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.

188 INDEPENDENCE CONGRESS PROCEEDINGS

but because of the weight of circumstances. The patterns of
our education from the lowest grade to the most advanced have
been cut by foreign preceptors. There would unquestionably
be a broad field for betterment and adjustment in this respect
which would look forward to the adaptation of instruction
to the national ideals and aspirations and to our historical
background.
We have to prepare our youth not only for professions but
also for the civil service, the national defense and the diplomatic relations. Materials which are of little importance now
in our course of study because of our dependent status would
increase in weight with the change of situation. For instance,
all courses pertaining to tariffs, immigration, monetary systems,
disposal of public lands and mines which by the nature of our
relations with the United States are of secondary interest at
present would come to the front of our educational problems.
The problem of the development of our natural resources
to satisfy the new additional demands of an independent state
would require emphasis in those professions directly related in
propelling the economic progress. The branches of industrial
and mining engineering and the technical courses in agriculture
need to be created or reenforced, for everywhere those who
have embraced these callings have been in the vanguard of
material progress in their countries. But the most salient phase
in which there can never be overemphasis enough is to give new
direction to our mentality making it more scientific, more sensible to the realities and not to the abstractions of life and less
afraid of the new changes. It is not the mentality that never
changes which progresses but it is the opposite way. I sincerely believe and I have repeated this many times that our
salvation does not consist in keeping our minds shut to the
spirit of the age considering it as something exotic or foreign
that it would be unworthy for us to take and assimilate but
in absorbing and assimilating whatever elements of culture we
can draw out, of the experience of other people to enrich and
enlarge with it our cultural and spiritual inheritance.
There is nothing I believe more suicidal for our country
than to pretend to be content with the stock of knowledge of