In 1912 there were graduated from the primary schools 11,200 pupils, of whom approximately 7466 were males; from the intermediate schools 3062 pupils, of whom 2295 were males; and from the secondary schools 221 pupils, of whom 175 were males. In that year alone the schools therefore contributed 9936 to the contingent of persons qualified by literary attainments to vote. Of these 175 are perhaps capable of intelligently holding municipal and provincial offices, and to this number may probably be added half of the 2295 intermediate male graduates, making an increase of 1362 in the possible leaders of the people.
The public schools, however, do not limit their contributions to that part of the electoral body having literary qualifications only. Vocational training, it is true, is limited in the primary grades to cottage industries; but no pupil is graduated from the primary schools with only literary qualifications. In some form or other, he has had a vocational start. His own energy must determine the use he makes of it.
The intermediate schools add vocational training to increased academic training. All their graduates have done three years’ work in the general course, leading to a literary course in the high schools, the course in farming, the course in teaching, the business course, the course in housekeeping and household arts or the trade course.
The Sacred Tree of the Ifugaos.
This great tree at Quiangan is considered sacred by the Ifugaos of that region. They believe that when it dies they too will perish.
Of the graduates of secondary schools a small part have highly specialized vocational training; but the great majority have followed the literary course and have undoubtedly done this with the idea of entering political life. Rome was not built in a day, and in spite of herculean American efforts, it will be a long time before Filipinos cease to regard a certain kind of literary culture as the proper basis for statesmanship. It has been said of them that they have “the fatal gift of oratory”! The future leaders of the Filipino people, dependent or independent, must be the output of the public schools. The danger is that the number of would-be leaders will be disproportionately great in comparison with that of the useful but relatively inconspicuous rank and file.
There are in the Philippine Islands fully twelve hundred thousand children of school age. The present available resources are sufficient to educate less than one-half of that number.
The claim has been made that a due proportion of the very limited revenues of the insular government has not been expended for educational purposes. It is not justified by the facts. It is certainly important to keep the Filipinos alive, and if this is not done, they can hardly be educated. The expenditure to date[15] from insular funds for health work, including cost of necessary new buildings, has been approximately $9,630,000; that for educational purposes, also including buildings, approximately $21,376,000.
As a simple matter of fact, the Bureau of Education has been treated not only with liberality but in one regard with very great leniency. Taking advantage of the friendly attitude of the legislative body and of the people toward education, one of its earlier directors incurred expense with utter disregard for appropriations. He repeatedly made deficits of $150,000 to $250,000 and then in effect calmly asked us what we were going to do about it. After stating that I, for one, would never vote to make good another deficit incurred by him while he was allowed to remain in the service, and at a time when I was threatening to hold the director of forestry personally responsible for a deficit of $5000 resulting in his bureau from unforeseen expenditures by forest officers in remote places, and therefore more or less excusable, I learned that the usual shortage in the Bureau of Education had again occurred and was being covered by the quiet transfer of a sum approximating $200,000.