The Philippines.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 31, 31 July 1902, Page 20

The Philippines.

The Rome correspondents of certain English secular papers have been busy of late in reporting the result, or what they probably imagined was the result, or the American mission to the Vatican regarding affairs in the Philippines. It is very necessary to take the cable news concerning the Holy Father with the proverbial grain of talt In view of the prominence which has been given to tne Philippine quent.on during the past week, the following extract from the Are Maria will be of interest at the present time :—: — When Judge Taft went as Chief Commissioner to the Philippine?, one of the few restrictions placed upon him was the injunction to i-oeularise the Bohonls and bung them, so far as possible, into conformity with our public pchools. The Philippine bi-hops, and (-veu Home df the turn -eating 'liberal' laymen, assured Judge Taft that secularised schools would not suit tha people ; the invariable answer or. the Commission whs that the Amer can Constitution — which fo loas the flag only so far a-, the politicians approve — frowns on a religious tchool ayteni even when all the taxpayers demand it. 'I he Mohammedans of the Jolo islands may retain their slaves and concubines, and the Koran may be taught in their schools, but the religion of Chriet must be banished from the classes attended by the Odlnoli'j Filipinos. There are some excellent reflections on this subject in an article in the Cungrrgationalirt by Mr Emerson Chridtie, who. as will be seen, writes wit»i first-hand knowledge : 1 The second great difficulty we are meeting here is, fortunately, capable of being more tasily rtmedied 1 refer to the insistence of a whole Christianized population of Mindanao that their own native teichers, whom th-y pay out of their own pocket*, shall teach their children religion in the public schools. The Filipino people in the South are a unit on this point ; and since the natives pay the matfitrts oi mac it ran out of their own municipal treasuries, it is an act of justice to l»t them have their wish. I voice the judgment of my collogues of the teaching force iv the southern islands when I bay that the Civil Commission went somewhat too fast when it passed the school law forbidding, under pain of removal, any t<-acher in the public schools from teaching any religious practice whatever. '"We Americans have arrived at the srcul.r school idea after hundreds of yuurs of experience under circumnt.mces — auch as that of religious disunity — which do not exist among the Filipinos proper, who pride themselves on 'heir Catholic unity. The bulk of tue Christianised Filipincn of Mindanao, unless compelled to do so, si'nply will not send their childron to a school where they can not learn the catechism. The state of the public schools in and around Zarnboanga to-day, after an attempt to apply the secularising lawhas been made, fully bears out the accuracy of this statement. The eight American teachers in and around Zamboanga, the metropolis of Miud.nao, have an average of only about 13 pupils apiece in actual attendance, to whom they Wen only English. Under the leadership of the Spanish Jenuit priests, the natives have united to found parochial schools, where the children can obtain the religious knowledge the pareu f s consider espeutial to t<alvation, Thus a splendid oppoituuity for bringing permanent peace to this distracted country, by i.. stilling- loyalty a\d respect for America into the childien'n minds, in thrown away for the sake of carrying out a doctrinaire puh 7 tor which the inlands are utterly unprepared.'