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.

654 EDUCATIONAL SURVEY OF THE PHILIPPINES

be considerably higher. Probably in no other university in Europe or
America could the age statistics of the University of the Philippines
be duplicated. It is a great advantage to have a strong body of
young teachers in any university but especially in a young institution
maturity and experience are of primary importance.
A second result of the displacement mentioned above has been the
great inbreeding that has accompanied it. Three quarters of the teaching staff of the University of the grade of assistant and above (assistants
nearly all became instructors) are graduates of the University. Every
university will necessarily have many alumni among its teaching staff
to maintain continuity of policy and tradition, but a wise administration
will incorporate a sufficient number of nonalumni to bring different
views upon questions of curriculum, instruction, and administration. It is
true that the evil effects of inbreeding are to a great extent overcome in
the University of the Philippines by the excellent practice already discussed, viz: the practice of sending some of the best young instructors to
do graduate work in the universities of the United States. Nevertheless,
to the Commission the wisdom of filling a larger number of vacancies
and new positions with teachers of experience and maturity from the
United States and foreign countries, is quite obvious. The administration of such a policy is expensive, but the Commission believes it to be
sound.
The comparative youth of the teaching staff is no doubt also the
explanation of its relative sterility in scholarly productivity. The answers to the questionnaire devoted to discovering the number of articles
of a research character published by the instructors would have been
discouraging but for the fact that a faculty which is 82 per cent below
40 years of age has hardly had time to do a great deal in the field of
research. However, one reasonable conclusion is that the University
should not consider the establishment of a graduate school until a larger
number of the teaching staff manifest greater power of scholarly productivity. The Commission would not be understood as maintaining
the position that continual publication is an essential in determining the
usefulness of a member of the faculty. Many of the best teachers in
the universities of the United States have devoted little or no time to
research. And inspiring teachers are so few in any institution that it
would be a misfortune to turn such a one into a possibly poor research
scholar merely to add to the prestige of an institution in the field of
research. But the University of the Philippines compares badly in this
respect with other universities and the Government owes to its citizens

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