Note 31 — THE FRIAR VIEWPOINT

“Some try to attribute this to the subordination in which the Spaniards hold them. I will ask such people why does not that subordination and submission prevent them from making any mechanical work with a sufficient perfection? The soldiers learn the military exercise quicker than do the Spaniards; the children learn to read readily; most of them write an excellent hand. The girls easily imitate the laces and embroideries of Europa. Why do they not imitate equally well our philosophers, our mathematicians, and our poets? Why do they not make any advance in painting, in music, and in the other sciences which require imagination and understanding?31 More than half of the seculars of the Manila archbishopric are Indians. There are some who have become alcaldes-mayor, officers in the royal army, and advocates in the royal Audiencia. Why have none of them gone beyond a very moderate mediocrity in the sciences to which they have dedicated themselves? Just as among Europeans individuals are found for all kinds of abstract sciences, it must be confessed that in the same manner nations are found who, because of the climate in which they have lived for a long series of generations, have contracted a certain tangency of understanding which disposes them very little to receive metaphysical and spiritual ideas.”32