hem into the right sort of schools.
With the realization of this fact, a change has been made in the kind
of instruction given. More and more the schools have been given an
industrial turn. When I visited the Department of Education in Manila
I found that old textbooks had been discarded and new text-books
prepared--books especially suited to Philippine conditions and
directed to practical ends. Instead of a general physiology describing
bones, arteries, and nerve centres, I found a little book on {169}
"Sanitation and Hygiene in the Tropics," written in simple language,
profusely illustrated, and with information which the pupil can use in
bettering the health of himself, his family, and his neighborhood.
Instead of a general book on agriculture, I found a book written so as
to fit the special needs, crops, and conditions in the Philippines.
Moreover, I found the officials exhibiting as their chief treasures
the specimens of work turned out by the pupils as a result of the
practical instruction given them.
"I really think," said one of the officers, "that we have carried the
idea of industrial education, of making the schools train for
practical life, much farther in the Philippines than it has been
carried in the United States. The trouble at home is that our teachers
don't introduce industrial education early enough. They wait until the
boy enters the upper grades--if he doesn't leave school before
entering them at all, as he probably does. In any case, they reach
only a few pupils. Our success, on the other hand, is due to the fact
that we begin with industrial education in the earlier grades and get
everybody."
And right here is a valuable lesson for those of us who are interested
in getting practical training for white boys and girls in America as
well as for brown boys and girls in the Philippines.
Another progressive step was the introduction of postal savings banks
for the Filipinos before any law was passed giving similar advantage
to the white people of the United States. The law has worked well. In
fact, the increase in number of depositors last year, from 8782 to
13,102--nearly 50 per cent, in a single twelve-month--would indicate
that the people are getting enthusiastic about it and that it is
achieving magnificent results in stimulating thrift and the saving
habit.
The government has also introduced the Torrens System of Registering
Land Titles, as it has done in Hawaii. Formerly {170} the farm
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