The curacies of the aforesaid diocese were two hundred and thirty-seven, of which forty-eight belonged to the secular clergy. The scant resources of Cebu's theological seminary, its lack of professors and the students' ignorance of the Spanish language, knowledge of which is indispensable in the study of Latin and moral theology, not only prevented the preparation of a sufficient number of priests for the control of the above-mentioned parishes, but also detracted from the success of those needed as coadjutors to aid the parish priests in the administration of the sacraments and the care of the sick. That seminary rightly should be called a college because the natives go to it for the purpose of learning Spanish, and most of them leave when they only have half learned the language. Suffice it to say that there have been, and still are within the former boundaries of the Bishopric of Cebu towns (not compact but confined to distant and scattered barriers) seventeen thousand and more souls where the spiritual administration rests on a single friar priest, usually advanced in years, too. For this reason it cannot be doubted that its zealous prelate would have welcomed the assistance of twenty-seven friars who could have taken charge of that number of parishes, because manifestly this would have improved the parochial administration, and still there would have been left him twenty-one curacies with which to reward those coadjutors who were distinguished among their scanty number for virtue, learning, and hard work. Though the Archdiocese of Manila lacked ministers to attend to all the spiritual necessities of the faithful (for the force scarcely suffices under normal conditions to respond to the most urgent calls), nevertheless it formed a striking contrast in this matter to the Diocese of Cebu. The Archbishopric had at the time approximately one million four hundred thousand inhabitants, with one hundred and ninety-one parishes served by both classes of clergy. Deduct from this number assigned to the secular clergy those which had to be returned by order of the Royal Decree of 1826, those which the Royal Order of 1849 commanded to be given the Recollects and the Dominicans, and the twenty-seven which, by the order of September 10th, 1861, the parishes and missions they had had to surrender to the Jesuits in Mindanao, and there are only twelve left to reward deserving coadjutors. The priests of this class, comparing them with those of Cebu, are very numerous, for there are not four cases where coadjutors are not provided on the scale of one for parishes of 4,000, two for 8,000, three for 12,000, and so on up to Taal, which has seven coadjutors. But let us continue the comparison of the two dioceses.