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.

38 INDEPENDENCE CONGRESS PROCEEDINGS

manufacturer sought only to make enough money to enable
him to live on the interest of it or to establish a trust fund for
his family. If he was successful he either entered a cloister or
went to another province in order to pass for a noble. In
Cervantes we find the maxim: "Whoever wishes to make his
fortune seeks the church, the sea, or the king's house." The
highest ambition of the nation in its golden age was to be to
Europe just what the nobility, the clergy, and the army were
to single nations. Consequently there was an enormous preponderance of personal service in the industrial organism, and
much of this was purely for ostentation. Nowhere in the world
were there so many nobles, so many officers, civil and military,
so many lawyers and clerks, priests and monks, so many
students and school-boys, with their servants. But as truly,
nowhere in the world were there so many beggars and vagabonds."
Thus, from the beginning of our contact with Spain, our
leading classes were attracted to the careers highly esteemed by
the Spaniards-the church, the army, the learned professions,
the government. These were the honorific activities, and to
them flocked our ambitious and naturally able men. Trade,
especially of the retail kind, was looked down upon, as good
only for the women and the Chinese. The very prejudice of
the Christian Spanish against the so-called heathen Chinese infected the attitude of the Christianized Filipinos, and all
shunned the alleged lowly occupations of the Chinese.
When we survey, therefore, the achievement of Filipinos we
find that it lies chiefly in the fields to which they have been
for centuries attracted. That they were successful in those
activities which they entered is unquestioned. That they did
not attain success in business is also to be admitted. But that
they can not succeed in business, or that they do not have the
natural ability for business is not necessarily a logical conclusion. All that should be said is that they had not made up
their mind to follow business pursuits.
Filipinos on the other hand, control the field of agriculture.
To that form of industry they have been attracted and in it
they attained success. This was naturally to be expected in