III. PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS.--In public improvements, the following was the record of the Filipinos within the last nine years. The mileage of first-class roads was more than doubled increasing from 2,172 kilometers in 1913 to 4,782 in 1922, not to speak of the second and third class; 7,562 permanent bridges and culverts are now in existence; 725 permanent government buildings were built, including schools, public markets, hospitals, provincial capitols, and large and beautiful edifices for the university and the Insular government; a network of wireless stations was erected throughout the provinces; a vast program of improvements in port works was launched, and a bond issue of ten million pesos was sold in the United States for harbor improvements in Manila alone; irrigation works estimated to cost about ten million pesos, and designed to benefit 150,000 acres of land in sixteen different localities, were initiated; 949 artesian wells in the different provinces, an average of one to each municipality, were drilled at a total cost of nearly two and one-half million pesos, and 55 new water-works systems were installed with 36 more under active construction, to cost more than three million pesos. IV. AGRICULTURE AND TAXATION.--The progress in agriculture was remarkable. The chief point of interest here is that the placing of Filipinos in control of the agricultural departments greatly enlarged the power of the Government to influence the people to increased production. Of rice alone, 1,285,385 acres more were planted during the last nine years (1913-1922); 544 rural-credit societies were established with a membership of 75,114 and coöperation in agriculture, a new spirit among the farmers, encouraged and explained. Taxation was revised and increased, and the government revenue from this source which in 1913 had been only P39,236,007, rose to P62,900,403 in 1919 and P64,259,776 in 1922; there are twelve banking institutions in the Islands, now, instead of only six, and the money in circulation has risen from P50,000,000 in 1914 to three times that figure. V. PUBLIC ORDER.--Public order, the first requisite of a stable government, has been splendidly maintained through the agency of the Philippine Constabulary and the municipal police. The Constabulary has always been dependable and thoroughly efficient. There is hardly any country in the world more peaceful than the Philippines. VI. EDUCATION.--The present school system in the Philippines has been one of the principal uplifting agencies in the colonial enterprise undertaken by the United States as a result of the Spanish-American war. Immediately after the capitulation of Manila, an army officer acting as superintendent of schools opened schools. Everywhere the army went afterwards a public school was established and put into operation.