It would be doing Spain a great injustice, however, if no credit whatever is given her rule in the Philippine Islands. She introduced Christianity into the Islands and unequivocably converted the inhabitants to the creed, thus setting up the only Christian country in this part of the globe with a Christian outlook on life; in the women, particularly, the tenets of Christianity instilled dignity and it freed them from Hindu and Mohammedan degradations. [Schools and Colleges] Efforts were also taken to teach the people the rudiments of education. Access was thus given to the splendid tongue of Castile, and, thru that, to all the glories and traditions of Latin civilization. As early as 1866, for a population of 4,000,000 people, there were 841 schools for boys and 833 for girls. In 1892, six years before the coming of the Americans, there were 2,137 schools. There were also colleges and universities where professional training was given. The colleges were: University of Santo Tomas, Manila, established in 1611 (twenty-five years older than Harvard); San Juan de Letran, Municipal Athenaeum, Normal School, College of San Jose, the Nautical School, the School of Commercial Accounting, the Academy of Painting and Drawing, and many other private schools, fourteen of which were in Manila. There were also seminaries in Manila, Nueva Segovia, Cebu, Jaro, and Nueva Caceres, where all branches of secondary instruction were taught in addition to those prescribed for the priesthood. Many of the prominent Filipinos in Philippine history, as stated above, including the national hero, Jose Rizal, had their first instructions in these schools established by Spain. [Filipino Record Abroad] A number of the ambitious students were sent by their parents to complete their education in Spain, France, England, Belgium, and Germany. Groups of these young men took part in the various liberal movements of nineteenth century Europe. They wrote and spoke in behalf of liberal institutions for the Islands, in terms that would have cost them their lives in the Philippines; in fact, Rizal was put to death upon his return to his native land. Several of these young Filipinos even rose to eminence in the public service, a right which was denied them at home except in a few cases in the minor judiciary. In the eighties and nineties, a group of them of which Rizal, Juan Luna, Resurrección Hidalgo, M. H. del Pilar, Lopez Jaena, Pedro A. Paterno, and Dr. Pardo de Tavera were the leading spirits--made a deep impression in the literary and artistic circles of Madrid, Paris, and Berlin. A newspaper was founded by them in Madrid to further their political views. Although proscribed in the Philippines, their books and articles were circulated secretly in the Islands and helped to arouse the people and to consolidate the growing unrest.