Note 16 — THE FRIAR VIEWPOINT

Victor S. Clark (Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, no. 58, May, 1905; Labor Conditions in the Philippines), says (p. 854): “Practically all the Christian population of Mindanao spoke Spanish in 1883, which indicates that the statistics probably did not cover the remoter Jesuit mission stations among the Moros. In that year about 21 per cent of the total population reported for the islands could read, but less than 5½ per cent could speak Spanish. In other words, 75 per cent of the persons able to read could do so only in the Malay dialects.” ↑