The Augustinian fathers also extended their charity to orphan girls. For that purpose they caused sisters of their tertiary branch to go from the Peninsula, who took charge of the education and instruction of the children in the orphanage that was built in Mandaloya at the expense of the said Augustinian fathers. More than three hundred Indian mestizo and Spanish girls received a fine education there, so much so that their work in embroidery, sewing, and the manufacture of artificial flowers, took the prize in the expositions at Madrid and Manila.
So excellent and fine was the education that the orphan girls received in Mandaloya, that it was necessary to accede to the repeated requests of influential families who begged that the Augustinian tertiary mothers receive as pensioners the daughters of many Peninsulars and Spanish mestizos.
[1] See this decree in VOL. XLV, pp. 184–186, where it is dated June 20, 1686. [↑]
[2] Tomás G. del Rosario, cited often in these notes, says (Census of Philippines, iii, pp. 594, 595): “A decree of the general government, issued October 6, 1885, provided for a competition to be followed by prizes for the best grammars written in Visayan, Cebuano, Ilocano, Bícol, Pangasinán, and Pampango, there being one already in Tagálog. Naturally these grammars, which were written in different dialects and taught in the public schools, made it more difficult (and that was the object) for the Spanish language to become general. Matters reached such a stage that teachers were punished and threatened with deportation, and some were actually deported, for teaching Spanish.”
Speaking on the same subject, LeRoy (“Friars in Philippines,” in Political Science Quarterly, for December, 1903, p. 673) says: “In proclaiming the law of 1893 [the Maura law], Governor-general Blanco instructed the municipal councils to employ ‘the most practical means for the diffusion of the Spanish language.’ The common assertion that the friars did teach the natives Spanish is contradicted by these provisions and by the numerous decrees from 1585 on; those who frankly admit that they did not spread Spanish, and who hold that it is impracticable to make the natives accept either Spanish or English, have a fair argument to present.” [↑]
[3] See this decree in VOL. XLV, pp. 184–186. [↑]
[4] This is given by Barrantes, Instrucción primaria, pp. 69–71. [↑]
[5] For this and following citations of the regulations, see ante. [↑]
[6] Speaking of the legislation of 1863, LeRoy (Philippine Life, pp. 202, 203) says: “Most significant of all, local school boards of a civil and lay character were ordered established, a feature of the decree which had not by any means been realized when the municipal reform of 1893 was decreed, and which that reform itself did not accomplish. Theoretically, the friars were left in supervision only of religious instruction in the public schools; practically, in four towns out of five, they managed everything about the schools to suit their own will, down almost to the last hours of Spanish rule.” [↑]