The constant desire and permanent rule of conduct of the august predecessors of your Majesty have ever been to introduce into the territories under your glorious crown across seas, the light of evangelical truth, and with it the principles of a civilization suitable for their respective necessities. The governments and their delegated authorities, with the powerful aid of the missionaries, and of the clergy in general, both secular and regular, have tried to accommodate their policy in regard to the Philippine Archipelago to these principles. But the extent of so vast a territory, the character and customs of a portion of its population, and the lack of an organized system of primary instruction, have been the reason why the knowledge of the Castilian language, and in consequence of the ignorance of that language, the propagation of the most elementary ideas of education remain in a remarkable condition of imperfection and backwardness. It is unnecessary to explain the evils that such a condition occasions to the natives in the casualties of social life, in their relations to the public authority, in the exercise of those relations which are confided partly to the said natives, in the onward march and progress, in fine, of that country so fertile in the sources of wealth. It is reserved for your Majesty to bring to this condition of affairs the remedy suitable for it, which for some time the superior authorities of Filipinas have been demanding, and in regard to whose urgent application the royal commissary, appointed to study the administration of said islands, has lately called the attention of the government. For this object is directed the subjoined project of a decree and the regulations which accompany it. They have been formed by the aid of the documents submitted by said functionaries. They agree in spirit, in tendency, and even in the prime basis of the solutions which they propose. Said project setting forth from the necessity of broadening as much as possible the teaching of the holy Catholic faith, of the language of the fatherland, and of the elementary knowledge of life, of creating capable teachers for that purpose, the lack of whom is the principal cause of the above situation, and that the basis of all education is the solid diffusion of our holy religion, establishes by means of its ministers a normal school under the care of the fathers of the Society of Jesus, whose pupils will have the right and express obligation of filling the position of teachers in the schools for the natives with pay, advantages, and rights during the exercise of that duty, and later after its honorable discharge, and who shall be capable of attracting the youth of the country to this now humble class [of employes]. It provides the means for joining teachers of both sexes until they graduate as teachers from that institution, and until a normal school for women teachers respectively is organized. It creates