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.

24 EDUCATIONAL SURVEY OF THE PHILIPPINES

mination of the language of instruction; second, provision for an adequately trained teaching staff; third, the extension of the facilities for
education; fourth, the practical adaptation of education to the needs of
the Philippine people.
THE LANGUAGE PROBLEM
The educational problem of the Philippines has one unique aspect;
namely, that of the language of instruction.
The outlines of the problem may be seen from a brief statement of
the linguistic situation. The Census of 1918 recognizes six large linguistic
groups. The smallest of these includes more than 339,000 people,
and the largest 1,850,000. Scientists define forty-three distinct linguistic groups and eighty-seven dialect groups. Nowhere else in the world
is found a racially homogenous people numbering no more than
12,000,000, operating a large public-school system, and having a
language situation anything like as complex or as difficult of solution.
There does not exist another educational situation just like it.
Various European countries face the problem of educating their peoples
in two or more languages, either collectively or in specialized groups.
Switzerland, Belgium, the component parts of the former Austrian Empire, each has a school system which teaches different sections of the
population in different languages. But these are the languages native
to the people. Russia, Germany, Poland, Italy, compel or have com-
pelled the education of large sections of their population in languages
which were not native; but the native tongues of all these peoples were
uniform among the social groups, and possessed a large cultural literature
and background, all of which were usually maintained through a private system of schools or through home education.
The Philippine situation is unique in three respects: First, in place
of one language, there are numerous dialects. Second, there seems to be
no immediate prospect of any one of the local dialects becoming supreme
or driving out the other dialects. Third, there is little or no tendency
toward building up a common language through a fusion of all or several
of the dialects. Such a tendency may appear in time; but if so,
several generations must elapse before one language can be produced.
There exists in no one of the local dialects any great amount of cultural
literature. If this be a debatable statement, at least it may be affirmed
that there now exists in none of them a sufficient amount of teachable
material to form the basis of a school system. To provide a sufficient
amount for the primary grades would perhaps be possible in a few
years time. But there would still be wanting the great amount of
supplementary material from which the child gets most of his education.
Furthermore, the use of the dialects would doom the child to a narrow
environment which in most cases would restrict his thought and his life.