Note 60 — THE PHILIPPINES, 1860–1898—SOME COMMENT AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Science and material resources.—So far as the scientific work of the period has a direct bearing upon our present purposes, it relates rather to the section on Economic Development. But the materials are sufficiently listed in the Bibliography, and the subject is introduced here only to say that this is one of the lines along which, in recent years, Spanish administration was beginning to make progress. This was true, however, chiefly of forestry and mineralogy, and was due almost entirely to the Spanish officials Abella y Casariego, Centeno y García, and Sebastian Vidal y Soler, and to the stimulus of the work of foreign investigators, especially Germans. The work of the Jesuits in meteorology should also be specially mentioned. It will be noted that little headway was made in the matter most vital for the Philippines, viz., agriculture; nor can we say that even a beginning was made in industrial chemistry or other researches calculated to foster either incipient or undeveloped industries, while the public health service was lamentably defective and scientific research relating thereto amounted practically to nothing. Reference may be made to the already large list of publications of the present Philippine government’s Bureau of Science, Board of Health, Agriculture, Forestry, and Mining bureaus as showing the state of scientific investigation before 1898, also for bibliographical data.60