In reality, we must go back to the royal foundation in 1702, which was encroached on by Cardinal Tournon and the abbot Sidoti (1704-07); see San Antonio's full account of this in VOL. XXVIII, pp. 117-122. Pardo de Tavera gives an outline of this account in his note 3 (pp. 48-50), and adds: "The power of the friars caused the organization of the seminary to be delayed until, toward the end of the past century, thanks to Señor Sancho de Santa Justa y Rufina, the seminary of San Carlos was created; it was installed in the former house of the expelled members of the Society of Jesus." [71] "The religious orders in Filipinas have always been accused of opposing culture and the diffusion of human learning among the Filipinos, having assumed, according to their traditional policy, the role of monopolisers of public instruction, in order thus to present themselves as its defenders and partisans, proclaiming themselves the civilizers of the people, and the source and origin of their intellectual progress. In reality, having in their hands the public instruction they so conducted themselves that, as Don Simon says, they organized an instruction of mere ceremony, intended to maintain the Filipinos in a calculated ignorance, and keep them imbued with principles which tended to subject their conscience and reason to the absorptive power of the monastic supremacy." (Pardo de Tavera, p. 50, note 4.) [72] It is to be remembered that Anda wrote this memorial at Madrid, where he was occupying a seat in the Council of Castilla. [73] "The idea of secularizing the university of Manila, suggested by Anda y Salazar, was contemplated a century later by Señor Moret, minister for the colonies [de Ultramar], and decreed by the regent of the kingdom on November 6, 1870. The college of San Juan de Letran was also secularized by the same decree; but in Filipinas orders of that sort were not executed. For the friars upset the whole matter, threatening the ruin of the colony if the decree were carried out, raising protests and petitions--in short, causing the bishops and the authorities to range themselves on their side, in order to present to the government at Madrid the question from the point of view which suited the interests of the Dominican order. The execution of the regent's decree was suspended, writings were sent to Madrid in favor of the friars, and, as always, they gained their point, and continued to be owners and masters of the university and of the college of San Juan de Letran." (Pardo de Tavera, note 6, pp. 50, 51.)