Note 15 — Domesticated Natives—Origin—Character

On the banks of the Pasig River there was a training college for schoolmasters, who were drafted off to the villages with a miserable stipend, to teach the juvenile rustics. But the governmental system of centralization fell somewhat hard on the village teacher. For instance, I knew one who received a monthly salary of 16 pesos, and every month he had to spend two of them to travel to Manila and back to receive the money—an outlay equal to 12½ per cent. of his total income. For such a wretched pittance great things were not to be expected of the teacher, even though he had had a free hand in his work. Other circumstances of greater weight contributed to keep the standard of education among the common townfolk very low; in some places to abolish it totally. The parish priests were ex-officio Inspectors of Schools for primary instruction, wherein it was their duty to see that the Spanish language was taught. The old “Laws of the Indies” provided that christian doctrine should be taught to the heathen native in Spanish.15 Several decrees confirming that law were issued from time to time, but their fulfilment did not seem to suit the policy of the friars. On June 30, 1887, the Gov.-General published another decree with the same object, and sent a communication to the Archbishop to remind him of this obligation of his subordinates, and the urgency of its strict observance. But it had no effect whatever, and the poor-class villagers were only taught to gabble off the christian doctrine by rote, for it suited the friar to stimulate that peculiar mental condition in which belief precedes understanding. The school-teacher, being subordinate to the inspector, had no voice in the matter, and was compelled to follow the views of the priest. Few Spaniards took the trouble to learn native dialects (of which there are about 30), and only a small percentage of the natives can speak intelligible Spanish. There is no literature in dialect; the few odd compositions in Tagalog still extant are wanting in the first principles of literary style. There were many villages with untrained teachers who could not speak Spanish; there were other villages with no schools at all, hence no preparation whatever for municipal life.