Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 175, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 July 1914 — FILIPINO [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FILIPINO

W* N AGREEMENT with the somewhat S well-known Mr. Meredith, Uncle Same j ■ believes that ‘‘civilized man canno£ live without cooks,” and Is putting that' belief into demonstration In handling the educational problems of the Phlb Ippines. The Filipino, to be sure, had a civll--4 izatlvn and cooks prlor to the Amerlean occupation, but the civilization was not of high standard. And after several years of close study of the needs and possibilities of our restless little brown foster brothers of the far eastern Islands domestic science has been deemed the surest foundation upon which to build. To begin with, the home and Its women has been accepted by educators as the best process of engrafting occidental civilization, education and culture on the stunted, half-wild growth which centuries of Spanish rule left behind. It was the Filipino himself who pointed out the way for the solving of his own personal equation. Primitive as his home life had been he had been living up to the best he knew. When something —better was before him he was prompt to see the advantages of the newer way. The domestic science of the Filipino was not science at all; It was only a crude makeshift, handed down to him from his ancestors. His home was little better than a shack, very small and destitute of furnishings. Hts diet was so restricted that the Idea of such a thing as the art of cookery had never occurred to him. His clothing was little —or nothing. With the coming of the American and bls higher standard of civilization the Filipino, especially he of the younger generation, saw life from a new angle. He came to the realization that there is more in life than the mere business of living. He found that there is work to do; that he must do his share toward raising the standards of succeeding generations; that he had his allotted task In the bringing of the civilization of his country to a higher level. The first evidence of this awakening In the Filipino was the change in his method of life. Gone are the open fires over which swung a single pot on a tripod. Gone is the ancient habit of an entire family, Including the pups and the rest of the four-footed animals, eating from a common dish. Gone also are the primitive sleeping arrangements. . To be sure the- change was by evolution rather than by revolution, but its progress- was suffleient- , ly rapid and marked to compel the attention of the American educators who had gone across seas to teach these primitive folk new things. They had gone with a notion that the Filipino could be taught the same things and by the same methods that form the educational system in California and New York, Texas and the Dakotas. They found, however, that physical environment and previous social experience in the Filipino racial characteristics vastly different from our own and made of him a separate educational problem. The Filipino was not especially interested in whether or not he received mental training, but he was ambitious, cleverly imitative and keenly alert to the greater creature comforts of civilization which he glimpsed for the first time when the American came and conquered. And for all his reputation for slothfuiness he was willing and anxious to work for these things which so suddenly he had come to desire—these tangible and outward signs bf a higher civilization. So it was that domestic science and vocational training became an integral part of the educational system of the Philippines. A half-million Filipino young people are voluntarily tn school—there is no compulsory education in the islands. Primary English education is open to all and is incidental to the domestic science and vocational courses. The Filipino knew what he wanted and he got it, and he ‘is quite as happy as the more sophisticated souls imagine we would be if ever we did get what we want One of the most potent factors in making the Filipino, not into an- imitation good American, but Into a good, patriotic and useful citizen of his own native archipelago, has Been the School of Household Industries in Manila. Here annually from all the Islands of the group, in ever increasing numbers, young Filipinos are instructed in domestic science and economy. Besides, these youhg women are taught the more important if less remunerative vocation of successful housewife and mother. The course In housekeeping and household arts, one of the most Important and most widely studied of the several offered by the school, gives the young women a basic education in the three R.’s, - three full years study being demoted to reading, writing, arithmetic and grammar. In the homemaker's" course they study hygiene, home sanitation, physiology, cooking and the care of Infants. A short course tn nursing is glyen, and a full

nurse’s course is included among the vocational courses. Dressmaking, lace making, embroidery, hat making and weaving are among the other branches Included in the-vocational school and optional in-the homemaker's course. Much as the Filipino‘needed education along all lines, in nothing was his need so great as in the first principles of sanitation. When the American came the natives, even In the larger cities, knew nothing of sanitation, household or otherwise. It had not been taught the Filipino by his Spanish rulers, who practised the theory that the more the native knew the more discontented and hence the more difficult to manage he would become. Also, the Spanish ruler himself knew practically nothing of the higher domestic arts, and his idea that his home was his castle and what went on within of no concern to the outsider he handed down to the Filipino. The Filipino, however, was far readier to as-, slmllate the beneficent changes offered by the Americans. He promptly learned that sanitation, both at home and abroad, lessened the danger of plagues, which since time immemorial had mowed down the native population like grain before a scythe. The Filipino is proud irr his own way and has 'a strong notion of what are his personal rights. Anything akin to tyrannical enforcement of. ironclad rules would have defeated the whole scheme. Hosts of domestic science teachers, equipped with the best training, have gone to the Philippines this last decade with high hopes and unbounded enthusiasm for the work before them, only to return presently with blank failure the record of their Philippine sojourn. Those who have succeeded —and the success of these has been tremendous —have done so through intimate sympathetic understanding of the Filipino, the code and traditions which give him his own peculiar point of view and his essentially peculiar home life. Nothing in all the course of study offered by the school of household Industries has seemed, to Interest the young women so greatly as the study of sanitation, hygiene and the care of infants. While the Filipino himself may have definite reasons of his own for desiring cleaner and more wholesome living conditions, the younger women have learned that to a lack of knowledge may be charged the terrific death rate among Infants. Out of each three round-eyed, smiling babies born* one dies before it has lived a year, a victim of ignorance and unsanitary environment. Innate, universal' mother love was quick to value and acquire knowledge of anything which results in saving the babies. But nothing in all the school is so variously interesting as the changes wrought by the study of cooking. In times past the Filipino had the scantiest variety of food, which was prepared in the simplest fashion, meat being a heavy item of his menu. The greatest delicacy of the Igorrote was, and in some portions of the Islands continues to be. "pot roast ala Ftdo.” Many of them still eat dog stew, but the majority are beginning to learn that there are numerous other foods vastly more palatable and satisfying. Even the Igorrote maiden knows that if she is to get and keep a husband she must know modern methods of conducting the modern home, which the men have acquired a liking for. I_lSo It happens that In the cooking classes are the ybuhgest ahd future -wives and mothers. And even in their

dress they herald the new day. The picturesque and fantastic' costumes have been discarded for simple checked gingham frocks under all enveloping white linen aprons. In sharp contrast to these cooking school girls are the young women who are studying in various other branches and clinging religiously to the gayly flowered skirts, tight at the hips, flowing away to voluminous breadth and great trains at the feet, and surmounted by» the queer little crisp cotton jackets, for all the world like badly cut kimonos and bunching up about the neck in an ungraceful fashion, always suggesting hump shoulders. _ To make beautiful laces and fine embroideries seems to be an almost natural art with the Filipino girls, an Inherent aptness resulting undoubtedly from the uncounted generations of lace makers before them. The strong, supple and delicately slender brown fingers are steady as Iron. The clear dark eyes are not tired by the intricate, tedious patterns which would mean wreck of nerves and vision of women less patient and tranquil jninded. Lace making and embroidery were not Introduced by American teachers, but were brought to the islands centuries ago by the Spaniards. According to Medina’s history, needlecraft-was taught in the convent schools as early as 1630, and Retana in the early eighteenth century wrote that “the girls easily imitate the laces and embroidery of Europe” and that they perform "such work fairly well In a little time.” The foundation being laid, it was an opportunity quickly, seized by the American teachers, and while the instruction under convent teaching necessarily was restricted to a comparatively small number, 1| Is the hope,of the instructors of these days that needlecraft speedily shall become of universal knowledge among Filipino women. Also it is hoped' that through their aptness for embroidery and lace making there may be opened up for them a steadily remunerative occupation. Mil the nurse’s training work also the idea has been to provide the young women with remunerative work, but the beginnings in that line wera in the face of stubborn prejudice and opposition. The natives were extremely suspicious of doctors and hospitals and it was quite beyond comprehension that any youiig woman of modesty and good taste should be willing to undergo a nurse’s experience. - __ A campaign of enlightenment had to be carried on before it was possible to establish nursing classes. ' But the readily adaptable Filipino, once convinced that the finest of young women became nurses among more advanced and enlightened people, speedily abandoned her prejudice. The set of the wind is now as strongly In the opposite direction and the vocation of trained nurse has so caught popular fancy that the. number of applicants each year is far greater than the capacity of . the training school. In basketry and rug weaving another profitable line has been opened for women, and by rare good fortune it happens that the islands produce in lavish quantities all of the required materials, which with their commercial values unknown hitherto were permitted to rot in the jungles Still another line of Income is from the preserving and canning of fruits for commerce, a line which at once makes Income hearing previously wasted human energy as well as a vast fortune in unused fruits. So summed up the training of the young Filipino women means that when the Americans came to teach them the desire for a better method of living the new and strangely benevolent conqueror- shnwwd tiiem at the sama ttme how the desire might be gratified.