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.

SECONDARY EDUCATION

317

there are brought together in the same grade pupils of widely different
ages and different degrees of maturity.
The explanation of this greater age of the Filipino pupil is simple.
Children do not enter the elementary school at as early an age as in
the United States and in other countries generally. In order to accommodate the older children who, because of the inaccessibility of
schools, economic necessity, or the neglect of parents, have been denied
educational opportunities, the Bureau of Education has followed
the policy of discouraging the attendance of children under seven. In
some provinces the tradition is even being developed that boys and
girls should not attend school before reaching the age of eight years.
Irregular attendance and nonpromotion during the elementary-school
period are also important factors in accounting for the advanced age of
the high-school population. But the general aspects of this problem
are treated elsewhere in this report. It is our task here merely to point
out its special significance for secondary education.
Undoubtedly the problem of instruction is made more difficult by
the heterogeneity in maturity of the present high-school population.
If class instruction is to be effective, the group under instruction must be
fairly homogeneous in both ability and attainments. Under present condition, even with the admirable scheme of classification now in practice,
to secure these desirable conditions is practically impossible. Moreover, secondary education is ordinarily regarded as education for the
adolescent and is supposedly adapted to this age. The older age of
the Filipino pupil is seen to be of yet greater significance, therefore,
when it is recalled that the child of the southern races matures more
rapidly physiologically than does the child of northern stock. The
pupils in the high school in the Philippines, in comparison with their
brothers and sisters in the American schools, are relatively mature
men and women.
There is an economic phase to this problem, however, that is perhaps of yet more importance. In a country like the Philippines,
where the chief industry is agriculture, and where both the birth rate
and the death rate are high, the economic burden imposed upon society
by providing educational opportunities for young men and women of the
ages found in the high schools is by no means measured by the actual
outlays for secondary education. In such a society the individual
becomes economically productive at a relatively early age and the
ratio of children to older persons is relatively high. The magnitude
of the economic burden entailed by providing several years of leisure
at the advanced ages of the present high-school enrollment is patent.
These young people are being drawn into the school at an economically
productive age.