An Epoch in History

E-text prepared by Bill Tozier, Barbara Tozier, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
P. H. ELEY
TO MY MOTHER,
whose tender love and devotion for me are ever unchanged, I dedicate this book.
Copyright, 1904, by P. H. ELEY.
It was the good fortune of the author to take part in a movement without precedent in the history of the world, and the incidents concurrent with, together with those subsequent to that movement, have furnished the material for this book. It has been the object of the writer to weave into the story of his actual experiences an account of those things which are as yet an unexplored field in the realm of letters. The work is submitted to the reader in the hope that it will prove to be pregnant with interest to those who are in sympathy with great movements and to those who listen with delight to stories of personal experiences in distant lands and among strange peoples.
The Author.
The Virginia Polytechnic Institute, April, 1904.
CHAPTER I.
Few people pause to think that Tuesday, the twenty-third day of July, nineteen hundred and one, not only placed a mile-stone on the road of civilization, but also marked an epoch in the history of the world.
That day placed a mile-stone on the road of civilization because it saw the culmination of one of the greatest movements ever attempted in behalf of common school education. It marked an epoch in the history of the world because, for the first time within the knowledge of man, a conquering people, instead of sending battalions of soldiers to hold the conquered in subjection, sent a carefully selected body of men and women to carry to them the benefits of a highly developed society.
It was on this day that the United States Government sent from San Francisco four hundred and ninety-nine trained men and women to establish throughout the Philippine Islands a system of free public schools.