Proceedings of the first Independence congress : held in the city of Manila, Philippine islands, February 22-26, 1930 / Published under the direction of Dean maximo M. Kalaw, executive secretary, University of the Philippines.

EDUCATIONAL SECTION

161

There is in the study of the psychology of the countries
an incontrovertible principle consisting in that they, like the
individuals, are endowed with conscious substantiveness and possess also the faculties of thinking, feeling, and willing.
The philosophy of Nature, the history of the races and
countries from the very primitive to the most modern, and the
individual experience of every one, credit the language with
the great merit of being thus, in the individual as well as in
the group, the most perfect invention for the expression of
thought, of the sentiment, and of the will, being besides the
most copious gift which gives soul to human sociability.
More than the color of the skin, the encephalic measure, the
dress, the folk-lore, or any other basis or means of investigation
to classify the diverse species of human beings, the language
offers to the sociologist the most finished instrument with
which he can discover the real origin and the' most salient
characteristics of a race. It is the means which furnishes the
most unequivocal data to know the genesis, the course and
actual grade of a country's civilization. It is, finally, the most
inexhaustible patrimony of ideas and sentiments which give
faith to the existence and the future of a nation.
Among Filipinos and before an august assembly like this,
integrated by all of the most representative elements of the
Archipelago, and assembled, in order that, in a solemn and
categorical manner, it may again be proclaimed the existence
in our land of unanimous thinking and of collective feeling
in favor of the complete restoration of its own sovereignty; in
a convention, I repeat, very genuinely Philippine, as the present, it seems very logical and adequate that we make use of
our own means of expression as advised by the doctrines which
we have quoted, in order to follow our traditional nationalism
and in order not to act against the counsels of the Great Leader
of our emancipation.
Unfortunately three centuries and a third of Spanish domination and a third of a century of American sovereignty have
fostered in various ways the confusion, giving place to a small
Babylon, and the mutual indifference, as if treating of antagonistic and irreconcilable elements among our vernacular