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

387

language, the weakness here may also be traced to insufficient command of English. One can neither formulate nor understand a question
calling for careful thinking, if one is not at home in the language in
which the discourse is conducted.
Rather closely related to the stimulation of thought is the development of initiative. In only four of the 125 classes observed did the
pupils bear any responsibility in the conduct of the recitation, in only
four classrooms did one pupil question another. The recitation, except
in these few instances, always proceeded between the teacher and the
pupil. The teacher was always in the foreground directing the course
of events; the pupils were always responding to the stimulus of the
teacher and never initiating action. While it is obviously quite impossible for the teacher to abdicate his office and turn the classroom over
to the pupils, it is possible for him to bring the pupils into the recitation
more fully and get them to feel a certain measure of responsibility in
its conduct.
A final defect in the methods of teaching remains to be considered.
In much of the instruction observed there was a failure to relate the new
ideas to the experience of the pupil. Because of the relatively unsatisfactory character of the materials of instruction, this is an especially
common weakness in the Filipino high school. In the discussion of the
curriculum the observation was made again and again that textbooks
were in use which failed to reflect Philippine conditions. A curriculum
adapted to American life has been imported into the Islands. Thus, a
danger which is always present in the schoolroom is found in double
measure here. Unless the teacher is ever watchful, the school experience
of the pupil will fail to articulate with the rest of his experience. He
will live in two worlds and the one will be dissociated from the other.
A defect in instruction which may be regarded as outside the immediate field of methods of teaching, but which is of very large importance,
should receive passing mention. Those who visited the high schools
observed practically no effort to develop in the pupils good habits of
work and study. Without question the acquisition of these habits,
whether good or bad, is one of the most permanent of the possessions
given the pupil by the school. Under the existing classroom procedure,
it is apparently assumed that, if the pupil masters the assignment, he
will in the process acquire desirable habits of study. This, however, is
a false assumption. But if it were true, the teacher would hardly be
justified in leaving the achievement of this important objective to the
mercies of untutored learning. Some effort should therefore be made
to introduce the supervision of study into the high school. But care
must be taken lest enthusiasm for a new method result in giving birth
to the form before the spirit is ready. The supervision of study, if it is