Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge; ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered—Luke 11:52.
I have the honor to appear before you accepting with great pleasure an invitation which the Assistant Director, Mr. Osias, kindly extended to me. Having left the choice of the subject to my discretion, I deemed it worth while to speak on the Lay Education which has been in operation in our public schools since the implantation of the new régime which rules the destiny of the Filipino people. I am going to confine myself to facts, and shall speak as frankly and as faithfully as the case requires, altho in so doing I may hurt the feelings of some.
Satisfying Movement
For some time in our society there has been a growing concern against immorality, against vice, against idleness; in short against those which can rightly be called social ills. Such a tendency is certainly good and satisfying; a sign of a notable social progress altho for the majority it is a cause of alarm and regret because of the seeming increase of such ills. Is there a positive increase of immorality? Is there real cause for alarm because of a moral retrogression of our society?
After having asked myself these questions and after having considered the bases for the public clamor and for the excited opinion before the sight of growing vice and immorality, I can say that this tendency of public opinion is satisfying—a sign of betterment, of progress of general morals. In other words, it is not immorality which is growing. Rather, it is the moral consciousness which is gaining ground in individual consciences, thus forming a public opinion which formerly did not exist, completely awake to existing social evils and which are combatted. Not that social morals has been decadent. On the contrary, a moral consciousness has been rapidly formed in our society, a consciousness which formerly was found only among an inconsiderable minority, and which resulted in the new movement against vice and immorality.
Public Opinion in Favor of Hygiene
To better understand this phenomenon and to explain it as it really is and not as it apparently exists, it is worth while to compare it with the appearance of a new sentiment which was formed since the implantation of the American régime: the hygienic consciousness. Formerly, hardly anybody spoke of the unsanitary conditions of Manila, and only a few in our society had a true idea of its deplorable state. Now that our individual education has enabled us to understand what hygiene is and its importance has been demonstrated, we have not only improved our sanitary condition but a collective sentiment equal to the sum total of the individual sentiments has been formed, and a public opinion in favor of hygiene has been established. Since this opinion grows more rapidly than sanitation itself in Manila, we see that every once in a while the Bureau of Health is censured to the point of attributing to its fault the increase of anti-hygienic conditions, when in reality what increases is the clamor for hygiene by virtue of the increase of the individuals who understand hygiene and demand strict application of its laws and principles.
Now public opinion denounces hygienic shortcomings which are incomparably less harmful than formerly, but which we view not in a relative but absolute manner. An unsanitary condition is denounced absolutely as an intolerable evil; relatively speaking our censure would be less severe if we bore in mind that a similar ill is not close at hand; we suffered in silence when we were ignorant not of its existence but of its effects upon health, so then for us it existed in a latent state and we did not see, feel, or notice it because of lack of preparation. It is identical to what happens when at the foot of a post charged with electric current is placed the sign: “Danger to life.” Such a sign is practically useless and is no means of safety to the individual who does not know how to read. The one who can read knows the danger; he who does not read does not avail himself of the hygienic value of the danger signal.
Anti-Cockpit Campaign
Against the cockpit there is now a widespread campaign. This did not grow out of increased passion for the vice but out of the increased number of its enemies. None can say that cockfighting has increased; it is easy to prove that it has decreased; the number of days permitted by law is now insignificant compared with what it was a few years ago. Nevertheless, the campaign against cockfighting has increased precisely because the number of cockfighters has decreased. Exactly the same thing happened in card playing and horse-racing.