to carry out promptly and effectively the policies determined upon by the central office.

In each province there is a central provincial school offering intermediate and secondary courses. Only twelve of them now give a full four-year course. Others offer three years, two years or one year of secondary work. There is also a manual training department attached to the provincial school, or a trade school. So much for the provincial school system.

At Manila we have the Philippine Normal School, with an attendance of six hundred sixty-nine, and the Philippine School of Arts and Trades, with an attendance of six hundred forty-one. Also, there are the School of Commerce and the School for the Deaf and Blind, both supported directly from insular funds. The School of Household Industries has recently been established for the training of adult women in embroidery, lace-making and similar arts, so that they may return to their provinces to establish little centres for the production of articles of this nature. This is most important work. The Filipinos are endowed with great patience, and with extraordinary delicacy of touch and manual dexterity. If productive household industries based on these valuable characteristics are generalized, the prosperity of the common people will be very greatly increased.

Of the school system in general it can be said that Filipino teachers have been gradually employed for the lower grades, and Americans have thus been freed to take charge of the higher instruction. Primary instruction is now in the hands of Filipinos, and intermediate instruction is rapidly being turned over to them. In July, 1913, there were about eighty-five hundred Filipino teachers, with an estimated total enrolment of five hundred thirty thousand pupils. The total enrolment in primary schools was approximately four hundred ninety thousand, in intermediate schools thirty thousand nine hundred, and in secondary schools six thousand. When we compare these figures with the hundred and seventy-seven thousand reported by the Spanish government in 1897, and when we consider the fact that attendance at that time was extremely irregular, it is evident that noteworthy progress has been made. Mere figures, however, come far short of telling the whole story. There has been very great improvement in the quality of the instruction given. In the old days children "studied out loud,"

and the resulting uproar was audible at quite a distance.

On their arrival in these islands, Americans found that the educated Filipinos as a rule held honest manual labor in contempt, while many of those who had managed to secure professional educations did not practise their professions, but preferred to live a life of ease. There were doctors who made no pretence of treating the sick, and lawyers who had studied simply for the standing which the t.i.tle would give them. The Bureau of Education has brought about a profound change in public sentiment; a change of basic importance to the country. It was apparent at the outset that any educational system adhering closely to academic studies would simply serve to perpetuate this condition of affairs. Fortunately, those in charge of the situation were untrammelled by tradition, and were free to build up a system that would meet actual existing needs. The objection to manual labor offered much difficulty, but it has been largely overcome. There was, furthermore, a feeling against industrial work on the part of the people in many regions, based on the idea that teachers meant to supplement their salaries by the sale of the industrial products of the schools. This prejudice, which seemed formidable at first, disappeared when the bureau took up in earnest the introduction of industrial education and vocational training.

Just as the academic organization grew out of local conditions, so did industrial education accommodate itself to existing circ.u.mstances. In the Spanish colegios, girls had been taught to do exquisite embroidery and to make pillow lace. In various parts of the islands, hat weaving was carried on by families or groups of families. The making of petates, [11] of rough but durable market baskets and of sugar bags const.i.tuted widespread local industries. American teachers were quick to see how these vagrant arts could be organized and commercialized. An intense rivalry sprang up between supervising teachers, and as a result the arts of pillow lace-making, embroidery, Irish crochet, hat weaving, basketry and macrame work have been introduced and standardized throughout the primary and intermediate schools. The excellence of the output is truly astonishing.

Courses in housekeeping and household arts also received early attention. The social and economic conditions in the Philippines are such that the so-called "domestic science" course of American schools is quite inadequate to meet the needs of Filipina girls. Specialized instruction in hygiene, in the care of the sick, in household sanitation and in the feeding and care of infants is included in this course of housekeeping and household arts, which was taken by fifteen thousand two hundred twenty-seven girls during 1912-1913.

School gardening was introduced at an early date. This course now includes the school garden, in which each pupil has his own individual three and a fourth by thirteen foot plot, and home gardens which are not less than four times the size of the school plot. By this arrangement eighty per cent of the garden work is carried on at the homes of the pupils or on vacant lots under the direct supervision of teachers.

In the beginning much of the school agricultural work was not very practical. Teachers who themselves knew nothing about agriculture were wedded to the small "individual plot" idea, which I regret to say still continues to prevail in some of the schools. On a bit of ground about three feet by six the pupil might plant one tomato plant, one camote vine, one grain of rice, two or three eggplants and a flowering plant or two. This gave him helpful open-air exercise, but taught him nothing about agriculture. Weeks after the school year had opened I once visited a number of school gardens in Mindoro and found that several of them consisted of rectangular plots marked off on solid sod with sh.e.l.ls picked up on the beach! On my return I told the director of education that three active hens would have done far more toward preparing soil for cultivating than had all the children in these towns.

These conditions have changed rapidly since the adoption, three years ago, of a definite policy of agricultural education consisting of standard school and home gardens and farm schools for Filipinos; and large communal tracts of land cultivated at the Settlement Farm Schools for non-Christians.

Lieutenant-Governor Frederick Lewis of Bukidnon was as deeply disgusted with the former play agriculture as was I. Exercising, I fear, rather arbitrary authority over the local Filipino teachers, but with my connivance, he persuaded them to turn their active, strong schoolboys loose on large tracts of the beautiful prairie land found near almost every school in the sub-province, and raise crops. As a result of this experiment, first carried out at Tankulan, each boy took home a bushel or two of unhulled rice. Parents were enthusiastic, and so were the boys. From this small beginning came the so-called farm-settlement schools, of which there are thirty-eight among the non-Christian tribes. On large, well-fenced, carefully cultivated tracts of ground the schoolboys grow camotes, upland rice, corn, bananas, cowpeas, beans, pineapples, eggplants, arrowroot, and in some cases, cacao and coffee. Instead of learning what individual plants will do when grown quite by themselves under abnormal conditions, they learn to produce real crops. They become interested in the introduction of American sweet potatoes in place of the less nutritious camotes, in the selection of seed corn, in the generalization of the better varieties of bananas, and in other practical matters. Incidentally they largely furnish the school food supply.

It is of course true that in many of the Filipino towns sufficiently extensive tracts of land cannot be had near the schools to make such a system possible, but, wherever it can be done, school children should be taught how to raise crops on a commercial scale, instead of spending their time on small individual plots of ground. Even the latter procedure has good results. It teaches them not to be ashamed to work. It also makes possible the introduction of home gardens, and through this means brings the practical production of vegetables into the home life of the people, with the result that unused yards and vacant lots are put under cultivation.

The system of establishing home gardens is one which meets with my unqualified approval. In 1911-1912 there were no less than twenty-two thousand nine hundred fifty-eight of these. It is said to be true that a large percentage of them soon pa.s.s into family care, and thus not only help to educate parents, but become a permanent additional source of food supply.

The schools have proved a useful medium through which to bring about the introduction of new and valuable plants. There are many school nurseries in which grow thousands of seedlings, and these are distributed at opportune times.

Woodworking is one of the industrial branches which received first attention. As previously stated, every one of the thirty-eight provinces has either a trade school with first-cla.s.s equipment, or a manual training department attached to the provincial school. Eighteen schools have already been established as regularly equipped trade schools. The Philippine Normal School and the Philippine School of Commerce offer special advantages to those studying for the profession of teaching, or for a business career.

Previous to 1909, industrial instruction was only partially organized. Experience had shown, by that time, that it was expedient to introduce a degree of specialization into the courses of study at an early stage of the child's development. Special intermediate courses were therefore organized to meet this need. After finishing the four-year primary course, the child may choose between a course in teaching, a course in farming, a trade course, a course in housekeeping and household arts and a general intermediate course. Relatively few children are at present able to take up secondary courses, and it is therefore necessary to provide in the lower grades for instruction which will prepare them for some vocation. So important has become this line of instruction that it has been found necessary to maintain, in the general office, an industrial information department, under a division chief, which employs a botanist, a designer, four native craftsmen and a force of travelling supervisors who inspect trade schools, machinery, school gardens, building sites and the general industrial work done throughout the public school system. This system of industrial instruction receives the fullest support from the Filipino people.

The following quotation from the twelfth annual report of the director of education serves to give some idea of the extent to which industrial instruction has been developed in the Philippines:--

"As is at once evident, with requirements so definitely fixed for industrial work in the schools, the great majority of the pupils who are enrolled must be engaged in some branch of this work. An examination of the figures included among the statistical tables of this report will show that of the total enrolment of 235,740 boys and 138,842 girls during the month of February, 1912 (an average month), 216,290 boys and 125,203 girls--91 per cent of the entire monthly enrolment--were doing some form of industrial work. More specifically, it will be found that 21,420 boys were taking manual training and trade work; 96,167 boys were engaged in school gardening and farming; 15,463 girls were also engaged in garden work; and 68,194 girls were taking up various lines which go under the general caption of minor industries.... Further in this connection it will be found that in the subject of lace-making alone 16,439 girls were receiving instruction; in embroidery, 12,339; and in cooking 4768. There were 22,965 boys and 7709 girls making hats in the industrial cla.s.ses, 40,264 pupils making mats, and 104,424 studying the art of basketry.

"... 1309 pupils were enrolled in the regular trade school cla.s.ses; 924 in regular trade courses in other schools; and 7360 in the shops operated in connection with provincial and other intermediate schools. In 401 school shops having an enrolment of 19,949 boys, articles to the value of P142,189.74 were fabricated and from this product, sales to the amount of P131,418.13 were made during the school year 1911-12. In addition to the above, 10,356 pupils were doing work in 236 primary woodworking shops conducted in connection with munic.i.p.al primary schools in all parts of the Islands. The figures for trade and manual training are taken from the March report."