d in vain the arts of domestic
civilization. The furniture, the beds, the table, the cookery, were
all in good taste, and the obvious sincerity of the kind reception
added to its agreeableness. Great crowds were gathered together
in the square which fronts the house of Don Jose Alberto."
The Philippines had just had a liberal governor, De la Torte, but even
during this period of apparent liberalness there existed a confidential
government order directing that all letters from Filipinos suspected
of progressive ideas were to be opened in the post. This violation
of the mails furnished the list of those who later suffered in the
convenient insurrection of '72.
An agrarian trouble, the old disagreement between landlords and
tenants, had culminated in an active outbreak which the government
was unable to put down, and so it made terms by which, among other
things, the leader of the insurrection was established as chief
of a new civil guard for the purpose of keeping order. Here again
was another preparation for '72, for at that time the agreement
was forgotten and the officer suffered punishment, in spite of the
immunity he had been promised.
Religious troubles, too, were rife. The Jesuits had returned from
exile shortly before, and were restricted to teaching work in those
parishes in the missionary district where collections were few and
danger was great. To make room for those whom they displaced the better
parishes in the more thickly settled regions were taken from Filipino
priests and turned over to members of the religious Orders. Naturally
there was discontent. A confidential communication from the secular
archbishop, Doctor Martinez, shows that he considered the Filipinos had
ground for complaint, for he states that if the Filipinos were under a
non-Catholic government like that of England they would receive fairer
treatment than they were getting from their Spanish co-religionaries,
and warns the home government that trouble will inevitably result if
the discrimination against the natives of the country is continued.
The Jesuit method of education in their newly established "Ateneo
Municipal" was a change from that in the former schools. It treated the
Filipino as a Spaniard and made no distinctions between the races in
the school dormitory. In the older institutions of Manila the Spanish
students lived in the Spanish way and spoke their own language, but
Filipinos were required to talk Latin, sleep on f
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