A survey of the educational system of the Philippine islands by the Board of educational survey, created under acts 3162 and 3196 of the Philippine Legislature.

MEASUREMENT OF INSTRUCTION

135

tors are convinced that even American children, surrounded constantly
by English, on leaving school at the end of the sixth, seventh, or eighth
grades, have insufficient skill in meaningful reading. A vigorous campaign has been conducted for many years to improve the product of
reading instruction in the United States. Members of this Commission
are among the most ardent protagonists of this condemnation of American standards. Comparisons of Filipino and American attainments are
made, therefore, with the judgment that the American standards in reading are lower than they really ought to be. Filipino results are being
compared with a confessedly poor product from American schools,
typical though that product is of the rank and file of schools in the
United States.
We come back, therefore, to the comparative achievements of the
two school systems. What kind of reading matter can Filipino children
on leaving school read in English? If the reader will examine the tests
reproduced in the appendix examples will make the matter clear.
The illustrations drive home the outstanding conclusion from the
measurement of language instruction. The reading ability developed
in the schools is very deficient. Whether it promises reading skill for
adult life is doubtful. The primary grades of Philippine schools lag
two years behind corresponding grades in American schools.
The conclusion has tremendous import. Reading ability equal to
that of a typical American second-grade child cannot be regarded as
efficient reading skill. On leaving school, more than 99 per cent of
Filipinos will not speak English in their homes. Probably not more
than 10 or 15 per cent of the coming generation will use it in their
occupations. In fact only the clerical, professional, educational, and
governmental employees will so use it. These conditions suggest that
such reading skill, as has been perfected in the school, will soon disappear.
Under such hampering conditions of disuse, if possible, the standard
of attainment should actually be raised to a higher level in the Philippines than in America. Instead, it lags years behind. American children, it must be remembered, live in English-speaking homes. Daily
they are surrounded by a reading environment that is utterly unlike the
home situation of most Filipinos. The great body of Filipinos read
nothing, neither in English, in Spanish, nor in the various dialects. The
combined circulations of all daily and weekly newspapers and magazines substantiate this conclusion. In fact, most teachers read relatively
little. Certainly not more than two or three per cent of the people of the
Philippines, most of whom are concentrated in three or four large cities,
continue to read English after leaving school.