Translations: These translations and compilations are made by James Alexander Robertson. PRIMARY INSTRUCTION FIRST GOVERNMENTAL ATTEMPTS A royal order of November 3, 1839 [9] prescribed that a committee be specially appointed to draft a set of regulations for the schools of the Philippines. [10] The creation of this commission or board was delayed until 1855, being appointed by Governor Manuel Crespo, February 7, of that year. The re-admission into the archipelago of the Jesuits on March 21, 1852, had given a new impulse to the teaching of Spanish in the schools, that organization always having been greatly inclined to the teaching of that language. [11] The instructions given to the commission appointed by Crespo, were as follows: "1. To draft regulations establishing and making uniform the teaching in the schools; with expression of what is to be taught in schools of both sexes, paying especial attention in their measures to the encouragement of the Castilian language. "2. To determine the number of men and women teachers who are to be appointed, this need to be regulated by the number of tributes of each village. "3. To report on the advisability of establishing a school for teachers in this city, without neglecting at the same time to state whatever is of service for it, and appears advisable for the end and object to which the expediency of this matter is directed. "The commission was also recommended 'to draft a plan and project for the establishment of a normal school in the city of Manila, from which teachers instructed and suitable for teaching in the provinces might graduate.'" The report of this commission, March 7, 1861, shows but few meetings and but little accomplished, since its creation, until the year 1860. In the last months of that year and the first of 1861 their deliberations began to take form and were completed. Already on August 10, 1860, Governor Solano had commissioned an official of the secretary's office to draft a project for reform along similar lines to the one which the commission was to draft. He completed that draft on the twenty-first of the same month, and his results may have spurred on the commission to finish its work. The fundamental points given to the above-mentioned official are as follows: "1. Establishment in Manila of a normal school, as a seminary for teachers. "2. That the pupils of such school, who are candidates for teachers, proceed from the various provinces in the proportion of one to each 50,000 or 60,000 inhabitants, their expenses to be paid from the local funds. "3. That in the normal teaching, the studies with application to industry and the arts predominate. "4. That the certificate shall not be issued to any pupil at the end of his course, unless he can write and speak Castilian fluently. "5. Regulation of schools in the villages, all of them to be supplied with well-endowed pupils from the normal school.