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.

622 EDUCATIONAL SURVEY OF THE PHILIPPINES

make several changes in transportation. Moreover, living expenses at
Manila are higher than anywhere else in the Islands. The result is
that only students of means can attend the University, and many promising students of excellent attainments are deprived of a higher education because of their poverty. The system, therefore, is undemocratic.
This analysis of the situation, provided the facts lend it support, is very
plausible. In conformity with that view, the Junior College was established at Cebu in 1918 and the Legislature authorized the establishment
of another branch of the University at Vigan in 1921. However, as the
Legislature failed to provide funds for that branch, nothing has been done
concerning its establishment.
Such legislation brings us to the crucial question; namely, the question of funds. Aside from the wisdom of the policy adopted, was the
establishment of the Junior College at Cebu another instance of allowing ambition, however worthy, to outrun resources? The college at
Cebu has had a slow growth of from 20 students and 4 teachers in
1918 to 156 students and 17 teachers in 1925. How many of these
students come from outside the Island of Cebu, the Commission has not
the date to enable it to say. But the University authorities did provide
a chart "Geographical distribution of students by attendance" giving
the home districts of the students attending the University at Manila in
1922. According to this chart in that year more Cebuan students attended the University at Manila than at Cebu and many times more
students came from the Southern Islands to Manila than were enrolled
in the branch at Cebu. It is still so.
Perhaps enough time has not elapsed to justify an opinion as to the
need of this southern branch of the University. Perhaps there are other
reasons for its slow and costly growth. A visit to the college by a
member of the Commission disclosed that the college had no site nor
building of its own but was housed in a rented building of very inadequate proportions. Only four rooms are available for class work.
There are no rooms suitable for the laboratories which are, incidentally,
very poorly supplied with apparatus and equipment. The inadequate
library is crowded in one small room which cannot accommodate 20 students at once. Until last year, an inferior teaching personnel was provided. These conditions produced disastrous results in the examinations,
and the Board of Regents ordered the discontinuance of certain courses
in 1924. As organized today and in view of the poor scholastic results
obtained so far, with 17 teachers for 156 students or one teacher for
every 9 students, maintained at an expenditure for this year of P67,600
or P434 per student, the Junior College at Cebu is a luxury. Whether