[31] Retana’s praises of Rizal, a full-blooded Tagálog, in all these lines, as seen in his Vida y escritos del Dr. José Rizal, a series just concluded (October, 1906), in the Madrid review, Nuestro Tiempo, are the best answer to his own question. [↑]
[32] See Retana’s Estadismo, appendix A (note by Zamora). [↑]
[33] According to Eduardo Navarro, O.S.A., the first freemason lodge established in the Philippines was the one called Luz Filipina, about 1860, which was established in Cavite under the Gran Oriente Lusitano. It was in immediate correspondence with the Portuguese lodges of Macao and Hongkong. Shortly after another lodge was created in Zamboanga of Peninsulars and creoles resident in Mindanao. Some time after 1868, must have occurred the creation of another lodge composed of foreigners and dependents of the lodge of Hongkong, of the Scottish rite. Into this lodge were admitted some Peninsulars and Filipinos. Shortly after this many other lodges were created under the Grañ Oriente de España. See Navarro’s Asuntos filipinos (Madrid, 1897), pp. 221–277. Manuel Sastron (Insurrección en Filipinas, Madrid, 1901, p. 41), who represents the friar standpoint, says: “We believe and affirm in good faith, that, in our opinion, the origin, the primitive cellule of the insurrection of 1896 in Filipinas, is to be found in masonry.” The masonic movement was by 1890 widespread in the islands. See also Sawyer’s Inhabitants of Philippines, pp. 79–83. [↑]
[34] St. Anthony the Great, who was an Egyptian, born A.D. 356. His day is January 17. See Baring Gould’s Lives of the Saints, i, pp. 249–272. [↑]
[35] St. Basil the Great was a native of Cappadocian Cæsarea. His death occurred A.D. 379. His day is celebrated on June 14, except by the Greeks who keep January 1 in his memory. See Baring Gould’s Lives of the Saints, vi, pp. 192–202. [↑]
[36] Referring to the Katipunan, or Kataas-taasan Kagalang-gálang Katipunan Nang Mañga Anac Nang Bayan, “Sovereign Worshipful Association of the Sons of the Country.” This society, of which it is yet too early to have definite and detailed information, was due in the main to Andrés Bonifacio, a warehouse keeper in the employ of Fressel and Co., of Manila, who became its third president, although primarily founded by Marcelo Hilario del Pilar. This society enrolled in its ranks the common people among the Tagálogs. It is more than likely that the plan of the organization was copied from the masonic lodges, but the analogy stops here. The Katipunan was not masonry. See Sastron’s Insurrección, pp. 51–59; Sawyer’s Inhabitants, pp. 82, 83; and The Katipunan (Manila, 1902), purporting to be by one Francis St. Clair, although it is claimed by some to have been written by or for the friars. [↑]
EDUCATION SINCE AMERICAN OCCUPATION
It is the chief glory of American connection with the Philippines, that no sooner was their easy conquest an assured fact, than attention was directed toward the education of the peoples who thus came under the control of the western democracy. In spite of the more than three centuries of Spanish rule, although many measures had been dictated by the government and by the religious orders, although the college of San José, the Dominican university of Santo Tomás, the college of San Juan de Letran, and various other institutions had flourished for the greater or less part of Spanish domination, and especially, although the active government measures, beginning with the memorable decree of December 20, 1863, had induced a wider result in primary instruction, the educational methods in force in the islands were antiquated, often without result, and narrowing, and to a certain degree tended to shackle rather than to free the mind. The best work was done by the Jesuits who had adopted the most progressive methods used in the islands during Spanish occupancy. The religious orders are not without praise for having established, as early as they did, educational institutions where some Filipinos could, to a certain extent, take on the advantages of the occidental polish and education which Spain had to offer. But it must be remembered that Spain itself has never, since the early days when the great Salamanca University flourished as one of the most advanced outposts of education in the world, been renowned as a center of learning. Hence, it may be said, whatever the cause for its deficiency, that Spain gave to the Philippines the best that it had in the way of education; with the reservation that the remoteness of the colony from the mother country gave opportunity for neglect and carelessness on the part of both official and ecclesiastic, and for the furthering of private or corporation ends, at the expense of and detriment to the colony. Quite apparently, a country cannot give to a colony what it does not itself possess. Had Spain possessed a more modern and effective system of education, doubtless the same would have been true in the Philippines. To determine the reason for the backwardness of education in the islands, therefore, one must examine the causes for its poor condition in Spain, and the two will be found in great measure to be the same. The root of the matter will be found in the close connection between Church and State—this connection dating back in greatest measure to 1493, when the ecclesiastical patronage of the Spanish monarch became a settled fact, and Church and State were irrevocably bound together—and a misconception as to where the educational function primarily resides—which we take to be a function of government.
We cannot, in the short compass allowed, enter into the discussion of the factors involved, the most important of which is the question of the friar orders and the transference of their power in greater proportion even than in Spain, into the Philippines. Suffice it to say here that those who would blame the friar orders exclusively for the backward state of the Philippines in education as in other things, go astray; and the same is equally true of those who would excuse them altogether. The same remark holds true of the government. Both the religious orders, or even more broadly, the entire ecclesiastical government, and the civil government, are to be reproached for the deplorable condition of Philippine education.