Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-09-15
PHILIPPINE SCHOOLS
What is Being Done Now in the Way
of Education.
SYSTEMATIC ORGANIZATION NEEDED
The Pupils Are Unusually Bright
and Intelligent.
THEIR METHODS OF STUDY
Copyright, 1900, by Frank G. Carpenter)

Copyright, 1900, by Frank G. Carpenter)
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star
MANILA, August /, 1900.
One of the most important things our
government has to do in the Philippine Is
lands Is the establishment of a good public
school system. At present not more than
twenty per cent of the people can read and
write. There are districts in which very
few Of them speak Spanish and there
hundreds of thousands of school chill
dren who have had no school advantages
For the past four years, owing to the
trouble with the Spaniards and the Amer
leans. many of the schools have been dis
continued. In every island 1 have visited
have found the school houses vacant, and
nearly everywhere they are going to ruin.
In some parts of Luzon they have been
burned by the insurgents and in others the
teachers have had to leave because they
were connected with the frarS.
With the advance of our army every town
which has been garrisoned has been given
a school The officers urge the people TO
open the school houses and tell them that
they must support their own schools and
that English must be one of the studies.
In some places the soldiers are teaching,
and everywhere attempts are made to
organize q new system of education. Here
tc:ore the Philippines have had nothing like
schools in most of the villages, but the
teachers have been appointed by the priests
and the studies have been controlled by
them. The chief teaching has been in the
CatechiSm and along lines of religious in
struction. and today the priests object de-
cidedly to having the catechism taken out
of the schools. The schools We're opened
with the reading of Catholic prayers, and
until now every school had a crucifiX hung
up over the teachers desk. The same pray
are used now by many of the American
teachers, one of them telling me that she
thought 1t better to keep up the prayers
Notwithstanding she was a Protestant her
self.
AT present there is no systematic school
organizat ton of the islands. Each military
official prescribes for his own district, and
Il Is a sort Of go-as-yOu-please. The only
place where there Is anything like a bu-
reau of education IS in Manila. Here we
have a superintendent of public instruction
This is Mr.. George P. Anderson, a Seattle
man, the son of one of the leading college
educators of the northwest. Prof. Anderson
graduated in one Of the Washington, state
universities, and about nine years ago fin
ished a course of three years at Yale He
came out here a soldier IN the I'd
Oregon Volunteers but he has been placed
az the head of this department. He tells
me that there are now between forty and
fifty public schools in Manila. with an at
tendance OF four or five thousand pupils
not more than one-tenth of what there
should be in this city of 100000 people.
The schools. with one or two exceptions
all of the primary grade. The language
used is mainly Spanish English being taught
for only Il portion of the day. The English
teachers are in most places American girls,
the daughters of the officials here. Some
few have been school teachers at home
but many are new, experimenting for the
first time on the poor Filipinos. Many of