Slavery was prohibited by law as far back as the reign of Philip II.;[14] it nevertheless still exists in an occult form among the natives. Rarely, if ever, do its victims appeal to the law for redress, firstly, because of their ignorance, and secondly, because the untutored class have an innate horror of resisting anciently-established custom, and it would never occur to them to do so. Moreover, in the time of the Spaniards, the numberless procuradores and pica-pleitos—touting solicitors had no interest in taking up cases so profitless to themselves. Under the pretext of guaranteeing a loan, parents readily sell their children (male or female) into bondage. The child is handed over to work until the loan is repaid; but as the day of restitution of the advance never arrives, neither does the liberty of the youthful victim. Among themselves it was a law, and is still a practised custom, for the debts of the parents to pass on to the children, and, as I have said before, debts are never repudiated by them. Slavery, in an overt form, now only exists among some wild tribes and the Moros.
Education was almost exclusively under the control of the friars. Up to the year 1844 anything beyond religious tuition was reserved for the Spanish youth, the half-castes, and the children of those in office. Among the many reforms introduced in the time of Gov.-General Narciso Claveria (1844–49), that of extending Education to the provincial parishes was a failure. In the middle of the reign of Isabella II. (about 1850) it was the exclusive privilege of the classes mentioned and the native petty aristocracy, locally designated the gente ilustrada and the pudientes (Intellectuals and people of means and influence). Education, thus limited, divided the people into two separate castes, as distinct as the ancient Roman citizen and the plebeian. Residing chiefly in the ports open to foreign trade, the Intellectuals acquired wealth, possessed rich estates and fine houses artistically adorned. Blessed with all the comforts which money could procure and the refinement resulting from education, they freely associated and intermarried with the Spaniards, whose easy grace and dignified manners they gradually acquired and retain, to a great extent, to the present day. The other caste—the Illiterates—were dependents of the Intellectuals. Without mental training, with few wants, and little expenses, they were as contented, in their sphere, as the upper class were in theirs. Like their masters, they had their hopes, but they never knew what misery was, as one understands it in Europe, and in this felicitous, ambitionless condition, they never urgently demanded education, even for their children. The movement came from higher quarters, and during the OʼDonnell ministry a Royal Decree was sent from Madrid establishing schools throughout the provinces.
On the banks of the Pasig River there was a training college for schoolmasters, who were drafted off to the villages with a miserable stipend, to teach the juvenile rustics. But the governmental system of centralization fell somewhat hard on the village teacher. For instance, I knew one who received a monthly salary of 16 pesos, and every month he had to spend two of them to travel to Manila and back to receive the money—an outlay equal to 12½ per cent. of his total income. For such a wretched pittance great things were not to be expected of the teacher, even though he had had a free hand in his work. Other circumstances of greater weight contributed to keep the standard of education among the common townfolk very low; in some places to abolish it totally. The parish priests were ex-officio Inspectors of Schools for primary instruction, wherein it was their duty to see that the Spanish language was taught. The old “Laws of the Indies” provided that christian doctrine should be taught to the heathen native in Spanish.[15] Several decrees confirming that law were issued from time to time, but their fulfilment did not seem to suit the policy of the friars. On June 30, 1887, the Gov.-General published another decree with the same object, and sent a communication to the Archbishop to remind him of this obligation of his subordinates, and the urgency of its strict observance. But it had no effect whatever, and the poor-class villagers were only taught to gabble off the christian doctrine by rote, for it suited the friar to stimulate that peculiar mental condition in which belief precedes understanding. The school-teacher, being subordinate to the inspector, had no voice in the matter, and was compelled to follow the views of the priest. Few Spaniards took the trouble to learn native dialects (of which there are about 30), and only a small percentage of the natives can speak intelligible Spanish. There is no literature in dialect; the few odd compositions in Tagalog still extant are wanting in the first principles of literary style. There were many villages with untrained teachers who could not speak Spanish; there were other villages with no schools at all, hence no preparation whatever for municipal life.
If the friars had agreed to the instruction of the townfolk through the medium of Spanish, as a means to the attainment of higher culture, one could well have understood their reluctance to teach it to the rural labourers, because it is obvious to any one who knows the character of this class that the knowledge of a foreign language would unfit them for agricultural labour and the lower occupations, and produce a new social problem. Even this class, however, might have been mentally improved by elementary books translated into dialect. But, unfortunately, the friars were altogether opposed to the education of the masses, whether through dialect or Spanish, in order to hold them in ignorant subjection to their own will, and the result was that the majority grew up as untutored as when they were born.
Home discipline and training of manners were ignored, even in well-to-do families. Children were left without control, and by excessive indulgence allowed to do just as they pleased; hence they became ill-behaved and boorish.
Planters of means, and others who could afford it, sent their sons and daughters to private schools, or to the colleges under the direction of the priests in Manila, Jaro (Yloilo Province), or Cebú. A few—very few—sent their sons to study in Europe, or in Hong-Kong.
According to the Budget of 1888 the State contributed to the expense of Education, in that year, as follows, viz.:—
| P. cts. | |
| Schools and Colleges for high-class education in Manila, including Navigation, Drawing, Painting, Book-keeping, Languages, History, Arts and Trades, Natural History Museum and Library and general instruction. | 86,450 00 |
| School of Agriculture (including 10 schools and model farms in 10 Provinces) | 113,686 64 |
| General Expenses of Public Instruction, including National Schools in the Provinces | 38,513 70 |
| ₱238,650 34 |