We do not find these things too easy in our own land, and
all of us can without effort bring to mind examples of independent
societies in tropical regions, where, these things being neglected,
the resultant government is a mockery. Have we any reason to believe
that the Filipino, untrained, inexperienced, occupying an undeveloped
area of special configuration in a region where continuous effort is
disagreeable and initiative distressing, will achieve success where
others of greater original fitness have made a failure?

Evidently the possibility of obtaining an answer to this question
depends on the possibility of determining, within allowable limits of
precision, the qualities and defects of the Filipino peoples. Now,
this is a difficult thing to do, but it is not an impossible thing;
at any rate, a first approximation may be derived from the authorities
quoted in the "Census of the Philippine Islands," 1903, pp 492 _et
seq._ In time, these authorities range from Legaspi, 1565, to our
own day, and include governors, prelates, travellers, engineers,
priests, etc., among whom are found Spaniards, Englishmen, Americans,
and Filipinos, As might be expected, all sorts of qualities and defects
are reported. Classifying these, and rejecting from consideration all,
whether quality or defect, not supported by at least five authorities,
it may be concluded, so far as this induction goes, that the Filipino
is, on the one hand, hospitable, courageous, fond of music, show,
and display; and, on the other, indolent, superstitious, dishonest,
and addicted to gambling. One quality, imitativeness, is possibly
neutral. It would appear that his virtues do not especially look toward
thrift--_i.e._, economic independence--and that his defects positively
look the other way. If the witnesses testifying be challenged on the
score of incompetency, let us turn to the reports of the supervisors
of the census, contained in the volume already cited; for these
cover the entire Archipelago, and set forth actual conditions at
one and the same epoch, 1903, the date of the census. Moreover,
these supervisors, as welt as the special agents and enumerators,
were nearly all natives. When, therefore, these supervisors report
the mass of the Christianized Filipinos as simple and superstitious,
we may be sure that we have the truth; but we are also inevitably
led to the conclusion of economic unfitness. As this matter of
economic independence is one of the f