Note 6 — PRIMARY INSTRUCTION

Until the end of the year 1863,6 when the memorable royal decree, which established a plan of primary education in Filipinas, arranged for the creation of schools of primary instruction in all the villages of the islands, and the creation of a normal school in Manila whence should graduate educated and religious teachers, who should take charge of those institutions, was dictated, it can be said that there had been no legislation in regard to primary instruction in these islands; for, although it is certain that orders directed for the purpose of obtaining the instruction of the natives, and very especially, the teaching of the beautiful Spanish language, are not lacking, some of those orders being contained in the Leyes de Indias and in the edicts of good government [Bandos de Buen Gobierno], it is a fact that those orders are isolated regulations, without connection, and the product of the good desire which has always animated the monarchs of España and their worthy representatives in the archipelago, for the advance and prosperity of the archipelago, but without resting on a fixed foundation, for lack of elements so that such foundation might exist.7