orld. I once complimented a class in Capiz on the ease with
which they sang four-part music, and said, what I truly feel, that
the Filipinos are a people of unusual musical ability. They managed
to extract from the compliment the idea that the musical development
of the Filipinos is far in advance of that of the Americans.

Middle-class Filipinos have a very inadequate conception of the
tremendous wealth of artistic, literary, and musical talent interwoven
with the world's development, and are especially inclined to pride
themselves upon their racial excellence in these lines, where, in
truth, they have achieved almost no development whatever in spite of
the possession of undoubted talent. They do not understand the value
of long training, and are inclined to assume that the mere possession
of a creative instinct is final evidence of excellence in any art.

It will be some time before what real talent they have will make itself
felt in any line, because it will take a great deal of tactful handling
to make them reveal their natural artistic trend instead of falling
into imitation of Europe and America. It is strange that a people so
tenacious of its opinions with regard to matters of fact should be
so willing to surrender its ideal with regard to the thing of which
a nation has most reason to be tenacious, its natural expression. But
the whole race is so morbidly sensitive to the sneer that everything
Filipino is necessarily crude that the young art student or the young
musical student feels that his only hope of winning commendation is
in painting or playing or composing after European models; while as
for the populace at large it has its own standards in which other
motives than artistic excellence play the largest part.

I had a friend, a young Filipino girl, who has been one of the most
diligent among the pupils of the American schools. She was staying
with me two or three years ago when my publisher sent me a copy of a
primer intended for use in the Philippines, and which had just been
gotten out in the United States. The publisher had spared no expense
in his illustrations, and we were tremendously proud of the artistic
side of the book. This Filipino girl had heard me use the expression
"poor white trash," and I had explained to her how the Southern
negroes use the words as a term of derision of those who fail to
live up to the traditions of race and family. When I took my book
to her in the joy of an author in