The attention of every studious and observing man, who has lived in residence in the Filipino provinces, is not a little struck by the excessive number of young men, who having taken more or less courses in Manila, but without concluding the course begun, or even taking the degree of bachelor, after their parents have spent considerable sums on them, return to their villages with very little or no virtue, but with many vices. At first sight one notes in these young men an irritating radical attitude and a freedom mixed with unendurable arrogance and vanity. Their fellow countrymen, whom they disdain because they possess, although in a superficial manner, the Castilian speech full of phrases and sounds, which would make the most reserved Viscayan laugh, and of high-sounding words which they use without understanding their real significance, immediately look up to them as so many Senecas. They are persuaded that they are perfect gentlemen, for by dint of seeing them practiced they have learned a few social formulas; they wear a cravat, and boots, and pantaloons of the latest style. For the rest, they are completely devoid of fundamental knowledge, and of the fundamentals of knowledge in the studies which they have taken, and have acquired only a slight tint of the part, let us say the bark of those studies, which they conclude by forgetting in proportion as time passes and their passions increase. These young men who forget what they have learned with so great facility, do not, as a general rule, devote themselves to any work, for they do not like work and cannot perform any; for the habits that they have contracted are very different--habits of pastime, idleness, and the waste of their paternal capital. In such condition are those who, as a rule, furnish the contingent of the staff of those who are employed without pay, of aspirants, and amanuenses with little pay of the offices and municipalities, while the most intelligent and skilful devote themselves to making writs for parties in litigation, a very handy matter, and one never finished among the natives, not even by force of many deceptions and the loss of great interests.