poorest may take a forty-acre homestead and have it free for five years' occupation and use, the Civil Service Act, the Penal Code, and Land Registration Act, the Civil Marriage Law, and a score more, all fill the heart of a lover of righteousness with confidence for the success of our work in the Philippines.*

List of twenty-five more Acts of far-reaching benefit to the Philippines:

1. Act creating Bureau of Agriculture.

2. Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

3. Act preventing wanton destruction of timber on public lands.

4. Act defining and prohibiting libel, and printing, selling, or exhibiting obscene books, pictures, etc.

5. Act providing for examination of banks. (No. 52.)

6. Code of Civil Procedure. (No. 190.) Index alone fills six folio pages.

7. Act Abolishing Slavery among Moros.

8. Act creating Bureau of Coast Guard and Transportation. (No. 226.)

9. Customs Administrative Act. (No. 355.) Index alone fills forty-four folio pages.

10. Act creating Forestry Bureau.

II. Mining Bureau Act.

12. Act regulating the Practice of Medicine and Surgery.

13. Charter of Manila.

14. Currency Act (establishing gold basis).

15. Act creating Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes (now Bureau

of Ethnology).

16. Act establishing Government Laboratories.

17. Act establishing Provincial Health Boards.

(No. 307.)

18. Act providing for control and management of jails. (No.413.)

19. Act creating Bureau of Public Lands. (No. 218.)

20. Act authorizing all Protestant denominations to hold land

for Church purposes.

(No. 271.)

21. Act establishing Weather Bureau. (No. 131.)

22. Act making vaccination compulsory. (No. 309.)

23. Act establishing the Summer Capital at Baguio, Benguet. 24. Act providing for Municipal Cemeteries.

25. Penal Code.

CHAPTER XII.

EDUCATING A NATION.

FROM the very beginning of American occupation all classes of Americans have recognized the fundamental necessity of establishing and maintaining free public schools for the Filipino people. Such a step was in line with their most dearly-cherished ambitions. Their struggle with the Spanish government had made their leaders painfully conscious of the defects of the educational system under which they had been trained, and keenly alive to the importance of schools carried on in the modern spirit and with the help of modern apparatus.

In 1860, when O'Connell was Spanish minister for the colonies, a public school law for the Philippines was enacted. It ordered a public school established in every pueblo, and made instruction in the Spanish languages of primary importance. The Bill was weak in that it made the Archbishop of the Philippines an ex-officio member of the Board having control of the system, and the friar curate in the several pueblos inspectors. Spanish Liberals urged the practical realization of this scheme of popular education with great vigor; but the Philippines were far away, and, worst of all, the Roman Catholic Church authorities in the Islands were either lukewarm or openly hostile. As a consequence they did as little as possible to put the plan in force. At the beginning of the American occupation, such schools were

in operation; but they did not reach the masses, and were weak in every way. If any reader deem my opinion on this subject warped and unfair, let him hear what the general superintendent of public instruction, Dr. David P. Barrows, says in his Annual Report for 1902-03:

"In the second place, the Spanish school system, though founded and supported by the government, was never secular in character. The Spanish friar, who was the pueblo curate, was always the local inspector of the school, and not only directed its conduct, but determined the subjects which should be taught. In the brief and imperfect course of primary instruction which was given in these little schools, Church catechism, Church doctrine, and sacred history were emphasized almost to the exclusion of the other subjects which were necessary to fit the Filipino child for his position in life, whether it be humble or fortunate. This, however, was not the sole unfortunate effect of this arrangement. Whatever may be said in praise of the work of religious orders in these islands, it can not be denied that their attitude during the last fifty, and particularly the final thirty, years of their influence here, was excessively hostile toward the enlightenment of the Filipino. They actively sought to debar the Filipino from any sort of modern knowledge, from gaining a position of independence and self-respect, and from entrance into any kind of leadership of his own race. It was, in fact, this obstructive and reactionary policy on the part of the class that most immediately affected their lives that provoked the Filipinos into open hostility and rebellion."

The first Philippine Commission in one of its earliest Reports says:

"He [the Filipino] is at all events, keenly alive to the drawbacks under which he has thus far labored, and strongly desirous of securing better educational advantages. In the opinion of the Commission, the government established in the Islands should promptly provide