RELIGION AND EDUCATION 
 IN THE PHILIPPINES 
 
 Thomas 
 
 Middleton 
 
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 .Mb £ 
 
[ton ano Education 
 
 ifi the 
 
 Pjjtltpptnesi 
 
 COMMISSIONS 
 
 REPORTS 
 
 By ,/ 
 
 The Very Rev. Thomas C. Middleton, D.D., O.S.A. 
 
 Villanova College, Penna. 
 
 Clje Dolphin press 
 
 825 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Penna. 
 
Reprinted from 
 
 me ecclesiastical l&ebieto, an* me SDolp&m 
 
REPORTS OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 (OF 1899-1900) ON RELIGIOUS AND 
 EDUCATIONAL MATTERS. 
 
 I T is likely that the historian of the Philippines and its vast sister 
 island groups of Carolines and Marianas will look for sources 
 of information relative to the countless problems of all kinds asso- 
 ciated with those three archipelagos to the many works in original, 
 or compiled form now being published by the United States 
 Government. Nor without good reason. Of these official, there- 
 fore presumably trustworthy, documents not a few, as is readily 
 acknowledged, are of great aid to scholars, replete as they are 
 with varied data not otherwise easily attainable. Especially help- 
 ful are such works as bear on the present material conditions of 
 human life in those islands, on industries, finance, trade, commerce, 
 food supplies, as well as the very many varieties of racial and 
 linguistic character, in the inhabitants thereof, not excluding either 
 the numerous and sometimes very striking singularities in type of 
 the numberless realms of fauna and flora encountered by ex- 
 plorers in that far-away quarter of our eastern domain. 
 
 Nor among our Washington treasures should the scholar 
 overlook the many treatises descriptive of the meteorology and 
 topography of those archipelagos, the latter in the form of sur- 
 veys, charts and atlases, several by European pen and pencil, that 
 have been given to scholardom by American experts. 
 
 Admirable treatises of high scientific worth are in the reports, 
 too, of the Philippine Commissioners of 1899 and 1900 (under Dr. 
 Schurman and Judge Taft), of which all we need say here is that 
 (in their four volumes) they present much useful and interesting 
 data in the form of “ exhibits,” tables, and papers relative to vari- 
 ous provinces and pueblos in those islands, along with statistics 
 bearing on ethnology, temperature, physical geography and the 
 like. 
 
 But for its worthiness from a scientific standpoint on neat and 
 pretty complete scale, though somewhat unhandy for its bulk, yet 
 none the less authoritative therefore, is a book to be welcomed by 
 
2 REPORTS OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 
 statisticians, the voluminous Pronouncing Gazetteer and Geographic 
 Dictionary of the Philippines [Washington, 1902], by far and away 
 perhaps as good a representative of its class as is to be had in our 
 American scholastic world. 
 
 For therein, besides the usual features of its kind, are much 
 valuable data relating to temperature, the various censuses of the 
 islands, from the earliest in 1735 down, lists of the eighty-four 
 tribal names, and chief dialects in use, catalogues of plants, woods, 
 fruits, minerals, mammals, fishes and birds, then a chronologic, 
 table of the principal events in the islands from A. D. 1519 to 
 1901, with a list of the Governors-general to Diego de los Rios, 
 the last in 1 898. 1 
 
 Referring to this Gazetteer the writer has observed that the 
 latitude of Manila, given officially (p. 183) as “ 14 0 35' 31" N.,” 
 is identically the same as set down in the Atlas de Filipinas of 
 Jesuit scientists at Manila, also published by Government [Wash- 
 ington, 1899], a location of that metropolis (be it recalled) that 
 varies only twenty-nine seconds from the latitude determined for 
 it by the friar geographer of the Augustinians, Villacorta, who 
 published his statistics nearly three-quarters of a century ago. 2 
 
 Yet among these noteworthy honorable works of artistic, 
 scientific and historical tone are several others, which, though fair- 
 looking and scholarly enough, will be found replete with defects 
 of many kinds, against equity, good taste, and ethics, despite their 
 very imposing sponsorship by men, too, of mark in the realms of 
 letters and statecraft. 3 
 
 Such are the reports on Philippine affairs by the two Commis- 
 sions headed respectively by Dr. Schurman and Judge Taft. They 
 were drawn up in the closing years of the century just closed. 
 Among other subjects treated therein are various pictures of reli- 
 gious, educational and social life in those islands — of churchmen, 
 missionary labors, school-teachers, institutes of industry, orphan- 
 ages, asylums and the like. They are entitled : 
 
 1 The index to this admirable volume, however, is in a very out-of-the-way 
 place, where one would barely look for it, about the middle of the book itself. (See 
 p. 249.) 
 
 1 A paper on these two atlases (by the present writer) was published in Records 
 of the American Catholic Historical Society last year. (See xiii, 4-21.) 
 
 3 Among the members of the two Philippine Commissions were litterati, law- 
 yers, judges, writers. We name them later. 
 
ON RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL MATTERS 
 
 3 
 
 Report of the Philippine Commission [Washington, 1900], in 
 two vols. of 774 pages. (In the second volume is the testimony 
 taken by the Schurman Commission.) 
 
 Reports of the Taft Philippine Commission [Washington, 
 1901], one volume of 333 pages. 
 
 Senate Document , No. 190 [S. 1 . s. a., but Washington, 1901], 
 one volume of 283 pages. (This contains the testimony taken by 
 the Taft Commission.) 4 
 
 General Observations. 
 
 In our observations on these Philippine reports we shall be 
 guided by the following limitations : 
 
 1. In our strictures thereon no reflection is meant on the 
 personal character of the nine members of the Commissions, nor 
 on all like. Some of them, perhaps, were fair-minded men. Any- 
 how there is no evidence to the contrary. But, per contra , others 
 were positively unfair, as is proved too by their papers on Philippine 
 matters published prior to their appointment as Commissioners. 
 Therein they have set themselves on record as strongly prejudiced 
 against the very defendants they were pledged to try with judicial 
 fairness. 
 
 2. Nor are our remarks to be taken as bearing against any- 
 thing else in their reports than the Commissioners’ treatment of 
 such subjects as the Christian religion, Christian churches, Chris- 
 tian education and the Christian life of the natives, with their 
 standards of Christian civilization. 
 
 3. We observe also that throughout this paper we style as 
 “ defendants ” that numerous body of philanthropists in the Philip- 
 pines and its associated groups, — churchmen, prelates, mission- 
 aries, friars, teachers, school officers and others, all dedicated to 
 religion in one way or another, who in these reports have been 
 denounced as guilty of divers crimes, — of un-Christian, nay even 
 unnatural, conduct. 
 
 The defendants have been charged with simony, cruelty, rapa- 
 city, sensuousness, or, more briefly, with having used their sacred 
 office and title mainly for mere self-gratification — charges given 
 
 4 For the sake of brevity these works are referred to respectively as Schurman, 
 Taft, and Sen. Doc. 
 
4 
 
 REPORTS OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 
 by the Commissioners in detail, in terms however that our pages 
 refuse to reproduce in their original foulness. 
 
 As “ prosecutors ” therefore we name the Commissioners as a 
 body, who at the same time filled the part of judges, investigators 
 and attorneys for the prosecution. 
 
 Church Statistics in 1898. 
 
 To our task, then. But a glance, first, — a kind of bird’s-eye 
 view, as it were, of the main agencies lately at work in the civili- 
 zation and enlightenment of the natives of those islands, where 
 ever since the days of the Christian pioneers of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, their successors (as noticed by chroniclers and travellers, 
 even non-Catholic) have kept to the task as staunch upholders of 
 civilization on Christian lines, of morality, order, law, in that vast 
 region of Malaysia, of countless islands large and small. 
 
 In 1 898, the year of the downfall of Spanish rule in the three 
 great archipelagos of Philippines, Marianas, and Carolines, there 
 were in service throughout the islands 1642 priests, churchmen of 
 divers ranks, five of them bishops, one the Archbishop of Manila ; 
 then clergy of lower degree,— vicars-general, parrocos , mission- 
 aries, nearly all members of religious orders. 
 
 According to Dr. Schurman (whose figures we reproduce 
 here), the clergy of the Philippines numbered about 2383. They 
 were communicated to him (he says) by the Church authorities 
 at Manila ; and the figures are no doubt right. But in some 
 cases, at least, they represent the totality of membership in the 
 several orders of churchmen, not only in actual service in the 
 islands, but the members of the various brotherhoods — clerics and 
 laics also at work abroad in houses and colleges of their order in 
 Europe, Asia, and America. Hence the figures given by the 
 Doctor are misleading. Thus, for instance, in his statistics for the 
 Augustinians, who numbered (he says) 644, are included 203 
 students in Spain, in course of education at colleges of their order 
 at Valladolid and La Vid, in preparation for active mission service 
 in eastern lands, in care of their province, as the Philippines and 
 China. But, as said above, the number of priests in the islands 
 in 1898 was only 1642. Here are the Doctor’s figures [i, 133- 
 136]: Augustinians, 644; Benedictines, 14; Capuchins, 36; 
 
ON RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL MATTERS. 
 
 5 
 
 Dominicans, 528; Franciscans, 475 ; Jesuits, 164; Lazarists, 5 6 35, 
 of whom 27 only were priests ; Recoletos, or discalced, unshod 
 Augustinians, 522. While of native clergymen — “indigenas,” 
 there were (according to Judge Taft) [p. 24]® 150, “in charge of 
 small parishes.’’ All, however, employed, as were their white 
 brothers, in various branches of philanthropic, religious, and 
 educational work. 
 
 In the Philippines, it may be stated, were 967 districts with 
 care of souls, — parishes, 746; mission parishes, 105 ; then misiones 
 activas (where heathens were to be converted, as in Mindanao 
 and some parts of Luzon), 1 16. In all, the Catholic population of 
 the islands for 1897-1898 was 6,559,998 souls. 7 
 
 Here are some census figures regarding church statistics of 
 various denominations in the United States that perhaps may be 
 of interest. They were drawn up by the Rev. Dr. Carroll, non- 
 Catholic, and are as follows : 
 
 
 Ministers. 
 
 Churches. 
 
 Communicants. 
 
 Methodist (17 bodies) 
 
 39,220 
 
 56,787 
 
 6,084,755 
 
 Baptists (13 bodies) 
 
 35,564 
 
 51,142 
 
 4,629,487 
 
 Presbyterians (12 bodies) 
 
 12,207 
 
 15,315 
 
 1,635,016 
 
 or, on an average, one minister for every 155 Methodists ; one for 
 every 130 Baptists; one for every 133 Presbyterians. [From 
 Literary Digest, N. Y., for January 31, 1903, p. 158.] 
 
 In 1898, in our Malaysian groups of archipelagos with a Cath- 
 olic population (as said) of 6,559,998 souls, in charge of 1642 
 missionaries, we thus have on similar average, one Catholic priest 
 for every 3995 natives,— -a fact that goes to show very conclu- 
 sively that Catholic friars by no means were overrunning the Phil- 
 ippines. No, those islands were most assuredly not a “ priest- 
 ridden land.” The various orders of churchmen (named above), 
 it may be observed, entered missionary service in the Philippines 
 
 5 Lazarists as commonly known in the U. S. appear in Spanish statistics variously 
 as Paules, Paulistas, de San Vicente de Paul. Officially Lazarists are known as mem- 
 bers of the Congregatio Missionum, whence the letters “ C. M.” after their names. 
 
 6 From other sources, however, we learn that the number of native priests in 
 the Philippines was 675 ; while the total regular clergy was only 967, or in all 1 642. 
 
 7 The above parish figures and population census are from Judge Taft’s Report 
 [p. 23] and they, too, are right. 
 
6 
 
 REPORTS OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 
 in the following years: Augustinians, in 1565; Franciscans, in 
 1577; Dominicans and Jesuits, in 1581 (the latter driven from the 
 islands in 1768, returned in 1859); Recoletos, in 1606; Capuchins, 
 in 1886, and Benedictines in 1895. 8 
 
 Besides there was another class of civilizing agencies in those 
 islands, all doing steady and healthful service, bodies by no means 
 to be omitted from our rolls of honor— the various sister- 
 hoods of (women) religious in those archipelagos, as Assumption- 
 ists (miswritten “Ascensionists ” by Dr. Schurman) [ii, 458], or 
 sisters de la Asuncion , under the rule of St. Augustine ; Domini- 
 canesses; Franciscans, in number thirty-four — all tertiaries or 
 members of third orders ; then Sisters of Charity — gentlewomen 
 trained in the service of God and their neighbor as teachers, guar- 
 dians of maidenhood, nurses — all devoted to various works of 
 beneficence in school-room, hospital, asylum, beaterio, while simi- 
 larly all were adepts of greater or less skill in the practice of 
 homelike virtues, preeminently peculiar of the feminine world in 
 every Christian commonwealth — contemplation and prayer, other- 
 wise the love of learning on lofty lines with the love of God- 
 religion — basis of true exalted patriotism. (At this writing the 
 number of these self-sacrificing women-philanthropists in those 
 tropical regions is not known, with the two exceptions above. 9 ) 
 
 Renowned among the islanders were the four great beaterios 
 — homes, retreat-houses, as well as boarding-schools, for needy 
 maidens, thence styled beatas. They were the following : de la 
 Compafiia de Jesus , or San Ignacio, founded in 1684, by Ignacia 
 de Espiritu Santo, a pious mestiza of Binondo ; St. Catharine of 
 Siena, founded by Dominicans under their provincial, Juan de 
 San Domingo, in 1696, both of Manila origin ; San Sebastian of 
 Calumpang, founded in 1719 by four Indian maidens, though 
 seventeen years later, in 1736, put under the direction of Reco- 
 letos ; then Santa Rita of Cascia, founded at Pasig, in 1740, by the 
 eamest-souled and very energetic parroco of that pueblo, Felix 
 de Trillo, Augustinian, under the title of la Coticepcion. 
 
 Then there were orphan asylums. Thus, at Mandaloya, a few 
 
 8 Information as to the date of entrance of the Lazarists is not at hand. Accord- 
 ing to Dr. Schurman, the Lazarists arrived in 1862. [ Schurman , i, 135.] 
 
 9 But since these pages were put in print, we learn that the Sisters of Charity in 
 the islands numbered 184, of whom 147 were Spanish, 22 mestizas, 14 Filipinas, and 
 one Portuguese. 
 
ON RELIGIO US AND ED UCA TIONAL MA TTERS 7 
 
 miles distant from Manila, where the Augustinians had an asylum 
 for girls, established in 1883, were several Indian sisters— natives 
 — who, with their Spanish sisters of the Asuncion, cared for 
 122 orphan girls, whom they housed, fed, clothed, and taught. 
 During the late invasion of the islands, these Indian maidens, 
 driven with the others from their home, fled to Manila for shel- 
 ter. At Mandaloya, the little girls were taught needle-work, em- 
 broidery, laundry, ironing, and such other industries as would 
 enable them to gain an honest livelihood. 
 
 While at Tambobong, not far from Manila, was a similar es- 
 tablishment for boys, that previously had been conducted at 
 Malabon, still earlier at Guadalupe, a pueblo in care of Augus- 
 tinians, where, in 1882, under the title of Our Lady of Consola- 
 tion, and St. Thomas of Villanova, the Fathers established the 
 first orphanage in Luzon, transferred thither from Mandaloya, 
 now given over to girls. At Tambobong asylum, 145 little lads 
 (without father or mother) were trained as printers, bookbinders, 
 tailors. In 1 898, or soon after, both asylums were destroyed, with 
 their libraries, museums, machinery, and all. 
 
 In care then of those guardians of Christian society, of its 
 shrines, homes of learning and industry, throughout the various 
 islands, were many institutions that make for the higher life of 
 mankind — establishments of religion, education, public benefi- 
 cence, some of them dating from the first years of the re-discovery 
 of the Philippines under Legazpi and his companion, the Friar 
 cosmographer and sailor, Urdaneta, of the Augustinians. 
 
 Thus in 1897-1898, as we learn from official statistics, in the 
 Philippines and its sister groups, were the following institutions of 
 the higher life : university, one ; colleges (number not known) ; 
 seminaries for cleric training, five ; orphanages, two ; hospitals, 
 ten; pueblo, or common schools, for Indians, 2140; beaterios, or 
 homes for maidens, four ; besides many societies or guilds of reli- 
 gious and beneficial character attached to the several churches in 
 cities and pueblos, known variously as confraternities, sodalities — 
 hermandades. Named in Philippine statistics we find the follow- 
 ing : hermandad de la Misericordia, that as early as 1596 estab- 
 lished the hospital of San Juan de Dios, though a still earlier 
 asylum for the sick— San Lazaro, had been opened in 1578, by 
 the Franciscan lay brother Juan Clemente ; then the Recoleto 
 
8 
 
 REPORTS OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 
 confraternity of Jesus Nazareno, founded in 1651 ; the confrater- 
 nities of the Most Holy Sacrament at Manila Cathedral church 
 in 1604, and a similar guild at Binondo in 1681 ; while from the 
 first years of their entrance into Philippine fields Augustinian and 
 Dominican had erected branch fraternities of their order in well 
 nigh every mission-town. In 1571, Cebu witnessed the formation 
 of the first confraternity in the islands — Nuestra Senora de la Cor- 
 rea, or Our Lady of the Girdle, by pioneer Augustinians ; Manila, 
 the second shortly after. 
 
 In his “ Exhibit ” [No. vi] — a valuable and very interesting 
 display of “ Public Instruction . . . during Spanish Sover- 
 
 eignty ” in those islands, Dr. Schurman, though naming the 
 greater number of these establishments of high rank, of religious 
 and social eminence, still has omitted some, as will be noticed. 
 \Schurman, ii, 456-476. 10 ] 
 
 Charges Against the Reports. 
 
 In our analysis of these reports we purpose to show that in 
 framing them the Commissioners, contrary to the canons of judi- 
 cial as well as historic equity, were in fault also on many points of 
 vital importance to the defendants. 
 
 I. Because of numerous omissions in the evidence accepted, 
 however, by the Commissioners as conclusive — evidence, more- 
 over, that bore strongly in favor of the defence, on such points as 
 (a) the primal and contemporary state of civilization and refine- 
 ment in the Philippines ; (b) the present fairly high character of 
 the natives for intellectual and moral virtuousness ; ( c ) the work 
 of the Church in uplifting the Philippines and other Malaysian 
 island-groups to a lofty plane of domestic and social welfare , ( d ) 
 with school facilities and good results therefrom in even far dis- 
 tant islands of those great archipelagos. 
 
 Again, in these reports you will find little or no mention, 
 except maybe in some out-of-the-way place, of the innumerable 
 monuments of intellective and material art, as shrines, church- 
 buildings, conventos, libraries, cabinets of physics, of natural his- 
 
 18 In this respect the Taft report is meagre, in fact very deficient, the Judge 
 (unless we mistake) mentioning only San Jos6 College at Manila, that had been 
 opened in 1601, by the Jesuit visitor of their missions — Luis Gomez. [&/i. Doc., 
 
 26-46.] 
 
ON RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL MATTERS 
 
 9 
 
 tory, many of them centuries old, with no others like them in 
 Eastern or Asiatic lands, all in charge of scholarly and enthusiastic 
 men and women devoted to lofty planes of thought, — all tokens 
 of high-grade civilization, to be discerned (let it be marked very 
 plainly) only in countries and lands of thorough Christian ideals. 
 As a most striking, though very gloomy, contrast to this picture 
 here with deep pity we need but a glance at the semi-barbaric 
 islands in Malaysia not under Christian influence or sway — the 
 Sulu, or Jolo group, then Borneo, Java, where the natives, under 
 the fetters of Mammon, are, as it were, little else than savages, 
 or bondsmen to grasping money-making European taskmasters 
 and traders. 
 
 The omission in these reports of the above-named material 
 proofs of intellective worth among the Philippines is to be empha- 
 sized very strongly. Throughout their papers (we must add), 
 the Commissioners seem to have been lacking in appreciative, if 
 not even friendly, spirit also ; to have displayed throughout an 
 unkindly tone with reference to all Christian concerns, while 
 spaiing (as will appear) no space for the embalmment therein of 
 whatever could be raked together derogatory in any way to the 
 manifold grandeur of Christian aestheticism in the East. 
 
 2. Because evidence, which was not lacking to the defence, 
 if admitted at all, was accepted in grudging, unhandsome spirit, 
 as it were. Thus, while in the Schurman report, as observed, 
 some of these model art-works have been named, in his succes- 
 sor’s only one has been mentioned. (See above.) 
 
 3. Moreover, the prosecution has admitted as final and con- 
 clusive, without the slightest substantiation — proof of any kind, 
 whatever testimony, even of the flimsiest, could be twisted and 
 stretched, to the discredit of the defendants. 
 
 4. In many of their allusions to Philippine life, ideals, cus- 
 toms, people, missionaries, institutions, and the like, Christianity, 
 that is, the Catholic religion, if referred to at all, is with deprecia- 
 ting tone. Here are some samples. In touching on school mat- 
 ters, Dr. Schurman declares it a faulty practice, a 
 
 “mistaken idea of putting instruction in Christian doctrine before 
 reading and writing. ’ ’ [ Schurman , ii, 457.] 
 
 Judge Taft, too, finds occasion for censure, in that 
 
IO REPORTS OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 
 “in the typical provincial school at first a kind of religious primer 
 was read in the native language, and that later a book on Christian 
 doctrine was taught. ’ ’ [ Taft , 1 06 . ] 
 
 Indeed. So it’s wrong, then, to teach young children their 
 religion ? Yet, if we mistake not, and as we stoutly believe, it is 
 still healthy common practice in all well brought up Christian 
 home-circles to teach a child the principles of good behavior at its 
 mother’s knee, long too before it has entered, or even dreamed of, 
 the very entangling mysteries of A-B-C books, or pot-hooks. 
 Why then in the Philippines should similar ethical usage be 
 deemed out of place ? 
 
 Judge Taft, moreover, fairly revels, it seems, in his fancy for 
 flaw-picking at the slightest chance in any matters that may be 
 interpreted to the disfavor of churchmen. Just here one instance 
 merely. In his report, where engaged in building up a case 
 against the defendants, in order apparently to score a point to their 
 discomfort, he has taken their testimony to pieces, instead of giv- 
 ing it in full ; then quotes some fragments, which apparently put 
 the defendants in the wrong. Thus to a consideration of the testi- 
 mony of the provincial of the Franciscans the Judge allots a little 
 over a page [Taft, 25, 26] ; to the Augustinian provincial less than 
 two lines [Id., 2 6, 27], and to the Bishop of Jaro less than ten 
 \Jd., 29], or at most in all a very meagre two pages, though else- 
 where these very defendants have been styled by the Judge as 
 men of high rank. Though printed in a wholly different work, 
 one may find in full the testimony of these three churchmen 
 [Sen. Doc., 63-71, for Villegas of the Franciscans ; 71-80, for 
 Lobo, of the Augustinians; 1 12-122, for the bishop] — a book, 
 however, as may be noticed, of wholly different title, one more- 
 over, that the reader of the Judge’s report will not likely know 
 anything about until maybe long after his mutilations have 
 wrought their effect in the reader’s mind. (Later we will give 
 other samples of the Judge’s expertness in word-twisting.) 
 
 Again Judge Taft is more than once in conflict with his own 
 words. Thus, to churchmen in the Philippines he pays a rather 
 neat eulogy by saying that 
 
 “ the friar . . was usually the only man of intelligence and 
 
 educations” [Taft, 24.] 
 
 Again that 
 
ON RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL MATTERS 
 
 II 
 
 ‘ ‘ There were, of course, many educated gentlemen of high moral 
 standards among the friars. The bishops and provincials who testified 
 were all of this class.” [Id., 28.] 
 
 While per contra of the natives he declares that 
 
 “ . . . the masses of the people are ignorant, credulous and 
 
 childlike” [Id., 15], an “ ignorant people.” [Id., 32.] 
 
 Yet all of a sudden when treating of the charges brought by 
 these self-same “ ignorant ” and “ credulous ” prosecutors against 
 their old-time missionaries and friends—" gentlemen (too) of high 
 moral standards,” — the Judge with a rather unaccountable face- 
 about movement would have us not believe these defendants. 
 That is, to use his own words, 
 
 “ the charges ( against churchmen ) have considerable truth in them ” 
 [Id., 29]; . . the statements of the bishops and friars . . . 
 
 cannot be accepted as accurate.” [Id., 30.] 
 
 In fact, in these kaleidoscope-looking reports, so commonly 
 in them are admissions in favor of the defendants matched with 
 denouncements of everything churchly, that, according wholly 
 to his own proper frame of spirit, be this friendly or adverse to 
 churchman, the reader may be warranted in drawing pretty much 
 any kind of conclusion he is seeking, — a seeming abnormality 
 however of unscholarly psychology, exemplified in the reports 
 of the very Commissioners themselves, who, though arguing seem- 
 ingly from self-same premises (the evidence in their reports being 
 practically identical), yet reach conclusions diametrically opposite. 
 
 Thus, in describing the high grade of refinement among the 
 Philippines, Dr. Schurman styles them as "civilized.” [Schur- 
 man, 12.] 
 
 “ A majority of the inhabitants . . . (he says are ) possessed 
 
 of a considerable degree of civilization.” [Id., 16.] 
 
 There are 
 
 ‘ ‘ provinces . . . whose people are most highly civilized. ’ ’ 
 
 [Id., 18.] 
 
 But, according to the Judge, these very same people are “igno- 
 rant,” etc. [See quotations ahead.] 
 
 Again, according to the Doctor, 
 
 “ the normal school, conducted by the Jesuits, at Manila, . . . 
 
 has done good work in training teachers, etc. [Schurman, i, 34.] 
 
12 REPORTS OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 
 The J udge, however, with no exception, would have us believe 
 (in his section on “ Education under Spanish rule ”) that 
 
 “native teachers (are) tediously mechanical, noisy, and hardly 
 effective, or economical. ’ ’ \Taft, 105, 106.] 
 
 That is to say, in these reports where now and then one Com- 
 missioner hails a gleam of sunshine in the intellectual firmament 
 of the Philippines, the other at no time seems to descry aught but 
 hopeless chaos and gloom. The Doctor styles the Philippines 
 enlightened; the Judge, barbaric. Or, more briefly, to sum up 
 these few vari-colored illustrations of judicial conflicts relating to 
 the religious, ethical, and social characteristics of those islanders 
 (of which the reader will meet several others before ending these 
 pages), the deductions in matters, too, of very weighty moment 
 drawn by the Commissioners (they say) from the testimony of 
 their own witnesses, will be found in conflict with it. At the same 
 time, too, the reader will notice that the Commissioners themselves 
 are in open conflict with one another. 
 
 We need here make a reflection that we have long been pon- 
 dering over, in view of the almost absolute unqualified condem- 
 nation (in these reports) of the whole past in the Philippines, of 
 all systems of rule, of ethics, piety, faith, law, good works, in 
 brief, of the grandeurs of our Christian Malaysia- — glories that 
 yet have been attested with enthusiastic praise by numberless 
 travellers, scholars, explorers, even non-Catholic. Was there then 
 (in 1899-1900) at Manila in and around these two courts of our 
 Commissioners some mysterious, occult, (maybe even) mischief- 
 making power at work to set at odds with one another all con- 
 cerned in those courts of inquiry and trial-judges, witnesses, 
 prosecutors ?— to mislead them in defiance even of their own phil- 
 osophic— nobler— instincts of the evidence of their own eyes and 
 ears ? And did this malign genius (as at times seems to have 
 happened in America and Europe, why then not in Asia?) not try 
 its hardest with the aid of cable and printing-press to blot out 
 from the inhabitants of the Philippines all respect for their one- 
 time happy and prosperous sacred and civil estate, to overturn in 
 their souls every mark of regard and love for the Christian faith, 
 for Christian law, for Christian policy ? (Of similar evil influences 
 against our schools, altars, and homes, here, and in Europe, we 
 have read before.) But let this go as a mere reflection. 
 
ON RELIGIO US AND ED UCA TIONAL MA TTERS 1 3 
 
 Genesis of the Reports. 
 
 So much then for a mere bird’s-eye view, as it were, of our 
 field of instruction, and scholastic entertainment in these four 
 volumes of Manila reports,— -a general perspective of the work 
 done in those high assemblies in the Philippines. 
 
 Now for our analysis of these reports in detail. And first as 
 to the genesis of the courts themselves, that in their legislative and 
 judicial pomp and grandeur, in their sittings at Manila in the 
 closing years of the century just passed, gave Malaysia a forecast 
 of the new rule and the new order of things. 
 
 The first Commission (under Dr. Schurman) (it may be pre- 
 mised) began its hearings in the early summer of 1 899, less than 
 a year after the downfall of Spain in the East. [ Schurman , i, 1.] 
 
 At this time, we may observe, outside of Spain knowledge of 
 the Philippines was meagre enough. As shown in our encyclo- 
 pedias, histories, and atlases, those islands were practically a terra 
 incognita of common reputation only for hemp and cigars. 
 
 Members of this Commission were : Jacob Gould Schurman, 
 LL.D.; Major General Elwell S. Otis, of the U. S. Army; Rear 
 Admiral George Dewey, of the U. S. Navy ; Charles Denby, LL.D., 
 lawyer, diplomat, formerly Minister to China ; Dean Conant Wor- 
 cester, professor of zoology and botany ; while John R. McArthur 
 was appointed Secretary and Counsel of the Commission, and 
 Rutherford Corbin, Assistant Secretary. [ Schurman , i, 1 .] 
 
 This Commission was charged to investigate the conditions of 
 life in those Asiatic archipelagos, to suggest solutions of problems 
 bearing on “ order, peace and public welfare,” while it was in- 
 structed, moreover, to observe due regard for “ all ideals, customs 
 and institutions ” of the inhabitants, 11 — all problems, it may be 
 added, that so far in the history of philosophic and political specu- 
 lations have taxed gravely the wisdom of even the sagest geniuses 
 among men. 
 
 It is matter for deep reflection that our own non-white fellow 
 inhabitants in the United States— blacks, mulattos, Indians, as well 
 as people of other colors, are not yet on the same social, if not 
 also political, standing with whites. 
 
 11 “Tribes,” however, is the word used by President McKinley in his letter of 
 instructions to the first Commission, for which see Schurman, i, 186. 
 
14 REPORTS OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 
 The second Commission (under Judge Taft) opened its ses- 
 sions 
 
 “ in July (1900) and continued from time to time until late in Octo- 
 ber ” 
 
 of the same year, having begun 
 
 “its legislative and executive duties under the instructions of the 
 President ’ ’ 
 
 on the first of September previous. [Taft, 16, 19.] Members of 
 this commission were William H. Taft, Dean C.Worcester, Luke E. 
 Wright, Henry C. Ide, Bernard Moses, Ph.D., profe 9 sor of his- 
 tory and political economy. [Taft, 15.] As to the other officers 
 of this Commission, and the reasons for the dissolution of its pre- 
 decessor, positive information is lacking. It would appear, how- 
 ever, that the Schurman Commission, whose report in a way is 
 rather favorable to the defendants, was withal somewhat too manly, 
 of too independent frame, to suit the schemes of interested par- 
 ties in the political and commercial world in the United States, 
 especially that had an eye mainly on the mere material possibili- 
 ties in the Philippines. (The race of “ boomers ” of various kinds 
 was not yet extinct.) So much, then, for the personnel of the two 
 Commissions. 
 
 Mode of Procedure in the Commissions. 
 
 Now for a panorama of their acts, during the years 1899- 
 1900. From details gleaned here and there in their reports as to 
 the mode of procedure employed in assembly — a very important 
 feature for the student in order to discern the significance of their 
 moves in this stupendous drama of politics — we learn that 
 
 “ in preparing their several papers the members of the Commission 
 (the first) . . . derived data not only from Spanish books and 
 
 documents, . . . but also from evidence taken from witnesses," 
 
 . . . [Schurman, ii, vii.] 
 
 These witnesses, as we learn elsewhere in the Doctor’s report, 
 were 46, their names appearing in the index at the end of 
 the second volume [ii, 477-486] ; and among them, as far as 
 we can make out, were only three churchmen, of whom more 
 later on. 
 
 The names of the witnesses before the second Commission 
 
ON RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL MATTERS 
 
 15 
 
 (under Judge Taft) number 38, to be found with their testimony 
 in extenso in Sen. Doc., 47-283. Eleven of them were church- 
 men, two of whom had already testified before Dr. Schurman. 
 Thus, of the 84 witnesses before the two Commissions, twelve 
 only were for the defence, in fact were defendants themselves. 
 
 The reader is not to overlook this plain matter of fact, that the 
 clergy in the Philippines and its sister archipelagos, hundreds and 
 hundreds in number, were in control, not only of many institu- 
 tions of learning, art-work, science ; of colleges, seminaries, pue- 
 blo schools, established throughout those islands, but besides were 
 entrusted as so many bulwarks of order, peace, and law, with 
 certain government functions in nearly all the provinces, especially 
 where Indians were the sole population. Here in a general way the 
 missionaries were the instructors, guides, caretakers of the Philip- 
 pine commonwealth in spiritual and temporal concerns. For these 
 duties the friars had received especial training in their colleges in 
 Europe. They were expert in the management of Indians. While 
 also, it may be noted, such blending of the two fields of Church and 
 civil authority and power in the Philippines in one and the same in- 
 dividual, who, at the same time, was the minister of religion, as well 
 as the main person of prominence or standing among the natives 
 themselves, is frequently described in these reports {Taft, 25, 
 26], though never in commendatory terms. In our Government 
 schools for Indians " out West,” similar union of Church and State 
 in the person of one and the same incumbent, whether mere trader, 
 politician, money-maker, or even minister of God, has been exem- 
 plified often. (But this, however fruitful in reflections, is a digres- 
 sion.) As to the Doctor’s valuation of topics of such magnitude, 
 we return to his reports. There we find a paper of but jyi pages 
 in length at the furthest, devoted to clergy {Schurman, i, 130- 
 136]; to education, another paper of 25 pages {Id., i, 17-42]; and 
 a third, on “ Public Instruction in the Philippines during the time 
 of Spanish Sovereignty,” otherwise “ Exhibit VI,” of 20 pages 
 {Id., ii, 456-476]. That is, of the 775 pages of his reports, only 
 52 y 2 , not as much as 7 percent., have been devoted to the main 
 civilizing agencies at work in the Philippines in their various fields 
 of peace, wherein the prosperity and happiness of about 7,000,000 
 souls were concerned — a somewhat meagre allowance of literature 
 (it may be remarked) on the main subject of all — a species of lit- 
 
1 6 REPORTS OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 
 erary vacuity that would indicate, it seems, somewhat of a lack of 
 proportion with the balance of the Doctor’s report. 
 
 But to continue with our Schurman sessions, wherein we are 
 told that 
 
 “ the witnesses came in freely, . . . from all classes of the 
 
 people, and they represented all varieties of opinion. ’ ’ [Schurman, 
 ii, vii.] 
 
 A picturesque description, this, of admirable fairness in appear- 
 ance — a bit of rhetorical fancy, however, of “putting the thing 
 which is not for the thing which is,” that (as far as the reports 
 themselves go) is without but a very faint scintilla of truth. 
 
 At the very most, of Dr. Schurman’s 46 witnesses, three 
 churchmen only appeared, merely however as teachers ; they 
 were questioned by the Commission merely on educational sub- 
 jects. They were the Dominican rector of the University of Manila, 
 Father Santiago Paya, and two Jesuits, Fathers Miguel Saderra, 
 of the Ateneo, and Pedro Torra, of the Normal School [ Schur- 
 man , ii, 242, 278]. While, so far as we can judge, all the other 
 witnesses, 43 in number, were for the prosecution, nearly all out 
 of sympathy for the defendants, where they were not professedly 
 in open antagonism to them. 
 
 The “ varieties of opinion ” besides that the Doctor refers to, 
 seem from the reports to have been little else than a mass of un- 
 clean, harsh and loathsome details regarding Church affairs, and 
 very “ Maria-Monkish ” in looks, — anti-Catholic, anti-Christian. 
 In this respect about the only difference between the reports of 
 the two Commissioners is that while Dr. Schurman publishes, of 
 course, all his anti-friar testimony (without comment, however), 
 the Judge all through seems to believe it ; nay, even goes out of 
 his way to support it with the prestige of his judicial mantle. 
 Thus, after traversing some very foul charges against Philippine 
 churchmen, he thinks to account for their frailty by saying they 
 came to the islands 
 
 “ from the peasant class in Andalusia — ” [Taft, 28.] 
 
 an allusion, by the way, to this one-time old Mahometan strong- 
 hold in Spain, that, like other neat-looking fancies of rhetoric in 
 these reports, happens to have little or no foundation in fact. 
 After some considerable research into the birthplaces of our 
 
ON RELIGIO US AND ED UCA T10NAL MA TTERS 1 7 
 
 Philippine missionaries, we are able to affirm that of all the Span- 
 ish ecclesiastics serving in those islands for years and years past, 
 it happens that there was one friar only — -a Dominican Father, 
 that hailed from Andalusia, — the one solitary specimen of that 
 much reviled “ peasant class.” By the way, is it not a historical 
 record that the ancestry of most of us Caucasians (the Judge, too, 
 included) is traceable to the farming, or “ peasant class,” of the 
 olden times? With some display of fair-mindedness Judge Taft, 
 however, appears to deprecate the general anti-friar tone of his 
 native witnesses. Again and again he records his opinion that 
 neither religion nor morality was a factor to be considered in the 
 Philippine question. Thus emphatically he declares it 
 
 “ was not a religious question. ” [Taft, 30.] 
 
 Again, that 
 
 “ the feeling against the friars is solely political.” [/£.] 
 
 And still again, that 
 
 ‘ ‘ immorality (of the friars') was not the chief ground for hostility — ’ * 
 [lb., 29.] 
 
 while, moreover, 
 
 “ their immorality as such (he adds) would not have made them hate- 
 ful to the people . . . the people do not feel any ill will against 
 
 (the Filipino priests) on this account.” [/Z>.] 
 
 And so on and so on ; all which is very true, as according to the 
 verdict of scholars (reiterated, moreover, by the Judge) no ques- 
 tion of ethics is usually entertained by Katipuneros, or people of 
 that stamp. And would it be out of place to inquire why, even if 
 true, the Judge then allowed all that “irrelevant ” testimony to be 
 published in extenso — in detail ? Or, in view of the grave disedi- 
 fication resulting therefrom, if the charges against the defendants 
 were false, why, in the interests of public decency, should he not 
 have tried the friar case in camera ? — a usage not uncommon in 
 our courts where public welfare is in peril. Or, if ethics fails 
 to account for this legal phenomenon at Manila of suppressing all 
 testimony in favor of the defendants, while raking together every- 
 thing, no matter how “irrelevant,” to their discredit, may not 
 mere politics be considered as the dominant factor therein ? 
 
1 8 REPORTS OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 
 But to return to our genesis of the Schurman reports. As to 
 the nationality of his witnesses, who, according to the Doctor, 
 “ came in freely from all classes,” etc., they were (he says) of 
 various European and Asiatic races, — 
 
 “ American, Austrian, Belgian, Chinese, English, French, German 
 and Spanish.” [Schurman 2.] 
 
 in appearance a rather imposing array of witnesses. But hardly 
 to be borne out by the official tally. Of the names of the 46 
 witnesses, 28 clearly are Spanish, Philippine, or Chinese orthogra- 
 phy, thus leaving just 18 as representatives of the six other coun- 
 tries in Caucasia. [See the index in Schur 7 nan , ii, 477-486.] 
 Again, we may remark that while in any case involving local 
 matters, institutions, etc., the testimony of residents, especially if 
 of long standing, is, as a rule, perfectly admissible, strangers or 
 new-comers are rigidly held as “ incompetents.” In these reports 
 then we protest against the admission as evidence of the testimony 
 or opinions of United States civilians or army or navy officers — all 
 practically unfamiliar except from hearsay with matters and things 
 transpiring in a very new country discovered, we may add, only a 
 few months before. The first Commission, be it recalled, began 
 its hearings in the summer of 1899. (At Manila, however, we 
 are witnessing the subversion of other things besides Spanish.) 
 
 Then the Doctor goes on to describe the business, profession, 
 etc., of the several witnesses, who (he says) were 
 
 “brokers, bankers, merchants, lawyers, physicians, railroad men, 
 ship owners, educators, public officers.” [Schurman, i, 2.] 
 
 — another captivating list of “ men of all classes.” But let us sift 
 it in so far as Caucasians are concerned, reserving our remarks 
 on native witnesses — Indians, mestizos, and the like, for future 
 comment. 
 
 According to the minutes of the Court, of the Caucasian wit- 
 nesses all but three (the teachers named ahead) were laymen, and 
 as their evidence shows almost to a man anti-defendant, though 
 some few, we admit, were non-committal. Now at Manila, is it 
 likely any more than elsewhere, that mere civilians — men of affairs, 
 however keen observers they may have been in matters relating to 
 their own lines of business, or of occurrences happening before 
 
ON RELIGIO US AND ED UCA TIONAL MA TTERS 1 9 
 
 their own eyes, — is it likely that with topics relating to the higher 
 life — with problems in religion, philanthropy, ethics, pedagogy, 
 mission and church society work— all problems for experts — is it 
 likely they could be any more conversant than our own fellow lay 
 citizens at home ? 
 
 Apparently only the three “ educators ” we have named else- 
 where represented the Church side of the Philippine question, 
 and they were examined merely (as said) on matters associated 
 with their profession. In alleging then that his witnesses repre- 
 sented “ all classes of the people,” “ all varieties of opinion,” that, 
 in brief, they were experts in the various fields of “ political, civil 
 and religious liberty,” the Doctor would have us believe the thing 
 which is not. As a matter of fact, though the churchmen in 
 priestly orders in the islands numbered 1642, “many of them 
 besides educated gentlemen of high moral standards,” and usually 
 “ the only men of intelligence and education,” — all persons of 
 worth and prominence therefore ; though, moreover, there were 
 hundreds and hundreds of officers-— superintendents, teachers, 
 connected with university, colleges, seminaries, pueblo schools and 
 beaterios, — -all experts in their respective fields of instruction, dis- 
 cipline, management ; though besides there were many hospitals, 
 asylums, orphanages, homes,-— all centres one way or another of 
 high-class Christian energy, in intellective, ethical and religious 
 spheres, yet with the exception of the three “ educators ” named, 
 no others were heard by Dr. Schurman ; not a prelate, nor 
 school teacher, nor superintendent, nor officer of those numer- 
 ous institutions of education, beneficence and charity at Manila 
 and elsewhere in the islands, appeared even in person or by 
 proxy. 12 
 
 And with such lacunae in the testimony we are expected to 
 take these reports as full and authentic pictures of Philippine soci- 
 ety, life and manners ! What, then, did Dr. Schurman mean 
 in alleging that his witnesses represented “all classes,” “all 
 opinions ” ? 
 
 In plain English, however, is this not “putting the thing 
 which is for the thing which is not ” ?— an unfairness so obvious as 
 
 12 Should any of these various experts have been summoned, or invited to appear 
 before the Schurman Commission, we have no information ; his reports being utterly 
 silent thereon. 
 
20 
 
 REPORTS OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 
 prior to the assembly of the second Commission to call for strong 
 protest on the part of the Church authorities at Manila. Thus we 
 learn from Judge Taft’s report, that the Apostolic Delegate, Mgr. 
 Chapelle 
 
 “ requested that in any investigation into the matter of the friars, 
 the provincials of the orders, and the five bishops, including 
 the archbishop of Manila, who were all of them friars, should be given 
 a hearing. ’ ’ [ Taft, 24. ] 
 
 So defendants in a case of supreme interest had to solicit as 
 favor what the law gives as right ! 
 
 Moreover, of the 422 pages of testimony in the Schurman 
 reports, consisting mainly of denunciations of friardom, only 19 
 in all are allotted to the evidence of the three defendants, who 
 were questioned solely on matters relating to pedagogy. 
 
 Considerable mystery, by the way, seems to veil the compila- 
 tion of these reports. Judge Taft, in describing the mode of pro- 
 cedure followed by his fellow commissioners, states that 
 
 “ much formal evidence was taken and transcribed, but more was 
 gathered from informal conversation when no stenographer was 
 present.” \Taft, 15.] 
 
 An admission that seems to mean a great deal more than it 
 looks. So this is the way law was interpreted at Manila, and 
 problems of the highest interest determined “ from informal con- 
 versation,” gathered, too, when “ no stenographer was present ! ” 
 
 But there are conundrums, not a few, that meet us in our 
 study of these and similar vagaries of judicialism at Manila — the 
 court proceedings of A. D. 1899-1900— gleams of such steady 
 and unrelieved one-sidedness throughout that we cannot but 
 return to the belief grounded on our analysis of these legal forms, 
 that by some skilful pre-arrangement (formerly known as “ hocus- 
 pocus” — a very ancient legal technicality), the reports of the 
 Commissioners were to be “ drawn up, of course according to the 
 evidence,” unless it might seem advisable (such things do at times 
 happen) — to have the evidence somehow or other correspond 
 with the reports. Such idiosyncrasies, we have heard, are among 
 the mysteries and intricacies of modern law. 
 
 The witnesses that appeared before Judge Taft numbered, as said, 
 twelve. But from a study of his reports we find that some 200 or 
 
ON RELIGIO US AND ED UCA TIONAL MA TTERS 2 1 
 
 300 others — all natives, it seems, of Luzon, and strong for the prose- 
 cution, appeared before his Commission by deposition. Thus there 
 is a paper signed by 97 “ headmen 13 and leading residents” of 
 Aringay in Union province [Sen. Doc., 198], another presented by 
 “ Clemente Mapuraya and 72 others,” 14 the “ presidente, coun- 
 sellors and inhabitants ” of Pamplona in Cagayan province [Id., 
 220], a third from “ Sofio Alemdt and others . . . leading 
 
 men and residents” of Tayabas [Id., 224], and a fourth with 84 
 signatures from Nueva Caceres [Id., 225]. 
 
 A word merely about these “ headmen and leading residents ” 
 of Luzon, all Indians, or mestizos. From their depositions, it 
 appears (as already said) that through and through they were to 
 a man all strong anti-defendants, in every way, even if not, as may 
 be deduced from their language, anti-Christian also, just the kind 
 of people too, I suppose, that Judge Taft has so frequently char- 
 acterized as “ ignorant,” “ credulous,” “ uneducated,” etc. How- 
 ever, as witnesses against the defendants they seemed to have been 
 rated among the “ competent,” as on their evidence, in part, the 
 Judge has based his report, though it is hard to understand why 
 elsewhere he should seek to discredit his own tools. 
 
 We go back again to our Caucasian witnesses for the defence, 
 — defendants themselves, fourteen in all, counting the two pedago- 
 gical experts (as said) who appeared before the two Commissions 
 twice. 
 
 Before Judge Taft appeared the following eleven defendants: 
 Santiago Paya, provincial of the Dominicans ; 15 Juan Villegas, 
 provincial of the Franciscans ; Jose Lobo, provincial of the Augus- 
 tinians ; Francisco Araya, provincial of the Recoletos; Alfonso 
 Maria de Morertin, superior of the Capuchins; Juan Sabater, 
 superior of the Benedictines ; Miguel Saderra y Mata, vicar supe- 
 rior of the Jesuits ; superior of the Lazarists (name not recorded) ; 
 Bernardino Nozaleda y Villa, O.S.D., Archbishop of Manila; 
 Andres Ferrero, Recoleto Bishop of Santa Isabel of Jaro; the 
 
 13 The headman = cabefa de barangay, was a petty Indian chieftain, head of a 
 settlement, or pueblo, of about one hundred families. The “ leading residents,” 
 very likely, were his subjects. 
 
 u There is no entry to show the domicile of Mapuraya, and associates, likely 
 Luzonians, however, as were the others. 
 
 15 Fathers Paya and Saderra had appeared as witnesses before the first Commis- 
 
22 REPORTS OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 
 Bishop of Vigan (name not recorded). The evidence given by 
 these church representatives is in Sen. Doc. [47-133]. 
 
 That they were persons of considerable importance in eccle- 
 siastical and civil fields we have these admissions of Judge Taft, 
 who, besides styling them “ educated gentlemen of high moral 
 standards,” states that 
 
 ‘ ‘ the priest was not only the spiritual guide (of the Philippines), but 
 that he was in every sense the municipal ruler.” \Taft, 26.] 
 
 ‘ ‘ The truth is (he goes on to say ) that the whole government of Spain 
 in these islands rested on the friars.” [/^.] 
 
 Eulogy enough, we may add, but not wholly warranted by 
 either facts or history. The Judge, in attributing Mikado-like 
 prerogatives and powers to Philippine churchmen, runs counter to 
 historical records of the last one hundred years or so. 
 
 Chronicles of those islands, state-papers of Governors-general, 
 etc., refer continually to conflicts of power between the missiona- 
 ries and the bureaucrats of Manila and Madrid, — the latter a 
 hungry horde of civilians in alliance with Free Masons, Liberales, 
 then Liga members and Katipuneros. The one doing their best 
 to shield the natives from pillage, extortion, tyranny on the part 
 of native alcaldes and Spanish officialdom,— -the bane at times of 
 our own Indian missions ; the others just as intent in filling their 
 pockets, as also at times is done by some of our own syndicates 
 of money-seekers masquerading too often as philanthropists. 
 Thus it was in the Philippines. Has the Judge never read of the 
 “hemp trust” and “tobacco trust” engineered at Madrid in order 
 to “bleed ” the natives of Panay and Cagayan? 
 
 At Washington in the Library of Congress is a work of the 
 Madrid press more than half a century old, that, with details in 
 plenty relating to the olden time, shows up the sharp dealings of 
 Caucasian exploiters in Luzon, Panay, Cebu, and other islands, 
 during the last century and even earlier. 16 Here is merely one 
 instance of many recorded in our Diccionario of State interference 
 with Church matters to the great distress of souls. In 1831 (Au- 
 
 16 See Diccionario Geographico, Estadistico, Histdrico de las Philipinas, etc., 
 [Madrid, 1850, in two vols.] by two Augustinian scientists, Manuel Buzeta and 
 Felipe Bravo. Then, too, should be studied the Estadismo of that brave assailant of 
 crown villainies in the Philippines, — the Augustinian traveller and chronicler Zuniga. 
 [Retanaed., Madrid, 1893.] 
 
ON RELIGIO US AND ED UCA TIONAL MA TTERS 2 3 
 
 gust 25), Sanctos Gomez Maranon, Augustinian, Bishop of Cebu 
 —head city of the Visayas, petitioned Ferdinand VII of Spain 
 (and patrono real ) for a division of his see, which (the Bishop 
 stated) covered an immense area of countless islands and waters 
 reaching all through the Visayas, then eastwardly as far as the 
 Marianas. His plea was based on the clear fact that the greater 
 number of souls in his care could never be visited by him, —could 
 not be confirmed through Holy Chrism. 
 
 Among other arguments in support of his plea, the Bishop 
 relates that right after his consecration, he visited the isle of 
 Romblon, and three provinces in Panay, where he confirmed 
 102,636 Christians; thence to the isle of Negros, then back to 
 Cebu, where in one-half only of that island he confirmed (those 
 of Panay included) 23,800 souls, though it took him one-half 
 year for the task. Moreover, he pleads that his charge embraced 
 a million at least of souls, scattered through many islands, of 
 which he names only the larger, Romblon, Samar, Leyte, Bohol, 
 Surigao, Negros, Tablas, Sibuyan, Banton, Panay, and Cebu. 
 
 He prays then that a see be established with headquarters at 
 the city of Santa Isabel of Jaro, in Panay isle, with care, too, of 
 the Calamianes and Zamboanga in Mindanao — two regions that 
 with the Marianas he had never been able to visit. This petition 
 to the crown was in 1831. But Santa Isabel witnessed no bishop 
 of its own until thirty-four years later, when (on May 27, 1865), 
 the then Sovereign Pontiff, Pius IX, created that see. 17 
 
 With such shilly-shallying at court one need feel little sur- 
 prise at the fact that for one hundred years or so the welfare of 
 Christian missions in the East as well as elsewhere depended 
 largely on the whims of bureaucrats at Madrid, who (at Lisbon 
 as well) were apt to be in continual conflict with the Holy See on 
 many a question of etiquette, etc., among them church prefer- 
 ments, benefices, and the like. 
 
 No. In the many statements of Judge Taft, that up to late 
 times churchmen held “ supreme power ” in the Philippines, lies a 
 grave blunder against history. Once, yes, many, many years 
 ago, up to the close of about the eighteenth century, when the 
 Church was in friendly alliance with Caesar in spirituals and tem- 
 
 17 For the plea in full of Bishop Maran6n, see Buzeta-Bravo, ut ante [i, 543, 
 544 ]- 
 
24 REPORTS OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 
 porals, then, perhaps, you would have seen the pueblo-missions of 
 Luzon and its sister-isles civilized, prosperous, happy, so well as 
 to deserve the epithet “ Pearl of Malaysia a picture of almost 
 Utopian grandeur and ethic beauty, as was that other charming 
 lovely Christian mission-field of the Jesuits in Paraguay. 
 
 Some Facts of Philippine Story. 
 
 Here, relative to old-time Philippine story, are a few facts that 
 have been enshrined in the pages of many a chronicler. 
 
 1. As a rule, not a Spanish soldier in the Philippines, except 
 maybe in Manila in garrison. 
 
 2. At no time had Spain over 5,000 peninsulars in the whole 
 archipelago. 
 
 3. All the islands were policed by Indians — natives, under 
 friars, who guarded them from Chinese pirates and Moros. 
 
 The writer opines that even yet Cebuans remember with lov- 
 ing reverence their heroic fighting missionary of three-quarters of 
 a century ago, Julian Bermejo, 18 of the Augustinians, who, with 
 his well-drilled corps of Indians, spearmen and bowmen, with his 
 little fleet of ten armored barangayanes — a kind of war canoe, 
 supplied with falconets, and even with a well-equipped signal-ser- 
 vice (with telegraphs from village to village) along the coast, kept 
 Visaya waters fairly clear of Mahometan Jolo corsairs. (Father 
 Bermejo, who off and on was cur a of several pueblos in Cebu from 
 1802 to 1848, died at Cebu in 1851, on April 30.) 
 
 4. Apart from the usual local outbreaks, generally in Tagal- 
 dom (some of them fierce enough), history shows an era almost 
 unbroken of peace and comfort. 
 
 5. Everywhere in those islands for generations back to the 
 re-discovery, schools sufficient in number for plain and forest 
 natives. 
 
 6. Steadily without a break the population of the islands on 
 the increase from the first general census in 1732 down. 
 
 Such are storied facts, all of public record, that it may be use- 
 
 18 Wrongly named “Ruiz” in his otherwise manly and enthusiastic paper in 
 defence of Philippine churchmen, “The Work of the Friars,” by Stephen Bonsai, 
 in North American Review for October, last year. [See pp. 449-460.] Mr. Bon- 
 sai’s paper was republished a few months ago by the “ International Catholic Truth 
 Society,” of New York. 
 
ON RELIGIO US A ND ED UCA TIONA L MA TTERS 2 5 
 
 ful to consider in our study of Philippine problems. With money- 
 grabbers and Voltaireans kept aloof from our Indians, they were 
 fairly comfortable and happy, with their friar guardians as pioneers 
 in the field of higher and nobler activities, as promoters of civi- 
 lization, industries, arts, as upholders of law and order, of mission- 
 churches, schools, — the self-same factors, in brief, who, with their 
 advent to Malaysia in the sixteenth century, had borne thither 
 with the blessings of spiritual Christian refinement the boons of 
 material art also, — letters, trades, commerce. 
 
 But to conclude with this bit of philosophic analysis of our 
 Commissioners’ reports. We are told by the Doctor that in their 
 solemn judicial assembly at Manila 
 
 ‘ ‘ Every witness said what he wanted to, and the Commission cor- 
 dially invited all kinds of witnesses to appear.” 19 [Schurman, ii, 
 vii.] — 
 
 a statement implying, as the reader will notice, utmost license of 
 speech on the part of the witnesses for the prosecution. They 
 certainly seem to have gone beyond bounds. One of them, with 
 almost flippant air, has even proclaimed the infamy of his own 
 mother. [Don Felipe Calderon in Sen. Doc., 1 39.] Others simi- 
 larly speak to the dishonor of their own friends and relatives. 
 
 Yes. We can well believe that in this regard Dr. Schurman 
 speaks truly— -that “ every witness said what he wanted.” But in 
 our Manila court was there no one — no officer then to call wit- 
 nesses to order, to have them bridle their speech ? 
 
 With this we close our sketch of the genesis of the two Com- 
 missions, and the mode of procedure observed by them, 
 
 “in the maintenance of order, peace, and public welfare,” etc. 
 
 [ Schurman , i, 186.] 
 
 Preliminary Conclusions. 
 
 Preliminary to our conclusions thereon we think then the fol- 
 lowing points (inspired by these reports) have been proved, viz. : 
 that as regards the defendants — 
 
 19 Notice may here be taken of Dr. Schurman’ s fondness for broad and very in- 
 definite generalizations, as “ men of all classes,” “all classes of the people,” “all 
 varieties of opinion,” “all the great questions of the day,” and “every witness said 
 what he wanted to,” etc. But does such use of “ indefinites ” accord fully with 
 historical accuracy ? 
 
26 REPORTS OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 
 1. The field of testimony opened by the prosecution was prac- 
 tically unlimited. 
 
 2. The witnesses with the exception of fourteen, but in reality 
 twelve, were many of them of the mere riff-raff of Manila, the 
 most cosmopolitan city, it may be said, of Asia, if not of the world. 
 
 3. No testimony was barred, everything — hearsay, town- 
 gossip, slander — all was admitted. 
 
 4. There was no proper representation for the defence. 
 
 5. No provision for the verification of “ evidence.” 
 
 6. None for cross-examination. 
 
 7. While some of the judges at least were on record as anti- 
 defendants,— the whole proceeding therefore one of such legal 
 unseemliness it would seem as in any court of review would inevi- 
 tably call for rebuke, if not reversal of judgment. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Among the many very singular phenomena in the four volumes 
 of the Philippine reports that merit special study we single out the 
 following as of interest to our readers. They refer to— 
 
 1. The interrogatories employed by the Commissioners in 
 their examination of native witnesses. 
 
 2. Character of native witnesses as described by their fellow- 
 prosecutors. 
 
 3. School facilities and school work in the Philippines, etc. 
 
 Interrogatories Put to Native Witnesses. 
 
 As to the questions put by the second Commission to native 
 witnesses we are told that they were determined by the Commis- 
 sion itself [Sen. Doc., 255], though prepared by Judge Taft [id., 
 19 7], then published in the Manila papers, besides being com- 
 municated to the witnesses in written or printed from. [Id., 192 
 212.] 
 
 The questions, nineteen in number, were the following : 20 
 
 1. How long have you lived in the Philippines ? 
 
 2. In what parts of the islands have you lived ? 
 
 3. How much personal opportunity had you before 1896 to 
 observe the relations existing between the friars and the people of 
 their parishes in a religious, in a social, and in a political way ? 
 
 50 In Sen. Doc., 2 13-2 19, the questions are given in detail. 
 
ON RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL MATTERS 27 
 
 4. How many friars have you known personally ? 
 
 5. From what class of society were they drawn in -Spain ? 
 
 6. What agricultural, or business, or residence property, in any 
 part of the islands do you know from which any order of friars has 
 derived income ? 
 
 7 . What political functions were actually exercised by the parish 
 priests in the islands under Spanish rule ? 
 
 8. What usually were the relations between the heads of the 
 Spanish Government here and the heads of the Church ? 
 
 9. What fees were actually, collected by the parish priests for 
 marriages, burials, and christenings? How were they fixed, if you 
 know ? What, if any, was the effect of such fees upon the marriages ? 
 
 10. What was the morality of the friars as parish priests? How 
 much opportunity have you had to observe ? Can you give me in- 
 stances ? If so, please do so. 
 
 1 1 . What do you think is the chief ground for hostility to the 
 friars as parish priests ? Does it exist against all the orders ? Why 
 the difference ? 
 
 12. Charges have been made against the friars that many of their 
 number have caused the deportation of Filipinos, members of their 
 parishes, and that in some instances they were guilty of physical 
 cruelty. What, if anything, do you know on the subject ? 
 
 1 3 . What is to be said of the morality of the native priests ? 
 
 14. What as to their education and preparation to discharge 
 clerical duties ? 
 
 15. What do you think would be the result of an attempt of the 
 friars to return to their parishes ? 
 
 16. What do you think would be the effect in the islands of the 
 appointment of an American archbishop ? 
 
 17. What do you think of the establishment of schools in which 
 opportunity would be given the ministers of any church to instruct 
 the pupils in religion half an hour before the regular hour? Would 
 this satisfy the Catholics of the islands in their desire to unite religion 
 with education ? 
 
 18. Will not the fact that parish priests, whoever they may be, 
 will have no political functions, and no political influence, and must 
 depend on the voluntary contributions of their parishioners for their 
 support, very much change the relation of the priest to the people ? 
 
 19. What do you think would be the effect of the Government 
 expropriating the agricultural property justly belonging to the friars, 
 paying what it is worth, selling it out in small parcels, and using the 
 proceeds for a school fund ? 
 
 Such, then, were the problems in various realms of science — ■ 
 in political economy, pedagogy, state-craft, etc., submitted to the 
 native witnesses for solution — conundrums, the most of them, that 
 might easily puzzle scholarly Caucasians, not to speak of an 
 “ignorant, credulous, and childlike people,” as Judge Taft has 
 termed the inhabitants of the Philippines. 
 
28 REPORTS OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 
 The reader will recall, moreover, that, according to the Judge’s 
 very emphatic declaration, the Philippine question was not “ re- 
 ligious,” but “merely political;” that “immorality,” etc., was 
 not concerned therein. Then, perhaps, in view of this deliberate 
 oft-repeated protestation of the Judge, he will inquire, why should 
 the Judge, when framing these interrogatories, have put into the 
 heads of his friar-hating witnesses— Caucasian and Katipuneros — 
 the very subjects even that he so steadily, so positively, had de- 
 clared were “ irrelevant ” ? Why, too, have paraded their answers ? 
 Was this movement, as well as others, decreed by the secret anti- 
 Catholic propaganda of Manila, or maybe London ? Katipuneros, 
 it may be remarked, are members of a secret league in the Phil- 
 ippines, chiefly in Luzon, patterned on Masonic models. Herein, 
 not very unlike other anti-Christian organizations, they are not 
 apt to let such things as morals or church discipline trouble their 
 conscience. Nor have Katipuneros ever been noted as steady 
 church-goers any more than their white brethren of secret-society 
 lodges in America and Europe. 
 
 Native or Mestizo Witnesses. 
 
 An important feature in these reports, as observed when mak- 
 ing our analysis thereof, was the fact that the testimony of native 
 or mestizo witnesses served largely as their basis. 
 
 We give here some select tributes to their worthlessness as 
 citizens, men of business, etc. 
 
 Our quotations, the reader is to observe very closely, are not 
 drawn from Spanish sources. They are taken from the testimony 
 of the Commissioners’ own Caucasian witnesses — anti-friars on 
 the whole, the same as these natives. Following are several 
 characterizations : 
 
 “ The Chinese half-breeds are causing all the trouble.” [Testi- 
 mony of Edwin H. Warner, Schurman , ii, 19.] 
 
 “ The disturbing element is really of mixed blood — the Chinese, 
 and Japanese, and Tagalogs. . . . You can’t conceive of a 
 
 people where there is a worse mixture.” [Test, of Neil McLeod, id., 
 h, 4 1 *] 
 
 “. . . the worst race . . . the Chinese mestizo or half- 
 
 caste . . . treacherous and unreliable, but they are smart . . . 
 
 cunning.” [Test, of Wm. A. Daland, id., ii, 167.] 
 
ON RELIGIO US AND ED UCA TIONAL MA TTERS 29 
 
 “ There is no business morality among them (the Chinese') . . . 
 the mestizos ... are very tricky; you can’t put much confi- 
 dence in them.” [Test, of R. W. Brown, id., ii, 205,.] 
 
 . . the mestizo ... is a bad lot right through.” 
 
 [Test, of H. D. C. Jones, id., ii, 216.] 
 
 “ Usually he (the mestizo) is a very mean sort of a man.” [Test, 
 of Edwin H. Warner, id., ii, 199.] 
 
 Even the Judge himself makes this admission that 
 
 “the number of Filipinos who are fitted by nature, education, and 
 moral stability to fill such (Judicial) positions is very small. Very 
 few can be found among them in whose integrity and ability business 
 men have confidence.” [ Taft, 83.] 
 
 While the genial, upright describer of the Philippines, Mr. 
 Sawyer, a resident there for fourteen years, employs these terms : 
 
 “ I should not like to place (he says) my affairs in the hands of a 
 Tagal lawyer, to trust my life in the hands of a Tagal doctor, nor to 
 purchase an estate on the faith of a Tagal surveyor’s measure- 
 ment.” al 
 
 Thus has one half of the prosecution’s own witnesses, we may 
 say, spoken against the other half. The friars in the Philippines 
 have been styled “an element of discord.” But do the above 
 gems of high-class anthropology — science of our fellow man — 
 display any marked degree of harmony among the anti-defendants 
 themselves ? 1 
 
 Another point as to these friar-hating Malays — their testi- 
 mony, which was accepted as legal and competent by our Com- 
 missioners. All through the evidence of these Filipinos — natives, 
 half-breeds, or Chinese (given by both Commissioners in their 
 reports), runs one continued strain of invective, obloquy, slander, 
 against their former teachers and missionaries, — on the whole a 
 parrot-like repetition, page after page, of street tales, gossip and 
 hearsay, relating to what we may style the “ Maria-Monk ” kind 
 of romances about “the secret life of churchmen,” “church 
 tariff extortions,” “abuse of confessional secrets,” etc., etc. Yet 
 from this wearisome and long-spun-out sameness of language, in 
 
 21 The Inhabitants of the Philippines, by Frederic H. Sawyer, etc. , New York, 
 1900 (p. 237), a book well worth reading for its keen observations of matters and 
 things in general in those islands. 
 
30 REPORTS OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 
 their testimony, the student, if he examines it closely, will note 
 two very remarkable psychological phenomena, that will prove 
 incentives to considerable reflection thereon. One is the fact that 
 apparently through some singular secret and mysterious influence 
 these “ ignorant, uneducated ” hillsmen and plainsmen of Luzon 
 all have employed almost the very same turns of thought, the 
 very same figures of speech, the very same references to past 
 events, even of ages ago, and so on. [See Sen. Doc. for the testi- 
 mony of these native witnesses from Felipe Calderon’s, p. 133, to 
 Francisco Alvarez’s, p. 265.] One somewhat amusing instance of 
 this peculiar “thought coincidence,” as we may call it, is the 
 reference by as many as eight native witnesses, among them our 
 “ headmen and leading residents ” of Aringay, to the case of 
 Archbishop Sancho in the eighteenth century. 22 
 
 The experience of this prelate— Basilio Sancho de Santa J usta 
 y Rufina, an Aragonese, member of the Pious Schools, and for 
 twenty years Archbishop of Manila, from 1767 to 1787, when he 
 died, has so far sufficed for his successors in that see. 
 
 Through a fancy that hitherto native talents had somehow 
 wrongly been kept hidden, the Archbishop, who, when in Spain, 
 had displayed great activity in the suppression of Jesuits — (it was 
 the era of the new infidel re-birth [?] of Europe)— withdrew all 
 regulars in the Philippines from parish care, and gave their charges 
 to native incumbents. These Indians were ordained by him in 
 such numbers as to give rise to a saying at Manila that 
 
 ‘ ‘ Que no se encontraban bogadores para bos pancos, porque a totos los 
 habia ordenado el arzobispo, ’ ’ 
 
 — “ One need not look any longer for boatmen, as the Archbishop 
 has ordained them all.” With this result in brief, as to his cha- 
 grin the Archbishop discovered shortly after while on a visit 
 throughout Luzon, that the missions had gone to wreck and ruin 
 —churches, schools, conventos, libraries, all in decay. 
 
 Not long after, the European regulars were restored to their 
 former duties as parrocos, with the natives as formerly coadjutors. 23 
 
 22 See in Sen. Doc. the testimony of the following : Torres, 1 86 ; Ros, 194 ; the 
 Aringay delegation, 200; Templo, 208; del Fierro, 214; Mercado, 251 ; Mijares, 
 542; Alvarez, 258. 
 
 23 Sketches of this era may be read in Estadismo ( ut supra), by the Augustinian 
 Zuniga, [Retana ed, ii, 279]. It is referred to also by Buzeta-Bravo — Diccionario 
 [ii, 278 *]. 
 
ON RELIGIO US AND ED UCA TIONAL MA TTERS 3 1 
 
 Could it be possible, then, and yet nothing easier might have 
 happened, that all these Katipuneros (Caucasians even included) 
 were carefully drilled beforehand as to their anti-friar evidence— 
 were in brief “ coached,” though rather stupidly, as sometimes 
 our court chronicles declare is done here ? 
 
 The other psychological phenomenon discloses to us on anal- 
 ysis a no less singular instance of what I might style, in default of 
 perhaps a neater term, “thought transference,” or “psychical 
 absorption.” The reports of Judge Taft contain the testimony of 
 several Luzonians, wherein, interlarded with their anti-friar evi- 
 dence, are some pure Americanisms, such as the semi-slang ex- 
 pression “ O. K.,” that exceedingly quickly, it appears, had been 
 introduced by these Filipinos into their native speech after an ac- 
 quaintanceship with Americans of only a few months. The “ O.K.” 
 enters into the testimony of at least four islanders . 24 Or, maybe 
 — an explanation that will suggest itself to our mind — maybe 
 the testimony itself of these uncultured folk was just “cooked.” 
 Enough, however, for these native witnesses, who seem therein 
 something like our own half-breeds at home, of various colors, the 
 same as in Malaysia. 
 
 Long ago European churchmen in the Philippines were not 
 slow in learning of the character of those islanders, that among 
 racial peculiarities they were given to many virtues — to piety, 
 devotion, obedience, and in subordinate positions even trustworthi- 
 ness. Herein, I may observe, they are not very unlike our own 
 North American Indians. But the churchmen learned besides 
 that their wards, however docile and really faithful, were apt to 
 get “ out of gear ” with any regular system of life, to show them- 
 selves flighty-minded, changeable, when one would least expect it. 
 
 So as the Church has always recognized the advantages of hav- 
 ing a native clergy, co-workers with Europeans on missionary lines, 
 these natives, little by little, were raised to sacred orders, as assist- 
 ants, coadjutors, under the eye, however, of a Spaniard, to preach, 
 instruct, visit the sick, and administer the Sacraments of Holy 
 Church. But as a rule natives were not admitted to higher offices. 
 The experience of Archbishop Sancho was a lesson for good. 
 Nor was any native ever raised to the episcopate, unless at the 
 
 24 See in Sen. Doc. for the “ O. K.” the testimony of Tavera, 159 bis . ; Templo, 
 205 ; Mercado, 250 ; Alvarez, 256. 
 
32 REPORTS OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 
 most as coadjutor. Nor, for similar reasons too, did the orders in 
 all these centuries admit natives to the habit of their brotherhood 
 but rarely. Since the year 1641, as far as I can discover, the 
 Augustinians have invested with their religious garb only 43 In- 
 dians, among them the skilled botanist, Father Ignacio Mercado, 
 a mestizo of Parariaque (bom in 1648, died at Bauan in 1698), 
 Dominicans, 25 ; Franciscans, 16 ; Recoletos, about 25. 
 
 Pueblo Schools in the Philippines, etc. 
 
 Common schools for Indians were established, of record, in 
 every Christianized district of these vast archipelagos, as adjuncts 
 to their pueblo churches-— feeders, too, in a way of the many insti- 
 tutions of higher learning already named in these pages-— colleges, 
 seminaries, heaterios. Let the reader recall the words of Judge 
 Taft in speaking of the chief inspectors and superintendents of 
 these little pueblo shrines of the Christian Minerva, that the 
 priests, “ men of intelligence and education,” were “ many of them 
 gentlemen of high moral standards.” 
 
 As to the mass of literature, too, in the Philippines bearing on 
 the higher sciences, industries and arts, these are noted in the 
 Commissioners’ reports only by their utterly unexplainable 
 absence. Neither Dr. Schurman, nor J udge Taft, seems to have been 
 acquainted with Philippine bibliography, even by name, or aware 
 even faintly of the many gems of literature in those islands in such 
 diverse fields as history and mechanics, linguistics and music, the- 
 ology and physics, with a lot more on poetry, folk-lore, and so on. 
 This absence of one of the brilliant intellectual glories of the Philip- 
 pines (in the Commissioners’ reports) is another of the several 
 lacunae noticed in their works. 
 
 Nor do they seem to have been aware of this other fact that 
 during the closing years of the sixteenth century, when the earli- 
 est printing-press of record in the Philippines was set up in Luzon, 
 Manila hailed its first publication, not (as believed by many) the 
 Tagal Arte of the Dominican philologist Blancas, in 1602, nor the 
 tratadillos that issued from the convent-press of the Augustinians 
 at Lubao in 1606, but two booklets instead on Christian Doctrine, 
 — Doctrinas , as they were entitled, one in Tagal and Spanish, the 
 other in Chinese, both printed, or rather xylographed, from 
 
ON RELIGIO US AND ED UCA TIONAL MA TTERS 3 3 
 
 blocks, at Manila, or its suburb, Binondo, in 1593. Positive evi- 
 dence of these publications (no longer, however, extant) is in 
 Simancas Arckivo, among the state papers of Philip II, — a letter of 
 official character, of June 20, 1593, addressed to that monarch by 
 Gomez Perez Dasmarinas, Governor-General of the Philippines. 25 
 
 Moreover, bibliographers of the Philippines record the titles 
 of 3000 works and upwards, many of them reeditions, that re- 
 late to matters and things in those islands. In his Imprenta Re- 
 tana gives a list of Philippina with their titles, name of author, 
 printer, with date and place of publication from 1593 (as said) to 
 1810. For the sixteenth century two works are named, — the 
 Doctrinas, of Binondo; for the seventeenth, 150; for the eight- 
 eenth, 341 ; while in the nineteenth century, during its nine open- 
 ing years, 24 works were printed, or a total in all of 517 books, 
 which, with 24 others of doubtful date, make 541 monuments of 
 the printing art in Luzon, up to the year 1810. Among these 
 philological treasures are twenty-three Artes, or grammars, in 
 Tagal, Pampango, Ilocano, Bicol, Bisaya-Hiligayna, Bisaya of 
 Leyte and Samar, and Pangasinan ; then eleven dictionaries, one 
 in Japanese, another in the dialect of Tankui, a tribe of Indians 
 in an out-of-the-way place in the Zambales country around Subig 
 Bay in Luzon. The other dictionaries are in Tagal, Bisaya, Pam- 
 pango, and Bicol. 26 
 
 Now of all this and similar evidence concerning education and 
 intellectual activities in the Philippines, which it seems the spirit 
 of ordinary honesty would not have excluded from their reports, 
 not one word even has been recorded by the Commissioners. 
 “ But really they were not supposed to turn antiquarians.” Very 
 true. Why then have loaded the pages of their reports with 
 references to archaeological — old-time iniquities — scandals largely, 
 however, mere oriental fairy-tales, to the discredit of contempora- 
 neous churchmen ? (Scientific antiquarianism, like any other art, 
 should work, it seems, both ways.) 
 
 But with this not very irrelevant digression on books, we 
 
 26 Thus the bibliophile Retana, in his story of the Philippine press, La Imprenta 
 en Pilipinas [1593-1810], Madrid, 1897 (p. 5.), where he states that he read the 
 Dasmarinas letter, published also (he remarks) by his fellow antiquarian Medina. 
 
 26 Something of interest relating to books, etc., in these Malaysian archipelagos, 
 will be found in a pamphlet (by the writer) published by the Free Library of Phila- 
 delphia, in 1900. [See Some Notes on Philippine Bibliography, etc.] 
 
34 REPORTS OP' THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 
 return to our pueblo schools, rather low-grade educational centres 
 however, established' throughout our Christian Malaysia, yet 
 withal very helpful agencies, along with their much nobler fellow 
 institutions of far higher rank in the capitals of the Luzon prov- 
 inces, in uplifting these islanders to fairly civilized planes. For 
 (be it stoutly said) old-time writers as well as modern, visitors, 
 travellers, sojourners, even non-Catholic, descant in sometimes 
 glowing terms of praise for the marvels of ethic grandeur among 
 these Christian Malays, their many personal and social virtues, the 
 air of general peacefulness in their pueblos, their hospitality 
 towards strangers, respect for authority, safety of travel by day or 
 night, and, above all, the modesty of their women. So that it is 
 easily credible that in many provinces illiteracy was so uncommon 
 that (as told by many an annalist) “ you’d barely find boy or girl 
 that couldn’t read and write.” 27 
 
 As pertinent to pedagogy, therefore to ethics, the writer has 
 the following experience from the lips of an old Philippine resi- 
 dent : that “ though (such are his words) he travelled at times 
 through the principal islands — Luzon, Panay, Cebu — in all his 
 sojourn he never once at night fastened the door of his sleep- 
 ing-chamber ; never heard of molestation to traveller in moun- 
 tain-pass, forest, plain, or highway; nor even of thievery, let 
 alone robbery, or other violence to person or property.” 
 
 But with this digression we get back to our 2140 literary oases 
 in these tropical lands, where instruction suitable to native needs 
 was given pretty much anywhere- — in cotivento — solid building, or 
 nipa hut ; it mattered little, so long as school kept in. 
 
 And here is the schedule of studies, adopted by these little 
 Indian science and trade schools, as recorded by Dr. Schurman : 
 
 Pueblo School-Course in the Philippines, etc. 
 
 “ Instruction in schools for natives shall for the present be reduced 
 to elementary-primary instruction and shall consist of — 
 
 1 . Christian doctrine and principles of morality and sacred his- 
 tory suitable for children. 
 
 27 Thus Buzeta, in his Diccionario iut ante, i, 161 b), relates of Hilari6n Diez, 
 the Augustinian provincial of his order, as well as Archbishop of Manila in 1S26, 
 who was wont to say that there was a multitude of pueblos, as Argao, Dalaguete, Bol- 
 jo6n in Cebu, and many in the province of Iloilo— “ en los que es diflcil hollar un solo 
 niflo 6 nitia que no sepa leer y escribir." 
 
ON RELIGIO US AND ED UCA TIONA L MA TTERS 3 5 
 
 2. Reading. 
 
 3. Writing. 
 
 4. Practical instruction in Spanish, including grammar and orthog- 
 raphy. 
 
 5. Principles of arithmetic, comprising the four rules for figures, 
 common fractions, decimal fractions, and instruction in the metric 
 system with its equivalents in ordinary weights and measures. 
 
 6. Instruction in general geography and Spanish history. 
 
 7. Instruction in practical agriculture as applied to the products 
 of the country. 
 
 8. Rules of deportment. 
 
 9. Vocal music.” [ Schurman , i, 31.] 
 
 That is to say, in the islands were the following boys’ schools 
 and others devoted exclusively to girls, of the four-fold grade — 
 entrada (or entrance primary-schools), then ascenso, termino de 
 secunda , and termino de primera. 
 
 BOYS’. GIRLS’. TOTAL. 
 
 Philippines 1082 1047 2129 
 
 Marianas 2 2 4 
 
 East Carolines 2 2 4 
 
 West Carolines 2 1 3 
 
 1088 1052 2140 
 
 Our Philippine Indians then, — and are they really so different 
 from their red brethren here ? — seem to have been fairly well pro- 
 vided with technical learning, enough at least for their duties of 
 life. They were taught to be honest, upright men and women ; 
 to rule their households justly ; to honor God ; to begin and end the 
 day with prayer; to tell no lies; and thus be contented and happy 
 in spirit. (Old histories tell of the Philippines that the natives 
 were a joyful, happy, light-hearted people.) “ But it is not high- 
 class education!” Maybe not. Yet our civil-service commis- 
 sioners, it seems, would gladly welcome a school-course just as 
 good. 
 
 As regards the system of Philippine education too the stu- 
 dent of pedagogy must reflect that, except some pueblo “ lock- 
 ups ” — car cels, in the islands were no state-prisons (except at 
 Manila), no asylums for indigents, no penitentiaries, no houses of 
 refuge, no poor-houses, no reformatories (except the Magdalen 
 Retreat at Manila), and, to the glory of Philippine Christianity 
 
36 REPORTS OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 
 be it said, until a very few years ago, no houses of disorderly 
 character. 28 
 
 Nor were there any truant-officers in the Philippines,-— all 
 adjuncts pretty much of modern civilization as inspired and much 
 regulated, and greatly tinkered with by our doctrinaire politicians. 
 
 And here is the law requiring attendance at school, from the 
 same Commissioner’s reports : 
 
 Law Obliging School Attendance. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Primary instruction is obligatory for all natives. The fathers, 
 tutors, or guardians of children shall send them to the public schools 
 between the ages of 10 and 12 years, unless they prove that they give 
 them sufficient instruction in their homes or in private schools. Those 
 who do not obey this rule shall be admonished by the authorities, and 
 compelled to do so by a fine of from one -half real to 2 reals (3 to 13 
 cents gold at the present rate of exchange !), when there is a school in 
 the town at such a distance that the children can conveniently attend. 
 The fathers and guardians of children may also send them to the 
 schools between the ages of 6 and 14 years.” [Schurman, i, 32.]** 
 
 In praise of these petty pueblo schools, of their curriculum 
 and general proficiency as educational agencies, despite many 
 drawbacks (noticed by Dr. Schurman) on the part of civil— -offi- 
 cial-— intermeddling, we have these testimonials, all from the prose- 
 cution’s own witnesses : 
 
 “In the different provinces there are lawyers and doctors, and pro- 
 fessional men who are very well educated.” [Test, of J. F. McLeod 
 in Schurman , ii, 9.] 
 
 While in answer to the question : “ What proportion of the 
 people of Batangas can read and write ? ” Senor Felipe Gongalez 
 Calderon says : 
 
 ‘ ‘ Seventy-five or eighty per cent. The province is the most cultured in 
 the Archipelago. I have some 600 laborers on my plantation in 
 Batangas, and of these there are certainly not more than twenty who 
 cannot read and write.” [Test, id., ii, 67, 68.] 
 
 28 At Manila houses of ill-fame were officially protected (otherwise licensed) first 
 
 in or about 1888, under Jose Centeno y Garcia, Civil Governor ad interim. (From 
 The Katipunan, or the Rise and Fall of the Filipino Commune. By Francis St. 
 Clair. Manila: Tip. “Amigos del Pais,” Palacio 258. 1902. [Pp. 61,65.]) 
 
 29 In the “school law” printed above the sentence in curved lines (with the 
 exclamation mark) and the italics seem to be Dr. Worcester’s ; the paper in this 
 volume on “ Education” having been compiled by him. 
 
ON RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL MATTERS 3 7 
 
 Even Judge Taft himself, though (as usual) in rather begrudg- 
 ing terms, admits that the Filipinos, 
 
 “as a rule, . . . possess mechanical skill, and they excel in 
 
 writing and drawing. ’ ’ [Taft, 105.] 
 
 Then, too, that 
 
 “the Filipinos are born musicians, and, under normal conditions, 
 buy a good many pianos. ’ ’ [Id. ,61.] 
 
 (In our own Indian schools “ out West,” I wonder whether 
 our aborigines are taught drawing and music? or have they 
 “ many pianos ” in their pueblos ?) 
 
 Enough admissions, we think, that the Philippines had schools, 
 plenty of them, where pupils were taught even fine arts thor- 
 oughly as well as industrial, but above all good behavior, which 
 for colored or white men is all essential for happy life. But had 
 the Commissioners been really in earnest in search for evidence of 
 good school work to add to their reports thereon, that have been 
 by some enthusiasts styled as “complete, elaborate, sound,” 30 
 — evidence, too, of the strongest character throughout all those 
 isles, that was before their very eyes to be seen even yet by all 
 men, though much of it no doubt is now in ruins, they would 
 have described at least briefly the handiwork of those missionary 
 pedagogues and their pueblo alumni to be witnessed in the roads 
 and bridges, in the irrigating and drainage canals, in the swamp 
 and forest lands reclaimed for tillage, in the pueblo churches, and 
 pueblo convents, and pueblo buildings, all erected by those self- 
 same industrious and skilful natives, who, whether slaves and 
 peons, as pictured by romancers, or freemen like our own American 
 
 80 A few months ago we chanced to look over a paper— a kind of semi-political 
 canonization of Judge Taft- — in a prominent periodical {North American [monthly] 
 for September, 1902, pp. 229-308, for “The New Philippine Government,” by 
 Sidney Webster), wherein, with some amazement, because of the unqualified and 
 superlative admiration for the Judge, we read the following eulogies relating to his 
 report, which is styled “ elaborate . . . based on an official examination by 
 Governor {then Commissioner ) Taft . . .” Moreover, that “it is to be relied 
 upon by the country, one would say, as presenting essential facts and sound conclu- 
 sions.” [P. 305.] In view, however, of some other “essential” facts that we 
 have shown have been omitted by that self-same Judge, the writer in question is 
 asked, in all seriousness, whether really he has ever studied Judge Taft’s reports ; 
 or, he will excuse us for adding, did he ever even read them through ? 
 
38 REPORTS OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 
 aborigines (it matters little), were yet taught honest labor, — the 
 elements at least, of useful and beautiful arts, the way to keep to 
 their task, to labor, too, with a sense of nobleness and pride, 
 as shown in their monuments, and (be it emphasized sturdily) 
 their handiwork shows that they learned their business well. 
 
 And evidence of still higher character? Then, too, in all 
 fairness should have been described by our Commissioners the 
 many exemplars of architecture, painting, and sculpture, in 
 Manila, and elsewhere in Cebu and Iloilo, in carving and engrav- 
 ing and chiselling, in dwellings, in town-halls, in church and school- 
 buildings, all tokens of native skilfulness these, due in large meas- 
 ure to the benign and art-loving influence derived from their little 
 pueblo schools through the painstaking energy of their parrocos , 
 officers, guardians of their numerous church, social, and educa- 
 tional guilds. 31 
 
 Yet, if we mistake not, so busy were the Commissioners with 
 their investigations into Church political matters, they failed to 
 recognize these art-grandeurs before their very eyes. For, 
 though the scholarly taste of the Commissioners might not have 
 cared much for mere material beauty, tastiness, skill, their broad 
 judicial spirit, however, should not, we opine, have omitted some 
 brief tribute at least to our ecclesiastical aesthetes in the Philip- 
 pines. 
 
 Thus do we enshrine in our pages another collection of judi- 
 cial lacunae relating to the elevating and ennobling influence in 
 lofty ethical training given in those pueblo schools, working 
 through the agency of religion to develop Christian manliness 
 and womanliness, wherein rightly much is to be admired, nor 
 little, if aught, to be greatly ashamed of. 
 
 But what do the Commissioners mean in saying 
 
 “From the beginning the ( pueblo ) schools were entirely under the 
 supervision of the religious orders. ” [ Taft, 105.] 
 
 When, as any student ol Philippine or Spanish history should 
 know, for the last one hundred years or so, school schedules, 
 
 31 In El Archipielago, by Jesuit scholars, a large work of encyclopaedical charac- 
 ter, published by Government [Washington, 1900], and in Gazetteer (described 
 ahead), we exult in the preservation through photographic views of very many of 
 these monuments of ripe, cultured spirit, some so tasty, so majestic in appearance as 
 to seem to our Western spirit masterpieces in a way of art-genius. 
 
ON RELIGIO US AND ED UCA TIONAL MA TTERS 39 
 
 rules, and programmes, etc., in those islands, the same pretty- 
 much as in the rest of Caucasia, have been tinkered at by theo- 
 rists of various political colors ? 
 
 Or this of Dr. Schurman’s, who, speaking of the weather 
 remarks that 
 
 “it is often quite impossible for small children to attend school 
 on account of their distance from it . . [Schur- 
 
 man, i, 31.] 
 
 Well. In bad weather even in Pennsylvania “small children” 
 (and big ones too) find it “impossible to attend” their own pueblo 
 schools. Are churchmen, therefore, to be blamed for the weather 
 in the Philippines, and the pupils’ non-attendance therefor ? 
 
 Then Dr. Worcester says that 
 
 “The only educational advantages obtainable by the common people 
 of the Archipelago are those afforded by the primary schools. ’ ’ [Schur- 
 man, i, 17.] 
 
 No doubt. Even in our largest cities here in America, what 
 other means of education than their own pueblo common schools 
 has the great mass of white Tagals — the bread-winners of the 
 world in mill, forge, mine and factory ? 
 
 Again we find the Doctor complaining that 
 
 “ the instruction in Spanish was in very many cases purely imagin- 
 ary,” . . . [Id. i, 31.] 
 
 No wonder. It’s just like those bad Katipuneros to make this 
 charge against our mission schools. Still has not Dr. Worcester 
 heard at times that our own civil-service examiners find fault fre- 
 quently with not only our pueblo schools, but institutions even of 
 higher name, for very similar neglect ? 
 
 But let us on to the end of our paper with the words of Judge 
 Taft: 
 
 “ . . . the Philippine people belong to the Roman Catholic Church. ’ ’ 
 l Taft , 23.] 
 
 “The Philippine people love the Catholic Church. ’ ’ [Id., 30.] 
 
 And 
 
 ‘ ‘ As the Catholic Church is and ought to continue a prominent factor 
 in the life, peace, contentment, and progress of the Philippine people, 
 
40 REPORTS OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSIONS 
 
 ... it would seem the wisest course, ... to frame civil laws 
 which shall accord with views conscientiously entertained by Catholics 
 — priests and laymen ...” [Id., 33.] 
 
 Brave words these. Here at least we agree with the Judge, 
 for, as in the past in Malaysia and elsewhere, as attested by the 
 history of mankind, so in the future we heartily believe the only 
 bulwark of law and order will be the Church of our forefathers, 
 that ever has been the promoter of works leading to the higher 
 life- — of virtues, of heroisms, of letters, of sciences, of arts, which 
 find their complement in the fullest and noblest degree in monu- 
 ments of all-round beneficence — in Christian schools, Christian 
 asylums, Christian homes; monuments that in their grandeur and 
 multitude and variety can be witnessed in no other land but 
 Christian, in neither Moslem, Buddhist, nor heathen. 
 
 Final Conclusion. 
 
 To sum up then our conclusions. At the outset of this paper 
 we charged the Philippine Commissioners with prejudice against 
 the defendants. And we attacked their reports on many grounds 
 as faulty for incompleteness, for inaccuracies, for unfairness-— a 
 kind of indictment, if you choose so to style it, that hinges on 
 the twofold ground of faults of omission, faults of commission, 
 in that the Commissioners kept in the background, out of sight, 
 whatever evidence might make for the defendants, while at the 
 same time they admitted — brought forward as evidence whatever 
 would make for the prosecution. 
 
 Are we wrong, therefore, in contending that these reports 
 cannot stand as historical documents on the score of omissions in 
 matters of weighty importance; nor stand as judicial decisions on 
 the score of manifold antagonisms therein against the defendant 
 churchmen, against the evidence itself of the prosecution’s own 
 witnesses, against the evidence, too, of the Commissioners’ own 
 eyes? 
 
 Fr. Thomas C. Middleton, O.S.A. 
 
 Villanova College , Pa. 
 
PAM PHLET BINDER 
 
 - Syracuse, N. Y. 
 
 . Stockton, Calif.