[We add the following from Census of Philippines, iii, pp. 611, 612.]
In order that the branches taught herein, as well as those taught in private schools, should be considered valid and be recognized by the university of Santo Tomás, it was necessary that the pupils pay the enrolment and examination fees prescribed by said university.
The report submitted at the exposition of Amsterdam in 1883, says of these conciliar seminaries:
“... The administration of the property is under the charge of the vicar general of the archbishopric of Manila, and of the district vicars of the respective rectories, under the supervision of the bishops. The seminary of [Nueva] Segovia has been in charge of the Recoletos since the middle of 1876, when the Augustinian friars left it, and who also had charge since 1882, the Paulist fathers having the honor of having inaugurated the studies now given. These zealous priests are those at present in charge of the other seminaries.”
From statistical tables on file at present in the archives of Manila, the following facts concerning two of these conciliar seminaries may be gathered. The enrolment for the seminary of San Carlos, of Manila, from 1863 to 1886 was 971. The enrolments for the seminary of Nueva Segovia from 1882 to 1886 were: dogmatic and moral theology, 171; philosophy, first year, 181, second year, 99, and third year, 93; Latin grammar, first year, 317, second year, 301, and third year, 256; Spanish grammar, 275.
Prior to the supervision by the Paulist fathers, the studies of secondary instruction, which were given in the conciliar seminaries, were identical with those given by the friars in their other educational institutions, in substance as well as in form, as the purposes were the same—that is, to give education to Filipino clerics,[4] whom they always considered their rivals and political enemies.... For this reason the instruction given to the Filipinos, who aspired to a sacerdotal career, was incomplete, being reduced exclusively to rudiments, if they can be so called, of logic, psychology, ethics, metaphysics, and dogmatic and moral theology. In so far as political and social studies were concerned, absolutely nothing was given, and clerics were even forbidden to acquire knowledge of this character. Social education was unknown in these seminaries; no consideration was given to the fact that clerics, on account of their obligations and the constant intercourse they are obliged to have with their parishioners, should be the best educated men, with great knowledge of the ways of the world and of the human heart. The moral education of the Filipino people, especially that of the women, often retrogressed, and made absolutely no progress on account of the influence caused by the status of the Filipino clerics in the popular mind.
After the conciliar seminaries passed to the charge of the Paulist fathers, affairs continued in the same manner, because these priests were subject and subordinate to the rigid tutorship of the monastic orders and the universitarian feudalism which the Dominican friars exercised in the Philippine Islands, and it was not possible for them to develop their own initiative, or to explain their own opinions....
[Doctrina y reglas constitucionales de la iglesia Filipina independiente [i.e., “Doctrine and constitutional rules of the independent Filipino church”][5] (Manila, 1904), pp. 14, 15, contains the following in regard to seminaries, which are analogous to conciliar seminaries.]
The first duties of our bishops consist in establishing a good seminary in their respective dioceses, which may serve as a training-school for new priests, educated according to the new doctrines of the independent Filipino church.
They shall exercise their whole care in seeking a suitable although modest locality, and in catechising as many young men as possible, who are fit for the lofty ministry of God. We desire that not only our church, but more than anyone else the most reverend bishops themselves recognize the great necessity for these seminaries. Consequently, their negligence in this particular will be very fatal, and merit censure.