[120] Semper, writing in 1869, says of education among the natives. "The Christian Spaniard has not been able to exert much more influence of a spiritual than of a political nature upon the character of the natives. Popular education was formerly, and is now, entirely in the hands of the priests. Excepting the professors of common and Roman law all the chairs of the University of Santo Tomás of Manila are in the hands of the priests, who naturally arrange not only the theological lectures, but those upon metaphysics, physics, and logic, as well, according to the principles of the Catholic Church. In the provinces every village has its public schools in which instruction is obligatory; but, besides reading and writing, only Christian doctrine and church music are taught. This instruction, moreover, is by no means generally given in Spanish; at least, the general introduction of Spanish is still so recent that it will be long before the Spanish officials will be able to converse, even with their subordinates, in Spanish. On the east coast of Mindanao, one of the oldest and most settled provinces, the native dialect was exclusively used until forty or fifty years ago, and the priests used the old Malay alphabet until the beginning of the century, even in their official business. The number of natives--the Spaniards call them 'Indians'--who can read and write is tolerably large, but owing to the total unreliability of all statistics on the subject, nothing accurate can be stated. In 1863 the Government attempted to make an enumeration of the population, and, incidentally, to note the number of those who could read and write. The fact that the result was never published seems to confirm the opinion that an unsatisfactory condition of things was found." See Census of Philippines, iii, p. 577.