The average total enrollments by months in the primary schools for the last school year was 332,634, or 32,699 less than the total number reported for March of the preceding year. It should be stated, however, that the month of March of the preceding year was one of the best of the year and the enrollment for that month does not represent the yearly average. The average enrollment this year is approximately the same as that of the past year.

Further enrollment under present conditions is practically out of the question, owing to the fact that the municipalities throughout the islands have not sufficient funds to employ a larger number of teachers or to construct additional primary schools in the towns and barrios, and inasmuch as the present force of municipal or primary teachers has as large a number of pupils as it can successfully manage, further increases in enrollment in primary work must await the coming of additional funds.

SUPPORT OF SCHOOLS FROM LAND TAX.

It is perhaps proper to mention here that during the past year the educational work has successfully passed through a decidedly critical period. The suspension of the land tax throughout the islands, and the fact that the insular government was able to reimburse the municipalities and provinces to the extent of but 50 per cent of said tax, greatly diminished the municipal school funds, which are largely derived therefrom. So heavy, indeed, was the strain thus put upon the financial resources of the municipalities that, far from being able to greatly extend primary educational facilities, as it was eminently proper and desirable to have done, the question which confronted the department was one of merely maintaining its existing facilities and work, although in some instances, notably in the provinces of Iloilo, Zambales, La Union, and Pangasinan, it unfortunately became necessary actually to close down a number of barrio schools because of insufficient funds to maintain them in operation.

In view of this situation, and taking into consideration the fact that the further suspension of the land tax might become a subject of discussion before the beginning of the next calendar year, the undersigned deemed it proper to present a special report to the Commission on August 16 last, giving a full financial statement of the situation in these islands with regard to primary instruction which is supported, with the exception of the text-books furnished by the bureau of education and the supervision of all municipal and barrio schools by American teachers, entirely out of municipal funds.

At that time the municipal school fund consisted of 5 per cent of the internal-revenue collections, amounting, for all the municipalities of the islands, to approximately P375,000, and one-fourth of 1 per cent of the value of the taxable real estate in the municipalities, which, under the former assessment, approximated P730,000, thus giving a total municipal school fund for the islands of P1,105,000 per annum with which to maintain the entire system of primary instruction for nearly half a million pupils, including the construction and equipment of the necessary schoolhouses.

Even had this amount been available during the last fiscal year, it would not have been sufficient to meet the present necessities of the work. As a matter of fact, there was actually expended for municipal

school purposes during the past year the sum of P1,360,000, although the amount which entered the municipal school fund was only P922,500. This difference was made up by the generous and publicspirited action of numerous municipalities throughout the Archipelago in appropriating from their general municipal funds approximately P478,000 for primary school work. Had the municipalities not appropriated this amount from their general funds, not only could no municipal school construction have been carried on, but it would have been absolutely impossible to pay a great number of municipal teachers, even at the extremely low rates of compensation which they receive. Furthermore, the municipal school funds did not receive during the last fiscal year what they were expected to receive when the present distribution of the internal-revenue and land-tax collections was adopted by the Commission. This was because during the last half of the past fiscal year, which corresponds to the first half of the present calendar year, only 50 per cent of the land tax which was remitted was made good by the insular government to the provinces and municipalities. It is evident, therefore, that for the last fiscal year the municipalities only received 75 per cent of the amount which it was contemplated by law they should receive.

Under these circumstances, if the suspension of the land tax in all or a considerable portion of the provinces should have been continued, the maintenance of primary instruction work in the Philippine Islands would have become practically impossible, unless other means should have been found to meet the losses to the municipal school fund which would thus have been caused. For example, if the land tax should be suspended for the coming calendar year and, as would undoubtedly be the case, the insular government should find itself unable to reimburse the provinces and municipalities for any portion thereof, the municipal school fund would receive only 25 per cent of the one-fourth of 1 per cent of the value of the taxable real estate in the municipalities which the law contemplates it should receive, or only P182,500 for all the municipalities in these islands. For succeeding fiscal years the municipal school fund would not even receive this small proportion of the amount originally contemplated and would be dependent for its support solely upon the 5 per cent of the internal-revenue collections, amounting to approximately P375,000 per annum. It was pointed out by the department that this situation would have meant the imperative closing down of four-fifths of the municipal schools in these islands, which would have resulted in the practical abandonment of primary instruction work and necessarily, within a few years, of the entire public educational system. It is safe to say that, so far as the economy of administration is concerned, primary school work is being performed as efficiently and cheaply as that of any other department, insular, provincial, or municipal, in these islands. The average wage of municipal teachers is P17.50 per month, which is a trifle more than ordinary messengers receive and not nearly so much as many other inferior classes of provincial and municipal employees are paid.

The primary school construction work which has been done has been of the plainest and most inexpensive kind and has been largely augmented by voluntary labor and contributions of money and materials by the people of the towns and barrios. The figures herein

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before given in regard to municipal school funds do not include the aid received from voluntary contributions of labor, money, and materials by the people themselves, without which practically no municipal or barrio schools could have been constructed during the past year.

In view of these facts, the undersigned submitted to the Commission a bill amending the internal-revenue law, by providing that an increase of 5 per cent of the internal-revenue collections should be allotted to the municipalities and become a part of the municipal school funds. This proposition contemplated establishing as a nucleus a total municipal school fund for the islands of only P750,000. On this basis, even if the land tax should not be again suspended in any of the provinces and should therefore go into effect on the 1st day of January, 1908, the municipal school fund would receive an addition of only P547,500, giving a total for the coming fiscal year for municipal school work of only P1,297,500 for the 640 municipalities and 3,000 barrios in these islands. This amount will barely suffice to continue the municipal school funds on the basis of the actual expenditures last year, a period during which, owing to a great scarcity of funds, it was possible to make only very limited progress in permanent municipal school construction. In case the land tax should be generally suspended, the amount of the school fund would be about P350,000 less than the sum contemplated by law, and P610,000 less than the amount actually expended last year.

Pursuant to this recommendation, the Commission on August 20, 1907, passed act No. 1695, which provides that the municipal school funds shall receive 10 instead of 5 per cent as heretofore, thus giving an annual increase of some P375,000. While this amount is wholly inadequate to meet the actual demands of the situation, it is realized that the many calls upon the insular treasury for vitally necessary public works and for the current expenses of the insular government render any further increase of this fund improbable at the present time.

INDUSTRIAL AND AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL WORK.

During the past year the dominant note of the policy of this department has been the extension throughout the islands of facilities for giving education along the most practical lines of industrial, agricultural, and domestic science training. A large proportion of the funds appropriated from the insular treasury for school construction has been expended for schools of arts and trades, and the proportion so expended in future will be even greater. In an address delivered by the undersigned at the annual convention of division school superintendents, which was held in Manila on January 14 to 20, 1907, special emphasis was laid upon the importance of this feature of public educational work. It was pointed out that along the lines of purely academic instruction most satisfactory progress has been made, but that an immense field for the development of the more practical lines of education still lay before the department.

The situation of the people of these islands, their previous training and habits of thought, the industrial and agricultural depression which has existed here for the past ten years, and the necessity of making every member of the community a self-supporting individual at the earliest practicable date, all counsel and urge the establishment and

maintenance of the most extensive industrial school system throughout these islands which the finances of the government will permit. It is gratifying to note that exceptional aptitude and ability have been shown by Filipino boys for acquiring industrial training, and their remarkable dexterity in the use of modern tools and implements gives assurance of their continued enthusiasm and of the most substantial and practical results from this line of instruction. Pursuant to this general plan it has been decided to extend the primary industrial work throughout all the grades of the primary course for both boys and girls. This work includes weaving, hat making, drawing, elementary agriculture, wood working (ship and carpentry), elementary pottery and masonry, making of rope, cordage, brooms, brushes, etc., for the boys, and weaving, sewing, cooking, dyeing, bleaching, hat making, and pottery for the girls.

It has been the pleasure of the undersigned during the past year to see, on trips through the various provinces, evidences of the substantial progress now being made in imbuing the minds of the young Filipinos with the idea of the dignity of manual labor and of the lasting benefits of patient, consistent, honest toil.

The spectacle of the pupils of a school of arts and trades at work, under the direction of their American teacher, in constructing a permanent and substantial industrial school of cement blocks, molded and laid by the pupils themselves, all without cost to the government other than for the necessary materials, is to some extent a refutation of the ill-founded statement which has not infrequently been heard to the effect that the educational work in these islands is of an impractical and visionary character. The frequent suggestions which have appeared in the public press to the effect that manual training should be installed in the schools seem to take no account of the fact that this practical form of education has been one of the keynotes of the government's policy since the establishment of the public school system.

EDUCATIONAL WORK AMONG THE NONCHRISTIAN TRIBES.

In the annual appropriation bill for the bureau of education for the present fiscal year there has been included a special appropriation of P75,000 for the extension of educational work among the non-Christian tribes of the islands. It is intended to employ these funds principally in establishing industrial and agricultural schools among these people, who are peculiarly fitted in most instances for the acquisition of these lines of practical knowledge. Modern woodworking and iron-working tools and modern agricultural implements appear to exercise a peculiar fascination upon many of these people and they are only too anxious to have an opportunity of using the same. In nearly every instance they have shown the utmost willingness to contribute their labor to the building of schoolhouses, and their efforts in this direction most decidedly merit continued consideration at the hands of the government. It is recommended that at least an equal amount be appropriated by the government each year hereafter for the continuance of this special line of educational work.

SCARCITY OF TEACHERS.

One of the principal difficulties in educational work during the past year has been the impossibility of securing an adequate supply of

trained teachers either from the United States or in these islands. This has been particularly true in regard to industrial and agricultural teachers, and although in the last appropriation bill special authorization for 20 additional industrial teachers was given, as yet it has been impossible to secure any considerable number thereof to fill the places. This condition is equally true with regard to Filipino teachers, and while the Philippine normal school in Manila and the high schools throughout the provinces have furnished a considerable number of such teachers, who are being utilized for primary and lower grade intermediate instruction along academic lines, there is a great dearth of Filipino teachers capable of giving even primary industrial instruction. This condition will be somewhat ameliorated next year as a result of the training given a large number of students in the Philippine school of arts and trades in Manila.

To the end that adequate provision for the future may be made, the undersigned presented a bill to the Commission authorizing each municipality to send not more than four students to Manila to receive special instruction in the Philippine school of arts and trades, in the insular school of fisheries, in the insular agricultural school, or in any other insular school, and to maintain such students at the expense of the general funds of the municipality, or at the expense of the municipal school fund, with the previous approval of this department, during the time that they may receive special training to fit them to become instructors in industrial or agricultural work or in pisciculture. In order to avail themselves of this privilege, students will be required to engage to serve a certain number of years as such instructors upon their graduating from the insular schools.

GOVERNMENT SUPERVISION OF PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

By section 168 of the corporation law (act No. 1459) it is provided that

Whenever so empowered in writing by the secretary of public instruction and under such terms and conditions as said secretary may prescribe, universities and colleges duly incorporated in accordance with this act may grant diplomas and confer degrees.

Pursuant to this authorization a number of applications have come to the department from private educational institutions in Manila, requesting the right to confer certain official degrees upon their graduates. A careful study has been made of the curricula, methods, text-books, etc., of said institutions and of their courses in general, with a view to fixing certain standards which must be observed by all private educational corporations desiring to receive official authorization for their degrees. Considerable difficulty has been met in this attempt to standardize the public and private educational work, owing to the great variety of courses and methods which have existed up to the present time. It seems clear that the public interests demand that the standards set by public institutions of learning, as well as by private ones, shall be sufficiently high to secure for the degrees of such institutions recognition by similar educational institutions throughout the world. As yet, no definite requirements have been fixed upon and the matter is still under consideration by this department.