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.

PRIVATE SCHOOLS

507

colleges. They will be treated in that order and recommendations then
made with reference to their supervision.
PRIVATE-ADVENTURE SCHOOLS
There is no law or regulation in the Philippine Islands today to
prevent a person, however disqualified by ignorance, greed, or even
immoral character, from opening a school to teach the young. It is true
that in order to post over the door "Recognized by the Government,"
a private adventure school must first be inspected by the proper Government official, but a refusal to grant such recognition does not by any
means result in such a school ceasing to exist. As a matter of fact,
there are more such nonrecognized private schools than of the recognized
variety. How many, no one knows, as the Division of Private Schools
keeps records only of the recognized type. The following statement
has to do only with the "recognized" private schools. The Commission
is glad to report that it visited some such schools where it found conditions equal to those of good public schools. Unfortunately, they were
so few in number that the statements which follow must be accepted
as applying to the great mass of these schools.
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.-These schools seldom own the buildings
in which they are situated and hence are found in rented buildings or
rooms. As practically all of them are operated for profit, little attention
is paid to the sanitary and hygienic condition of the physical plant.
The rooms were usually crowded, badly ventilated, ill-lighted and
almost always unprovided with adequate toilet accommodations. These
schools are supposed to follow the course of study of the public schools,
but practically everything except the straight academic work is omitted,
such as industrial work, school gardens, and physical training other
than calisthenics.
Because of lack of supervision, the time allowance for subjects as prescribed by the Bureau of Education is not always followed. As those
in control showed little knowledge of the modern science of education,
it was not surprising to find some of its simplest principles violated.
Periods devoted to the fundamental school subjects were often found
late in the day when small children are tired. Some of the classes
were very large, few of the teachers show any familiarity with other
than antiquated methods of teaching. The textbooks were nearly
always old and uninteresting and violated every characteristic of a
good modern textbook. Most of these private elementary schools were
pathetic affairs.
SECONDARY SCHOOLS.-Everything stated above with reference to
the bad physical surrounding of the elementary schools applies with
still greater force to the secondary schools. These appear to be largely