Historical Note by Macario Tiu | January 18th, 2009
(Excerpt from a letter of James Martin Welborn, an American soldier in the Philippine-American War who turned planter in Davao in the first decade of the 1900s.)
October 14, 1956
Dear Son,
…
I notice in the F. P. (Philippine Free Press) that there is a lot of graft around Manila; does the same condition apply around Davao?
It seems that all the world has gone crooked. We have it in this country almost as bad as there with you. The older Philipino was trained in it by the Spaniards and many have improved on their methods.
When I was there the aim of most of the young men was to get an education so they could live without work, not for the betterment of their country or countrymen.
Read the rest of this entry »
Historical Note by Historical | December 14th, 2008
As far possible the instruction should be given by English-speaking native teachers, but not necessarily in the English language. Unless the American teacher learns the native dialect, the native must learn English in order that through it he may acquire our ideas. In the imparting of these ideas to native children neither he (the teacher) nor they (the native children) should be hampered by requiring that the ideas should be conveyed through the medium of English.
Even among Filipino schools taught in English, the visitor must be impressed by the enormous waste of time in teaching children the essential things, a knowledge of which is needed by them at once. The native teacher has in several years’ course of training by American teachers, learned fairly well many American ideas, but has poorly learned the English language. Instead of immediately communicating the ideas to his pupils in a language common to both, he wastes years of their time and his in attempting to get ideas into their heads through a language which is foreign to both of them and in which he is not a competent instructor.
Read the rest of this entry »