The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1912-02-04
How Uncle Sam is Educating the Fl
ny FRANK q. CARPENTER.
WASHINGTON. d &
WakinE mo a natInn, " :

waking up n nation,
That Ia what Uncie San, ls doing i'm
the philippines he has started $780,
WILD man, and the civilized arc using
their brains, The ladies with which
no is stirring this mighty intellectual
government another the roads ana
public works that are being made
everSwhere; u third is the chances. for
TO the people, and most Important Of
all is the schools.
When l visited the ISLANDS In 1900
education was almost unknown. The
great majority OF the people had no
schooling Whatever, Eighty per cent.
OF them were densely ignorant. and not
one man in ten could read or write.
The few schools. such as they were,
had been broken up by the war. and
about the only tcaehtns was that OF
tho iriars. who were iEculcatinss the
knowledge of the middle ages. and that
largely religious.
During. my stay some schools were
organized by the army. and an cN-sol-
dier was put ut the head OF the Bureau
OF Education. Then unclo Sam began
10 bring in the American schoolma'am
and To teach the children In English.
What job this was Americans who
have not been TO the Philippines will
never know; Only about per cent:
of the population OF the islands could
speak Spanish. and the people carried
on their work in polySlot of lam
Euages. Even the Christian Filipinos
these were so varied that the better
class man from Minando or Ncgros
could hardly make himself understood
TO the man of Luzon. There was no
common language. and English was
compa auvely unknown.
Giving the Filipino II Language.
To-day the Filipinos have one tongue.
which can be understood anywhere in
the islands and which will carry the
traveller through them from Borneo TO
Formosa- This is the English. Thou
i, during the past fifteen years, and
hundreds of thousands of children arc
village. To-day there are more Than
5000 Filipino school teachers, all of
whom read English we'll and most of
whom speak it fairly well. There are
also about 500 American teachers who
arc working here and there through
out the archipelago, and the younger.
generation Is growing up with English
as it's thought language and book lam
EuaSe.
This means much to the Philippines.
1t is unifying the people and making
them one nation. In the past the Fill
pinos. or the Christian natives as dis
tinguished from the wild tribes and
the Moros. had eight different types
OF languages. The natives of one prov
ince could not understand those of the
ones adjoining them. In Ln2on they
spoke seven different tongues, and
throughout the archipelago there were
numerous dialects
There were about 1900, 900 who used
the Tagalog. 100000 who conversed In
the Hoco. and more than half q mil
lion who spoke Bicol. There were
100000 or 100000 who had the Pan
eastman and more than u quarter OF
n million who had the Pampanga. Still
different tongues We're spoken by the
100000 Of the Visayan Islands fur
Their south. and these had their dia
lects
The A1oros OF Mindanao and Sulu had
their own language, but it was differ
ent, in different places. The whole
such q confusion OF tongues that 1t
would have been impossible to have
introduced modern civilization without
Il new language. Uncle Sam has given
the people this new tongue, and IL is
the United States English.
Filipino Schools.
1t Is necessary to understand the
Above conditions TO know what we
are doing in educating the islands
reports just received by the Bureau
of Insular Affairs of the War Depart
ment, and from talks with General
Clarence Edwards and from officers
who have recently returned from the
Philippines
The story is one OF live progress.
We are establishing schools every
Many have been instituted among the
Wild tribes, and the ISorrotes. the
BaEobas and the Ifugaos have schools
Of their own. Some of the wild boys
learn their lessons sitting on the
floor of their matched school houses,
clad In littlo more than n gce-String
THE Isorrote school boys wear caps
and jackets and gec-strings. but the
3ittle ones speak English. and they are