[15] In the decree of the superior government, of May 7, 1871, occurs the following interesting description of conditions of the schools in the Philippines: "There are at present an infinite number of villages without schools; there are entire provinces without edifices where schools can be located; there are also many schools, or rather all the schools of the archipelago, with the exception of a few in the capital, which do not possess the material equipment for education and teaching; the children have to sit on the ground, and remain there for hours and hours, packed together as if they were not what they are; books are not given to them; they have no writing desks; they are not given pens, ink, or books. Those schools do not merit the name of such; they are not schools, sad it is to say so: they are pernicious collections of children, where since they do not gain anything morally or intellectually, they lose much, and most of all in their good physical development; in fine those schools are an expense, and show no result." The same decree states the need of economic and administrative reforms in the Philippines, and the need of "roads, canals, ports, postal communications, both inside and outside the archipelago, telegraphs, professional institutions of superior instruction, an active life without fetters for industry, trade, and agriculture;" but all this must be for the greatest use of the greatest number, and all monopoly must be avoided. "To obtain it human means offer no other mean more energetic, more prompt, and powerful, than the creation and organization of the village school, and its supervision, and its location and erection in the most healthful and convenient place, clean, neat, and modestly furnished, so that it may attract the glances of all," and may thus be of the greatest good. See Grifol y Aliaga, pp. 218, 219. [16] The parish priests of the Philippines were called "reverend" or "devout" according as they were regulars or native seculars. See Barrantes's Instrucción primaria, p. 10. [17] See the titles of these orders from 1863 to 1894, post. [18] The Spanish government evinced a great interest "in giving the Filipinos a primary education commensurate with the standing of a civilized nation; but the intentions of the government were frustrated by ... the religious orders." The "great error of the Spanish nation" consisted "in placing in the hands of a few institutions [the religious orders] the future of her colonies in the extreme east, institutions which did not exist in their native country, and which sought only the private interests of the corporation or order to which they belonged. This entire plan of public instruction lived in the minds of the Spanish legislators, but was never put into practice." Tomás G. del Rosario, in Census of Philippines, iii, p. 582.