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

205

things which the very same foreigners admire, will be relegated
to the second or last place and in its position will substitute
another with elements which, in the form of a disguise, will
hide what little we have left which distinguish us from the
rest, converting ourselves in this way into mere talking manikins, deprived of proper impulse and, hence, of originality,
soul and irreplaceable elements destined to the perfecting of
man, elevating him to the serene heights of beauty to make
him forget if only for a minute his pains and miseries during
his pilgrimage in this world.
Transformed in this sense, the psychology of the Filipinos
and, consequently of the whole Filipino nation, we can easily
figure out the value of the atmosphere formed by the society
which is a natural product of such a change. All that is
produced in the bosom of such atmosphere, amplifying what
has already been stated above, will be of no importance to our
wishes of improvement. And in the sectors' of the esthetic
character of the nation, ours, the influence of said atmosphere
would be of worse and fatal results; for then, from the basis
of the ideal building of the future national art which we
are now beginning to construct will be seen abandoned and
finally covered up and disappearing under the action of our
inconsistent and changeable character. This is the sole and
enormous danger which will prevent the realization of our
legitimate desires of having a national art easily conjurable
if we make use of an element whose wonderful spiritual
transformative and acquisitive power has worked and will
work miracles forever, for the benefit of humanity. I refer
to the education of the will and the character.
The most distinguished arts, those that have learned to express in a superior form the significant epochs of humanity as
well as the ideas, the dreams, and loves of a country, of a
race, or nation, had their origin in the bosom of a free and
independent community. Were it not for these circumstances,
Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and even Greece itself would
not have been able to bequeath to the world the leaping mass
of artistic works which has glorified the past generations and
up to the present it continues giving actually sweet and deli