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.

282 EDUCATIONAL SURVEY OF THE PHILIPPINES

scribed more for the sake of the commercial worth of products than for
the educational and training values to be derived from it. No reasonable objection can be advanced against the sale of industrial products.
But when they are produced in order to be sold, the educational purpose is left largely out of account. When the time consumed in
making an article is over fifty hours and its market value is 20 centavos,
it certainly represents a kind of work which one would hardly expect
to follow in making a living. After a boy has become expert in
making baskets and finds that there is no demand for the kind of
baskets he makes in his community and no way of getting his baskets
into a market after he leaves school, he and his family and neighbors
are bound to become skeptical of the wisdom of his having learned to
make kinds of baskets which he cannot sell outside the sales department of the school. The whole problem of the kind of industrial work
prescribed and the commercial disposition of the products through the
sales department of the Bureau of Education seem to be bound up
together. Ought not the industrial work of the schools to be of the
kinds that will turn out products locally usable and salable, or which
may be disposed of in a more remote market by means readily within
the reach of the producer? That the type of work resulting in products locally consumed is feasible, and satisfactory among those who
are engaging in it, is evidenced by the following facts summarized from
the Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Director of Education:
Pupils taking gardening in the schools increased in number from
109,388 in 1917-18 to 188,670 in 1922-23, and the value of products
from P221,709.10 to P846,314.73 in the same period. In 1922-23
there were reported 164,916 home gardens. For that year there
were over 1,500 garden-day celebrations and exhibits at which
350,723 pupils and 39,114 farmers exhibited products. There were
2,511 agricultural clubs having products valued at over P381,000.
To the people were distributed 312,772 trees and plants by 3,046
school nurseries, while the children from the schools planted at their
homes 1,043,189 trees and plants.
All of this work is in direct harmony with the fundamental economic
conditions of the Islands and the needs of the people. The Bureau
of Education is commended for this achievement and is encouraged
to continue in its further development. It is clearly possible to carry
on highly profitable kinds of industrial work not requiring the stimulus
of a distant or foreign market. The wealth of this country lies in its
soils, and the economic well-being of the people is dependent upon
the intelligent development of soil products and the industries for which
they provide the materials.