l arrayed in white. Not all of them are saints,
however. The white is purely external and compulsory. Heat is a great
leveler, and we are nearing the equator. When we approached Manila we
were in the tail of a typhoon, but the danger was past. Indeed, since we
left San Francisco, we have encountered no storm, have had only smooth
seas, and have witnessed continually what AEschylus called "the
innumerable laughter of the ocean waves."

It was pleasant to perceive that American enterprise and administration
have transformed Manila, the capital of the Philippine Islands, from a
medieval into a modern city. Its newly constructed streets and
pavements, water-works and drainage, electricity and the trolley, have
turned this old and dilapidated Spanish town into a place of order and
beauty. Its parks and gardens, its municipal buildings and hospitals,
are an object-lesson to all beholders. The walls of the fort still
remain, but the moat has been filled up. The Roman Catholic Cathedral
shows the large designs of a former priesthood to capture the people by
architecture and ceremonial. But Protestant churches, missions, and
schools, are coming to have the first place in popular esteem. The
former palace of the Spanish governor is now the meeting-place of the
democratic legislature, and the Jones Bill, recently passed by our
Congress, but now locally known as "the Bill Jones," has given hopes of
a complete and speedy Filipino independence.

Our observation of the place, and our intercourse with residents of
Manila, lead us to doubt the wisdom of our immediate relinquishment of
authority over these islands. Eager as are the Filipino leaders for
self-government, they have not yet learned the art of self-restraint.
The recent trouble in the great hospital illustrates this. Its American
superintendent has resigned his office, for the reason that his Filipino
staff and subordinates conspired to make discipline and sanitary
regulations impossible. They desired to manage the institution
themselves, when they were incompetent to enforce cleanliness and order.
What happens in hospital work happens also in all branches of civil
administration. It will take a whole generation to raise up officials
who can be trusted to do their work for the public good, rather than to
provide comfortable and remunerative positions for themselves.

We visited the spot, five miles away, where our American troops, under
Admiral Dewey, landed to besiege the