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.

554 EDUCATIONAL SURVEY OF THE PHILIPPINES

as to whether the pension system may be changed to their serious disadvantage. They are fearful that if they do not leave soon, they may
not be allowed a favorable pension arrangement. If they had stayed
in the States, they would now be earning far more than they can secure
here. But they are now so out of the current in the States that they
hesitate to return to a situation with which they have been long out
of touch. The prospect of having to go back with a low salary and
possibly no appreciable pension from the Philippines produces a mental
attitude that is very bad for the hundreds of thousands of Filipino
children under them. These American superintendents are too few in
number for any personal discomfort on their part to have much weight.
But there is in many of them an administrative power that could not
be secured with several times the expenditure on new men, and possibly
not at all by any expenditure however large. Every effort should be
made to keep them contented and productive in the ten or fifteen years
of highly effective service of which many of them are capable. If
these men are driven out quickly by low salaries and fear for the
future, it will be an educational offense against the Filipino children.
3. Is the school administrator in the Philippines who falls into the
inevitable local difficulties on professional matters, thru no fault of his
own, certain to be promptly cared for by the central administration?
The answer is "yes," in general, but with occasional notable exceptions.
No man in the Philippine public-school system who has troubles
in professional matters because of any remediable fault of his own
receives less than fair treatment. He is certain to be transferred without prejudice and without loss of salary to a new locality and given
every opportunity and encouragement to start again under more favorable conditions. In this respect, the Philippines are far ahead of the
American practice where the central state department is frequently
powerless to help a deserving man who has trouble in one locality to
start anew in another place. Morever, the transfer custom is so strongly
entrenched in the Bureau of Education that even men personally at
fault are given another chance and often do much better by reason of
the lesson learned through mistakes in a former situation. In its efforts
to correct social situations which interfere with teachers' and administrators' success, the Bureau has been less active. Teachers have been
transferred who might better have been left in positions in which they
have had trouble with students or local groups, and the backing of the
whole Government force brought to bear upon the situation if necessary
to correct it.
4. Does school work in the Philippines offer sure and steady professional growth to the administrator? The answer to this under