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 35

Filipino division superintendent submitted among those called for from
all division superintendents that the entire passage is quoted:
It cannot be denied that the progress of the Philippine schools during the past
twenty years is unparalleled in the history of the Orient. In the old days, when there
was need for employing all available materials in order to extend education in the
remotest center of the Philippines, the country felt that the opening of schools would be
instrumental in the spiritual, mental, and economical development of the masses. To a
certain extent the schools have so succeeded in developing love and interest in education
that there is hardly a place in the Philippines where the opening of schools is not welcome to the people. Conditions, however, have so changed that education itself becomes
a problem, and who knows but a menace to our progress and civilization.
Year by year thousands graduate from the elementary and secondary schools. The
majority of these graduates are anxious to be employed either as clerks or as teachers.
In spite of their training in industrial work they have no love for work or for agriculture.
It is the tendency of these graduates to seek employment in the offices. If this present
tendency of public-school pupils is not curtailed, time will come when the greatest evil
of our present educational system will be the production and creation of social parasites.
It seems as if it is now time that a definite policy be adopted or be embodied in our
present educational aim, in order to remedy the evil to which our present graduates are
inclined to follow. In this connection, it may not be out of place to suggest that vocational schools and industrial centers be established in different provinces.
The members of the Board hold exactly this view. The present
system of secondary schools, almost exclusively of an academic character
and not well adapted to Philippine society, is developing a far larger
class of the purely academically trained than can be absorbed. If the
present system of unlimited and free secondary education of a purely
academic character continues, the results will be great social and political discontent as well as economic loss. So large a class academically
trained in a population of 11,000,000 almost wholly agricultural in its
basic industry and native wealth, cannot possibly find employment in
the ordinary professions and the Government offices without at the same
time reducing the great mass of the people to a condition of exploitation
wholly contradictory to Philippine ambitions and ideals. If dissatisfaction of exploited classes does not arise, the discontent of the large academically educated class, for which there is no reasonable support and
no normal occupation, will undoubtedly result. Provided the child remains long enough in attendance a practical social type of education
has been quite successfully achieved in the elementary school. In the
secondary stage of education the problem becomes acute.
The argument that the existing high-school course is strictly that of
the American secondary school does not apply. Even so, in the United
States it is only one of many alternative courses. Of the huge enrollment in the high schools in the United States, more than 33 per cent
are in commercial courses. There is no such development in the Philippines and no immediate possibility thereof. The basal wealth and