Note 28 — THE FRIAR VIEWPOINT

Before entering fully upon the question, we ought to advise that we have lived in several Visayan villages for the space of twenty-three years; that we speak the language fluently; that, as a parish priest, we have necessarily had among our duties to treat with Indians of all social classes, from the most enlightened to the rudest; that we have merited their confidence; that we have studied them and observed them at their domestic fireside and in public life; that we know their customs, their passions, their defects, and their good qualities. And if all this, and much more which we could add, is not sufficient to form an exact and definite judgment on the nature of the Indian, we will say that we have consulted the experience of our predecessors, and the parish-priest religious brothers of the habit, friends, and associates who took part in the sacred ministry in villages of other provinces, and we have found our opinions upon this particular in accord with their more valuable opinions. We will say also, in order that our opinion may not be censured as partial, that by the divine grace we wear the habit of our glorious founder, St. Augustine, the wisest and most universal of the holy fathers, the great figure of the fourth century, the wonderful ancient author, the admiration of the moderns, from whom we have inherited our love for study and the sciences, which with prayer and contemplation constitute the foundation and essence of our institute, as it was founded by a saint consecrated all his life to letters and converted to the faith by means of a book: Tolle lege; tolle, lege.28 Lastly, we advise that the Order of St. Augustine, to which I have the good fortune to belong, also built a school in Iloilo, dedicated to secondary education, in which it spent huge sums to make it the equal of the best schools of Europa.