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.

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION

279

the making of products of excellent quality and commercial value, the
system has been efficient in the work it has attempted to a degree probably never surpassed in any country.
Wherein, then, is the system not measuring up to the newer needs of
the present? In summary, it is in the matter of the general education
values, and the values relating to occupational success in the fields
represented by the various forms of technical hand training. Both of
these inadequacies relate, in considerable degree, to the want of direct
relationship of the work to the actual conditions and needs of the particular communities in which the schools are located. Observation in
several hundred classrooms in more than half of the provinces, and the
suggestions of scores of teachers, supervisors, superintendents, and citizens all point to the following as features or facts which call for modifications of policy or changes in the content of particular kinds or
units of the work:
1. The work includes no thought content beyond that involved in
the processes themselves. Children learn almost nothing of the related
body of thought which is so valuable in making them intelligent, in
stimulating them to observe, to think and to read, and to know about
the occupational and industrial needs and opportunities of today.
There is practically no correlation with other school subjects. This
material offers the most natural and valuable basis for the development of vocabulary and freedom of expression in English. Yet pupils
seldom talk of their work or its relationships and many periods are
conducted in almost total silence. The work seems to be simply the
manipulative execution of the design or plan of the work given to the
pupil with all thought phases eliminated. There is a vast difference
between learning by doing and doing without learning from it.
2. The work provides for no initiative or originality whatsoever on
the part of pupils or teachers, since the designs or plans and specifications of articles made are prescribed in great detail. The pupil must
always follow the thoughts of others and never exercise any of that
educational virtue called "self-expression." Instead of stimulating and
rewarding original thinking by the pupil or teacher, the system tends
to penalize it. To be sure, the Bureau of Education does provide for
the design and development of new products. But perfecting a design
to a degree that makes it satisfactory on a commercial basis is a slow
process, and a teacher who attempts such work with pupils endangers
the passing of these pupils in the subject.
3. There is very little work of the illustrative type included-constructions illustrating the activities of the child's environment. Miniature plows, harrows, boats, fish traps, and other articles were
occasionally seen in schoolrooms, but we were told that these had been