have taken the lead and have won the respect and admiration of the world. The United States has gained an enviable position for its philanthropy. May it ever hold that position.

I now have pleasure in presenting as the presiding officer of the Conference, DR. ANDREW S. DRAPER, Commissioner of Education of the State of New York.

Dr. Draper took the chair and the organization of the Conference was completed.

(For a list of Officers of the Conference, see page 2.)

The President then delivered the following opening address:

OPENING ADDRESS OF HON. ANDREW S. DRAPER, LL.B., LL.D.

Mr. Smiley and Ladies and Gentlemen: Year after year, twenty-five times, the keen interest which the proprietor of this estate has had in all unfortunate men and women has brought this Conference to its gracious hospitality in order to promote the good of the American Indians. Since the war with Spain for the rescue of Cuba, the discussions of the Conference have extended to the millions of people who came under the sovereignty of the United States as the result of that conflict.

At one of our sittings we shall hear from the Secretary of the United States Board of Indian Commissioners about the influence of these twenty-five meetings in stirring Indian sentiment, shaping Indian legislation, and reforming Indian administration. Following my brief introductory words we shall have from Hon. Francis E. Leupp, the altogether admirable United States Commissioner of Indian Affairs, some of the interesting details of Indian progress under the better laws and better administration which, it is not too much to say, have largely resulted from the discussions under this roof. And now, and in each succeeding year, we shall expect to hear from officers, agents, teachers, missionaries, and other workers in the Indian service, about the difficulties they encounter and the work they are doing. We shall at all times be anxious to give attention, sympathy, and encouragement to all such and to make any declarations to the public which may serve substantial ends. But it seems as though the Indian problem has been practically solved so far as general policies are concerned, that it is now almost wholly a matter of administration, and that we may well begin to make the people of our new dependencies the subject of our most serious discussions and of our aggressive declarations.

The Philippine problem has come to be the problem of pressing concern to us. There are more people in the Philippine Islands than in the State of New York-perhaps twenty times more than the Indian population ever was. The conditions are hard and the outlook uncertain. It is a hard matter to have such a mass of unlettered, semi-savage, or wholly savage people under our flag, without the possibility of assimilating them as we do the millions who come to us from other lands, and with some inevitable doubts about their ever being able to govern themselves. We are coming to the serious stages of the undertaking and the problem looms even larger than at first. The sober second thought sees that the practical difficulties are heavier, that the moral responsibilities are higher, and that the possibility of substantial results in world progress are more open and unique than at first appeared. It sees also that the reflex influence upon the people and the international standing of the United States, as well as upon world respect for popular government and the coming course of world events, is to be much greater than was at first realized.

It seems to me idle to discuss whether we made a mistake in getting the Philippine Islands upon our hands. They are upon our hands. Time spent in wondering whether we ought not to back out of the responsibility, or ought not to sell them, or barter them, or give them away, is time worse than wasted. Aside from that practically universal national pride which will never, without convincing reasons, relinquish any territory that has once come under the sovereignty of the United States, there is a national conscience among us which has some concern about the good faith of governments, and will not give over to utter hopelessness, or abandon to any nation less disposed and less able to promote their best good than ourselves, any dependent people for whom we have once assumed responsibility. And there is no other nation better able to bear the burden, and more unselfishly disposed to do so, than we are.

Nor will the people of the United States seek an arrangement with the great powers by which the Philippine Islands may, like Switzerland, become neutral territory and left to themselves. When the clear majority of the Filipinos show the capacity for building institutions which the clear majority of the Swiss have long possessed, the suggestion will not be repugnant to our sensibilities, but there will then be no point

in it.

There is but one thing to do, and that is to turn a deaf ear to the waverers and go right ahead with the load which

we have taken upon ourselves. And we will do it better if we know that we will not get any shillings for carrying it, and that the road is likely to be so long that none of this generation is likely to see the end of it.

Of the spirit and the acts of the executive officers of the government, so far as I know, there can be no words but those of commendation. McKinley started nobly when he said "The Philippines are ours, not to exploit, but to develop, to civilize, to educate, to train in the science of self-government. This is the path of duty which we must follow or be recreant to a great trust. The question is not, will it pay? but, will we do what is right?" He acted up to what he said. President Roosevelt has been in entire and enthusiastic accord with the ideal attitudes of his lamented predecessor. What Roosevelt has said has been admirably said and when he induced McKinley's Governor General of the Philippines to become the head of the War Department, because through the military occupancy that department had come to be charged with Philippine administration, and he could thereby bring to his own council table and into the position of largest influence upon Philippine affairs the man best informed and most trusted upon those affairs, he did quite as much as he could do in any way to promote the realization of McKinley's and the country's best hopes,

The information which we get about Philippine matters comes through the officers of the army and navy, through missionaries and teachers, and through occasional travelers. In its parts it is tinged by inevitable bias. As a whole it is often confusing and conflicting. Sometimes a poor little fact is dressed up in such literary clothes to get it into the society of the magazines that it must be wholly unable to recognize itself. The government reports are ponderous, unsystematic, lacking in continuity, poorly indexed if indexed at all, and therefore not very helpful even to one seeking information: to the masses they are inexplicable.

The following essential facts are much condensed from a recent article having the earmarks of reliability, in the New York Tribune. Under Spanish rule the Filipino had nothing to say about government, either local or general. If he went to church it was to one ruled by the State, and often corruptly. Under American rule the municipal officers are elected by the people, and the provincial officers are so elected, except the Governor, who is chosen by the municipal councils who are themselves elected by the people, and the Treasurer, who is appointed by the Governor General. The people have just elected a popular assembly which, with the Commission ap

pointed by the President of the United States, will constitute a congress for the islands. The justices of the peace, more than half of the circuit judges, and three out of seven justices of the supreme court are natives. So is the Attorney General and practically all of the States' attorneys. There is a native police of 6,000 men, many of whose officers are natives. The law and the judicial system assure practically every right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. Churches are encouraged by government, but are neither supported by nor under the control of the State. Under Spanish rule it is said there were 200,000 children in some kind of schools, and that the average daily attendance was half that number Now there are 500,000 enrolled with an average attendance of 270,000 in much better schools. The general government is spending $2,400,000 per annum for schools besides what is expended by provincial and municipal governments. The government maintains 200 pupils in the schools of the United States. The exports and imports have increased something like 50 or 60 per cent. In eight years the public improvements, buildings, harbor improvements, lighthouses, roads and bridges, and vessels for public service, have aggregated something like $20,000,000. The harbor of Manila is said to be the best in the Orient. Under government encouragement, but hedged about by safeguards, there has been constructed sixty miles of electric road and a good lighting system at Manila, and in the same way the railway mileage in operation in the islands has risen from 120 to 205 miles, and 709 miles of new road are in process of construction.

If these statements are true, they certainly form the outlines of a picture which is both heroic and heartening. It is none the less so because not conclusive of the whole matter, or because many of the details of the picture are not up to the expectations of some who are not experienced in such undertakings. Of course the whole subject, outlines and details, needs informing and patriotic discussion. There are many in the country, no doubt there are some here, who are skeptical about one phase or another of our policies in the Philippines. Certain kinds of skepticism are often healthy. This is a good place for such as you to express doubts, because one may have them taken out of him and another may make a valuable contribution to the judgment of all.

Aside from the training of Filipinos in religion and morals, which is outside of the government functions and accepted. by the religious denominations, and which will naturally have the thought of the Conference, there are three phases of government policy in the Philippines which suggest them

selves to me as deserving our discussion. These relate to political privileges, to secular education, and to industries.

As to giving political privileges, we are, for obvious reasons, disposed to go much further than other great nations who have had to deal with similar questions. Perhaps we may be disposed to go too far. These people are not like our fathers before the American Revolution. There may be a golden mean between the extremes. Political privileges already confered are sufficient proof of the desire to give all that may be safely exercised; and if the fact that less than two per cent of the population voted at the recent and first general election for a popular assembly, and that those who did were clamorous for independence without appreciating its responsibilities, is not wholly discouraging, it certainly admonishes us to hesitate about going further at once or about making promises. It is manifest enough that for a long time selfgovernment must be very local and simple, and that the possibility of the safe exercise of sovereignty by the islands at an early day is quite out of the question.

The adaptation of schools to the needs of the situation is likely to be a much more difficult matter than many would at once suppose. American schools may not be of the most service to an un-American people, and certainly Filipino schools can not be locally supported and administered to the extent that American schools are. Quite as certainly, the greatest weakness which we are coming to realize in our American system will count even more heavily against them than us. While we are bound to hold out to everyone his equal chance, we will do well if we encourage young Filipinos to be workmen rather than lawyers, and doctors, and engineers, and promoters of enterprises, and managers of other Filipinos. There will be enough who will get into the professional employments and the managing positions without our telling them that they will come short of their deserts and miss their opportunities if they do not. Universal attendance within fixed ages and an exact elementary training ought to be made the fundamental factors in the Filipino schools. We may learn much from our near neighbor in the east, Japan, about this.

Filipino industries claim the best attention of the government. No people can have a life worth the having unless they have some understanding of the economic, moral, and social value of work. And hardly can any people be expected to have such an understanding unless work makes money and is convertible into what money will buy. The industrial problem in the Philippine Islands must, very likely, be always