“Home, Sweet Home,” As the Filipino Knows It.
All this, of course, applies to the better class of natives, whose residences are often fine and commodious. Very few houses are more than one story above the ground floor. If so, the extra story is uninhabited or serves as a sleeping-place for the servants, or as a coach-house. The roofs are usually of tin or iron, which makes them extremely hot in summer. For this reason many houses are also covered with a thin layer of nipa-palm, which is cooler. The ground-story is usually of stone or brick; the upper of wood, with sliding windows of opaque sea-shells. The bath-house is really the greatest personal necessity in Manila. For a daily bath is almost indispensable to health and comfort.
Educational and Charitable Institutions.
Most of the educational institutions of the colony are in Manila, where the Department of Education has its headquarters. Many of the native graduates of the various colleges go into the professions; many of the poorer kind into teaching. The village schoolmaster receives, on an average, about 180 dollars a year, and out of even this miserable stipend he has to pay his own expenses to and from the city once every month, to receive his salary. Thus, it can readily be surmised that the cause of public education is not in as prosperous a condition as it might be. The children of the wealthy are sometimes sent abroad—to Spain, France, or England—to be educated. I myself went to St. John’s College, London, and, afterward, to Pension Roulet, Neûchatel, Switzerland.
Balcony of Manila Jockey Club, Overlooking Pandacan.
The Royal and Pontifical University of St. Thomas, in Manila, is maintained by the Dominicans. It has schools of theology and church law, jurisprudence, notarial law, medicine, and pharmacy. In the undergraduate department are 40 free scholarships for Spanish boys.
The college of San José gives instruction in medicine and pharmacy. The Dominican college of San Juan de Letran is justly celebrated for its excellent equipment, and for its fine museums of history and of the arts. It is attended exclusively by the sons of the natives.
The Cambobong Orphan Asylum, under the care of the Augustinians, furnishes elementary instruction, and is a preparatory school for the University. It also teaches book-keeping, and provides a good business education.