ish,
of literature, art, and music, of roads and bridges, of agricultural
machinery, and of local transportation, and we can attain these
things." They have laid down in the beginning a premise for which no
inductive process can be found as justification,--that the Filipino
people is capable of doing anything which any other nation has done;
and that, given time and opportunity--especially the opportunity of
managing their own process of development--they will demonstrate
their capacity. The flat contradiction of this position which is
not infrequently taken by Americans in discussing Filipinos is,
of course, as extreme as the Filipino position itself, and, as an
observer, I have little to do with either. But at the present time I
do feel warranted in stating that the mass of intelligent Filipinos
fail to distinguish between critical or appreciative ability and real
creative ability, and that what they are acquiring in huge doses just
now is the critical and not the creative. Moreover, of the great body
of persons who make the demand for the best, only a very few have any
idea of what is the best except in book learning and social polish. The
prominent men among the Filipinos to-day are those who were educated
in Europe or in Filipino schools modelled on European patterns. Their
idea of education is a social one--an education which fits a man to
be considered a gentleman and to be an adornment to the society of
his peers. They have no conception of the American specialization
idea in education which grants a doctor's degree to a man who says
"would have went" and "He come to my house yesterday." The Filipino
leaders have a perfectly clear idea of what they want educationally,
of what they consider the best, and they are jealously watching
the educational department to see that they get it. The American
press urges more and more manual training, and the Filipino press,
because manual training is in the list of things marked "best,"
echoes the general call. But there is no small body of hobbyists in
the Islands keeping a jealous eye on the manual-training department
of education. It could be dropped out of the curriculum by simply
allowing it to become less and less effectual, and so long as no
formal announcement was made the Filipinos would not find out what
was being done. But in Manila and in most provincial towns there are
enough Filipinos who know what musical instruction is to watch that
the musical training be not