The people of the Philippines, their religious progress and preparation for spiritual leadership in the Far East,

338 THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES

who hear the call of the ministry. Happily self-support promises to give men all the salary they deserve, and when this is
generally understood the economic barrier to the career of the
ministry will be less formidable.
The second method of recruiting better trained men for
the ministry is to carry on an organized campaign of education. This the Student Volunteer Band has started to do,
and its activities are constantly increasing. Especially is it
trying, through literature and through personal efforts in several leading schools, to aid fine Christian men to see a vision
of the limitless possibilities of the ministry. Men have seen
in this profession only subserviency to foreigners, like that
which so repelled the Filipino Catholic clergy in Spanish times.
The Volunteer Band literature is revealing to the young students the fact that foreign missionaries are eager to hand
over their powers to competent Filipinos, and that there is
the greatest need for men of ability as leaders. Already men
with fine potentialities for leadership are responding to this
appeal.
The third thing necessary is the provision of schools which
shall provide the highest possible grade of theological training. Men of the mettle now needed will not rest satisfied
with less preparation for their careers than men receive who
prepare for law or medicine or education. They demand that
they shall be as well trained as the American missionariesand if they do not demand this they are not of the best material. The only school which as yet offers training of university standards is Union Theological Seminary in Manila. The
faculty is as good as any in the Philippines and the course will
be raised to that of the best seminaries in America within a
few more years. The Bible training schools in Silliman,
Iloilo and Laoag are as yet trying to meet the need only for
the less thoroughly prepared pastors.2
'Mr. E. K. Higdon of the Disciples Mission sent a questionnaire to each
mission in 192I and received replies which he epitomizes thus:
x. None have sufficient ministerial supply; some report only one fourth of
what they need.
2. All excepting Congregational Mission report some tendency to leave
ministry for other employment.
3. Salaries range from pesos I2 to pesos 70; for full time men, and a few
even higher. On the whole higher in the south. The average north of Manila