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.

BOARD OF EDUCATIONAL SURVEY REPORT

27

the suggestion made by a society founded for the purpose of making
Tagalog the national language is clearly beyond the province of the
Board. Such a step should be taken by the Filipino people themselves
and only with a clear knowledge of the consequences involved. If it
comes about as a gradual and social process the presence of the dominant
dialect in the schools will be found long before the ultimate stage is
reached. If conditions change, a revision of this judgment is not precluded; the present opinion is formulated upon the basis of conditions
as they are.
One particular respect in which such a use of vernaculars would
affect education will illustrate the entire argument. At present teachers
and school administrators are transferred freely from one part of the
Islands to another. There is a great intermixture of Tagalog and
Ilocano teachers in the Visayan and other Southern provinces; and of
Visayan and Bicol teachers in the north. This situation is of very
great advantage to all teachers. Any other policy would greatly restrict opportunity for advancement and for obtaining wide experience.
Especially would a dialect policy work hardship on the teachers and
administrators drawn from the small dialect groups. There are many
such teachers in the system; many among the most efficient of the
personnel.
This intermingling of the school staff among peoples of other regions
and dialects is one of the most important social forces making for
progress and for the ultimatec-ocial and political unity of the Islands.
The social unity that can be thus developed underlies all other
unities. The process that goes on among the teachers goes on in
a similar though less thorough way among the pupils, and still less
thoroughly in the community at large. The use of the dialects would
restrict a pupil of the schools to the region of his own dialect. For the
large majority of the children in the Islands, this would curtail their
opportunities that, in innumerable ways, are now being opened up for
them in the thought world as well as the economic, political, and social
world.
Furthermore, in view of the difficulties of teacher training, textbook
preparation, creation of cultural materials, organization of supplementary
materials, and many related problems the administration of a system
of schools in many dialects or even in several would be so complicated
as to be impracticable. The cost of such a system would be much
greater than that of the present. The efficiency and practicability of
the present system which have resulted so largely from a highly centralized administration would be quite impossible.
There remains one other suggested solution of the problem-the
possibility of a common Philippine language made by a fusion of the