CHAPTER VII.

EDUCATION IN THE PHILIPPINES AND IN CUBA.

I.-EDUCATION IN THE PHILIPPINES.

HIGHER AND SECONDARY EDUCATION.

The report of this Bureau for 1898 afforded some information in regard to the University of Santo Tomás at Manila, giving the date of its foundation, which was nearly contemporary with that of the English settlement at Jamestown, Va., with some other particulars; and in the report for 1899 there is a further brief account of the university, compiled from data contained in such of the discourses delivered at the annual opening of the university course as were then available in Washington. From statistics of secondary education published by the university in 1887 it was also possible to form some idea of the educational influence of a number of colleges or secondary schools throughout the islands which are under the control of the university and serve as preparatory schools for it.

Since the American occupation the education reports coming from the Philippines have been confined to the progress of the schools established by the American authorities, the university with its secondary schools, besides a number of private schools, not being subject to government control. The Bureau is now indebted to the authorities of the University of Manila for an additional number of the annual discourses, including some statistics, dating from 1897 to 1906, and from these it is possible to gather a further idea of the kind and quality of instruction given at the university and colleges, together with the number of students attending those institutions, respectively, before the American occupation. The recent numbers do not contain statistics. The addresses referred to, which were written by professors of the university, cover a variety of subjects, ranging from philosophy and theology to details of chemical analysis, upon which they had lectured to their students during the university course. Taking them in order, the earliest of them (1897) was delivered previous to the American occupation of the islands. It is a chemical treatise, consisting of a discussion of Kjeldahl's method of estimating nitrogen in organic compounds. The author goes into the history of this technical subject very fully, and shows his familiarity with German and French chemical literature. Such a narrow subject, full of details of experiments, would seem rather out of place as the material for a discourse on an academic anniversary, and the author, whose education had clearly been much superior to that which is sufficient for the mere teaching of chemistry, in his introduction prepared the way for his scientific paper almost apologetically, by describing broadly and critically the relations of science in general and of his subject in particular to the world of knowledge at large. He concluded his address with the following words, which are noteworthy, coming as they did from a Dominican professor in a Philippine

university and uttered on a public occasion at Manila in the year 1897, before the Americans took possession of the islands:

"The requirements of our epoch," says the author (Rev. Father Felix Osés y Abaurre, of the Dominican Order, professor in the faculty of sciences), "are manifested in a practical way by the establishment of schools in which the natural sciences occupy the leading place as a subject of public instruction. These schools will make the next generation, more energetic and intelligent, and more capable of understanding all that is really useful and great. That generation will create new resources for the State and augment its power, and when, finally, material existence shall have become easier the sufferings of the world will be relieved more speedily, and the mind, purified and enlightened, can then be directed more readily toward the author of all created things."

The next "discourse" in order of time (by Rev. Father José Farpon, of the faculty of philosophy and letters) is dated 1900, and has for its subject a comparison between psychology and physiology to prove the thesis that such a comparison, especially from the study of the intellect and the will, obliges us to recognize the necessity of a spiritualistic (or superphysiological) psychology. A brief synopsis of the author's argument is given to illustrate the scope and plan of the higher studies which Filipino students could take at the university. In the course of his argument the author occasionally produces definitions and axioms from the great intellectual leader of his order, St. Thomas Aquinas, which express with precision positions which are still unassailable, it being no small recommendation of the scholastic philosophy and psychology, he remarks, that it has been so satisfactorily confirmed by modern physiology. He points out that comparative philosophy is of great use in the study of the sciences themselves, because philosophy deals with generalizations of first principles, while the various sciences deal with or are immersed in particulars. As soon as these are left, and general truths or speculations concerning their nature or their relation to existence in general are undertaken, this generalizing process is no longer a science but philosophy. He goes on to define experimental science, in which he includes modern physiology, and points out that the medical faculty are prone to regard psychology as a continuation of or an appendix to experimental physiology, while the philosophers maintain that the data of psychology are not obtained by objective experiment, but by internal or subjective observation. Consequently the phenomena belonging to the two studies are of different orders and can not be correlated. Physiology with all its modern apparatus for delicate observation and experiment has not passed beyond the senses, and precisely at this point psychology begins. Its subject-matter is in part afforded it by or through the senses, but the operations of the intellectual faculties and the will are independent of sense impressions. He proceeds to illustrate this position as follows: The action of the memory in recalling a variety of past impressions, moods, ideas, fears, and hopes which the senses can no longer represent from the external world is not a physiological but a superphysiological or intellectual one. The fact that the materials of the body are entirely renewed at comparatively short intervals, while the percipient ego is permanent, being the same in the same individual at any one time as forty or fifty years previously, shows that it can not be composed of the material elements which have long since been eliminated from the body. The work done by the brain in thinking can not be correlated with physical forces; it has no mechanical equivalent, and can not even be measured. [This was written before the discoveries relating to radium proved that there are physical phenomena which are also irreconcilable with the correlation of forces.] The senses present only the exterior of things; it is an intellectual act, independent of sense, to penetrate into things and detect their substance, or principle-to explain them. This is not a physiological but an intellectual function. The senses have special organs, while the intellect and the will, the judgment, imagination, etc., have not. The author points out that this distinction was made clear by

Aquinas long before the anatomy of the brain was understood. The organ of a sense is necessary to the operation of that sense, and is limited thereto. Thus the visual organs can only produce sensations of light and vision. They can not produce hearing or touch, etc., while the understanding is not the result of the action of any organ, because it knows things which are not transmitted by the senses, such as scientific and moral truths, which are not material objective things. Scientific truths (generalizations) are universal, while the organs of sense can only transmit individual things. For example, that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles, is a fact not transmitted by the senses. So the scientific truth that all bodies fall in equal times in a vacuum, is an intellectual act, a judgment, a generalization, not a matter of observation. All empirical sciences tend toward generalizations. The supersensual action of the mind makes their particulars general. So, too, in other directions the senses often serve merely as the occasion of an intellectual act without supplying the material or ideas for it, as in the exercise of justice. Again, the senses become blunted or destroyed by too great exercise, whereas the intelligence becomes more capable the greater and more sublime the ideas presented to it. Sublime truths presented to uncultivated minds occupied with the things of sense merely stupefy them. The mind can not comprehend such ideas without training. It first begins with simple judgments about the objects of sense, and gradually proceeds to the higher scientific and moral generalizations, which are not presented by sense but proceed from the intellect itself.

A similar course of reasoning is pursued to show that the will is superior to the suggestions of the senses and to the appetites, and governs them, its objects being previously ascertained by the understanding, and as the training of the intellect proceeds from simple judgment about external things to the highest scientific generalizations, so the object of volition rises from simple and sensible things until finally the will is directed to procuring universal well-being, both subjective and objective. All our faculties are subject to its energy, and through them the objective world is in some measure controlled. The conclusion therefore is that psychology can not be reached through physiology alone, but has for its peculiar study a supersensual activity distinct from any physiological or physical phenomenon. The author quotes modern French physiological works throughout his treatise, but refers to Herbert Spencer at second hand through a French translation.

The discourse for 1901 by Rev. Father Florencio Llanos, of the faculty of philosophy and letters, is devoted to combating the doctrine of evolution as enounced by Haeckel, and in particular the descent or ascent of man from extinct anthropoidal apes. The thesis is stated as follows: "We shall show that the Congress of Zoologists at Cambridge [in 1898] did not solve the problem of the origin of man, nor do the fossil bones found in Java constitute a certain and demonstrative proof of their relationship with the present anthropoids." The author starts with a list of dicta from a number of writers, which he had selected as either repugnant to reason or objectionable for their perverting tendencies. The authors he challenges are not all biologists, but among them are other writers who have been under the influence of the modern scientific turn of thought. Among the names he cites are those of Jouffroy, Renan, Virchow, Vogt, Haeckel, Darwin, and Huxley. The subject of the discourse is treated in a technical manner, with many details relating to anatomical measurements taken from the works of the leading comparative anatomists (Quatrefages, etc.), while the anthropological and ethnological sides of the question are tested by references to the reports of well-known authorities upon these subjects who have written upon the native races of the various parts of the world. The list of these authorities scattered through the work is too long to copy, but it includes Broca, Topinard, Huxley, and Quatrefages, while the author's minuteness of research is shown by a reference to the comparative measurements of the heads of negroes born in the United States and those born in Africa, which were made by Morton and Meigs. But he also brings to

his aid occasionally passages from Aquinas which anticipate the measurements of modern science. For example, Aquinas says: "It was necessary that man should have a brain which is larger in proportion to the body than that of the other animals, in order that the operations of the internal powers of sense, which are necessary to intellectual action, could go on more freely." This teleological way of explaining the fact would be regarded as a case of hysteron proteron by modern writers. The learned author lays stress upon the fact that the abyss which separates the lowest man from the highest anthropoid, as shown in the range of his ideas, his power of development, his religion, etc., has never been crossed, as far as we know, and concludes that Haeckel's assertion at the Congress at Cambridge that the origin of man from anthropoids is a historical fact, is not proved. He occasionally relies upon biblical doctrines and church traditions for support outside of his strictly scientific train of reasoning.

The discourse for 1902 by Rev. Father Ricardo M. Vaquero, of the theological faculty, is an examination of modern spiritualism. The author reviews the whole subject from Roman times to the latest manifestations, and concludes that, while there is much fraud in the manifestations, some are real, but are the work of evil spirits, and attendance at them should be discouraged.

The address for 1903 by Rev. Father Francisco Cubenas, of the theological faculty, has for its subject the union of church and state, and shows the way in which the church has adapted itself to the changes in government due to the development of the ideas of political and individual liberty which became prevalent after the French revolution. In his introduction the author speaks sadly of the changes which had come to the university in the few years preceding his address. He says: "We, members of the faculty and alumni of a university which until recently had the title of royal and pontifical, feel somewhat like orphans, since we have been deprived of our traditional Spanish patronage, which formerly watched over us jointly with the church. To-day we are without a country. Like the universities of the middle ages we are an ecumenical body—we are simply apostolic Roman Catholics, our only shield is that of the church, our only chief and supreme rector is the pontiff, to whom we render with heartfelt gratitude our loyal homage and entire submission, without, however, failing to retain a grateful remembrance of the noble Spanish nation, in whose name we still seal our degrees and official documents."

The address for 1904 by Rev. Father Joaquin Recoder, of the philosophical faculty, gives in effect a commemoration of the life, writings, and the zealous labors of Fr. Miguel de Benevides, who came to the Philippines in 1587 with a band of missionaries, and was in reality the founder of the University of Santo Tomás.

The address for 1905, by Rev. Father Pedro Rosa, of the faculty of sciences, is a mathematical treatise, and the author apologizes for presenting to his audience such an arid thesis in place of the usual academic discourse by enlarging upon the usefulness and the necessity of understanding mathematics in modern times, while such knowledge is especially important in the Philippines at the present day, since in future the education of the Filipino youth will take a scientific turn and their tastes will be diverted to the mechanic arts and applied sciences as well as the physical sciences, in all which the calculus plays an important part; hence he takes the liberty of presenting a monograph on the Eulerian integrals. In a note at the end of his address the author states that the reader must excuse certain irregularities and a want of clearness in the impression, as this is the first work of the kind printed in the Philippines.

The address for 1906, by Rev. Father Serapio Tamayo, of the faculty of canon law, has for its title "A General Account of Ecclesiastical Discipline in the Philippines during the Spanish Dominion." It gives a history of the church in the Philippines from the earliest times, including some notice of the charitable and educational institutions, all of which were established by the church from the beginning of the

Spanish control, besides treating more fully the legal, social, and administrative functions of the clergy. Church and state having always been united under the Spanish rule, the history of the church in the islands is inextricably united with that of the government itself, which was practically guided by ecclesiastical policy.

The University of Manila retains the usual organization of the ancient continental universities, dividing its courses of study into the faculties of theology and canon law, jurisprudence, medicine and pharmacy, philosophy and letters, and the sciIn looking over the names of graduates who received honors or prizes in 1897, before the American occupation, we find that the distribution among the various faculties was as follows:

ences.

The foregoing list of provinces shows that the influence of higher studies is diffused more or less through the islands.

The number of students in the different faculties in 1897 is given as follows:

The programme of studies for 1897 shows that instruction was given partly by lectures, but it also includes the text-books used, which were mostly Spanish, with a few French and German names. In the same year the attendance at the colleges of Santo Tomás and San Juan de Letran at Manila was 337 and 1,447, respectively. Of these colleges, which were under the university, the college of Santo Tomás was a commercial school, its programme including industrial mechanics, commercial arithmetic, bookkeeping, commercial correspondence and transactions, political economy, commercial and industrial legislation, commercial geography and statistics, French and English, and linear, topographical, and ornamental drawing. The college of San Juan de Letran was an institution of general studies, with a five-year course, leading to the university. The first-year course included Spanish and Latin grammar and Christian Doctrine; the second, the same, with geography; the third, Latin translations and ED 1906-VOL 1-10