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.

620 EDUCATIONAL SURVEY OF THE PHILIPPINES

America about the advanced age at which students commence their
productive labors, there is still greater cause in the Philippines.
As a matter of fact, the change to the four-year basis has had little
effect upon the real functions of the College of Liberal Arts. Of the
925 students enrolled in the college in 1924-25, 703 or 76 per cent
were in the first two years, and of these 703, 357 or 50 per cent go no
further in the College of Liberal Arts. This indicates the chief raison
d'etre of the college. It is primarily devoted to preparing students to
undertake professional work in law, medicine, and commerce, which
requires two years of the liberal-arts course. Comparatively few of its
students are enrolled in the general-culture course. This condition of
things is not to be deplored. It enables the college to render the people
of the Philippines a real service, for the great need of the Islands is not
for more persons with a general-culture education but for a large number
of individual specifically trained for some definite job. The Commission
does not by any means suggest that the college discontinue its generalculture courses in the junior and senior years. Quite the contrary is
desired. But it does recommend that great effort be concentrated on
better teaching of the fundamental courses of the first two years. This
becomes of greater significance if the Commission's recommendation that
the work of the first two years of the College of Education be turned
over to the College of Liberal Arts. Such a policy will mean not
merely concentrating upon, but doing more intensive work in, the more
fundamental courses. In the University catalog under the Department of
Geography we find a course named Geography 3, Relations of History,
and Geography. "It is a general survey of the influence of physiographic
features on the migration of man, on language, on war, and on all
other human movements that have influenced the history of nations, etc."
Another course, Geography 6, Principles of Human Geography, reads:
"The course aims to set forth the principles of geography in its human
aspects; that is, the relation of the physiographic environment to man's
activities, etc." Each of these courses carries three credits, yet, without
doubt there must be considerable duplication. In economics we find
courses respectively on General Economic Development, Economic Development of the Philippines, Economic Development of the Orient,
Economic Development of the United States, each carrying three credits
toward a degree. Surely there is unnecessary diffusion here. And
these are not isolated instances.
Several of the observations made with reference to the University
generally apply particularly to the College of Liberal Arts. The Commission is of the belief that it has allowed itself to grow too rapidlyto outrun its resources. The enrollment for the scholastic year 1923-24
was 40 per cent greater than that of 1922-23 whereas the appropria