At the head of the public instruction in the Philippines, one finds the university of Manila, called La Real y Pontificia Universidad de Santo Tomas [i.e., the royal and pontifical university of Santo Tomás]. Its foundation as a college goes back to the first year of the seventeenth century. Its first benefactors were Archbishop Benavides of Manila, and Bishop Soria of Nueva Segovia. Both of them made it a gift of their library, and, in addition, the first one gave it 1,000 pesos and the second 1,800. In 1619, the house was entrusted to the religious of the Order of St. Dominic. The following year the courses of public instruction were opened there. Finally, on November 27, 1623, King Felipe IV took it under his special protection. In the year 1645, the same monarch obtained a bull from Pope Innocent X, which erected the college of Santo Tomás of Manila into a university. The statutes governing that institution today were not drawn up until a long time after, that is to say, in the year 1781. Instruction there is entrusted to the doctors, licentiates, and masters (maestros). At the present time there are 21, both doctors and licentiates, and no masters. Latin, logic, physics, metaphysics, ethics, canon law, and theology are taught there. In addition to that, some time afterward there was founded a chair of Roman law and one of Spanish law. The number of students who attend that university is now 581, namely, sixty-one collegiates, fifteen capistas, who are maintained at the expense of the college, and 505 day students. [129] The costume of the collegiates is a long robe of green silk with black, sleeves, a beca, a kind of red scarf folded in two parts and crossing over the breast and drawn up behind the shoulders, a black collar with a white border and a cap like that worn by the law advocates of Spain.