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.

368 EDUCATIONAL SURVEY OF THE PHILIPPINES

become lawyers, doctors, and scientists, but rather to provide the training upon which entrance into the profession is dependent. If the standards of work maintained are not high, the masses of the people are
the eventual victims. The welfare of the general population consequently requires the adoption of one policy in the case of the rural
school and a directly opposite policy in the case of the academic school.
The relatively low standards of work now maintained in the regular
high school may be traced largely to a failure to define clearly its purposes. The whole matter is somewhat obscured by the application of
the term "general" to the academic course. This designation is a
misnomer; it does not fit the facts. One might expect a general course
to possess a curriculum which would reflect all the great human interests
and generate a bias toward no special group of occupations. But the
most casual inspection of this curriculum shows it to be wholly academic; and all the available evidence indicates that the regular high
school points towards the clerical, official, and professional callings.
Flowing from this vagueness of purpose and the circumstances which
have conditioned the development of secondary education in the Islands,
certain practices have arisen which make it impossible in the present
regular high school to maintain rigorous standards of achievement.
These practices have to do with almost all phases of school management, instruction, and administration. They include procedures with
regard to the selection, classification and promotion of pupils, the size
of classes and the adaptation of instruction to individual differences, the
organization of the curriculum, the teaching equipment and library
facilities, the methods of teaching, the training, compensation and tenure
of teachers, and the general administration of secondary education.
SELECTION OF PUPILS
The fundamental handicap under which the present secondary school
labors in performing the function of the academic high school is its unselected pupil population. With very few exceptions any intermediateschool graduate is permitted to enroll in the general course of the high
school. Owing to the strength and prestige of the academic tradition
in the Philippines, the result has been the crowding of this curriculum
by boys and girls from the lower school. As a consequence, there are
pupils pursuing the academic subjects whose only qualification for the
severe training required is the desire to become a lawyer, physician, or
engineer. Thus, while the curricula which point to the professions are
overcrowded those which prepare for the other great vocations are
unattended.
The enrollment at the academic school should be restricted for two
reasons. In the first place, as we have indicated again and again in