The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 52, 1841-1898: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century
History
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 52, 1841-1898: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century
Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources
The foreigners who traveled in the Philippines during this period, and
who have written thereon, were occupied in most cases with scientific
pursuits, and have confined themselves mainly to these objects in
what they have published. The Luçon et Palaouan (Paris, 1887) of
Alfred Marche touches upon the customs and conditions of the people
in its record of six years' scientific research for the government of
France. Edmond Plauchut's contributions to the Revue des deux mondes
for 1869 and 1877, in lighter vein and perhaps not always accurate,
are, like Gironière's writings of earlier date, interesting as
presenting the observations of a resident foreigner. Among the works in
English, revised or written since 1898 to meet the demand in the United
States for information about the Philippines, Dean C. Worcester's The
Philippine Islands and their People (New York, 1898), brings us nearest
to the life of the people, particularly in the rural districts and
regions most remote from modern changing influences. The treatises of
the British engineers and experts in tropical agriculture, Frederick
H. Sawyer and John Foreman, are written by men who were, naturally,
best prepared to discuss the agricultural conditions and the material
resources in general of the Philippines. Outside of these matters,
except when reciting personal experiences and observations, both
are compilers whose reading in Philippine bibliography has been very
fragmentary. Foreman in particular has undertaken to cover the entire
field of Philippine history and politics, and has, to state the plain
truth, made a very bad botch of it. He has been so often quoted in
the United States as authority for erroneous statements that it is
time to make this fact clear. It is commonly impossible to draw the
line in what he has written between fact and gossip, conjecture,
or partial truth. His latest edition (1906) contains most of the old
glaring errors or even worse omissions, with a full measure of new
ones in his recital of the history of events since 1896. Some data
contained in Foreman's book are not readily available to an American
student outside of the large libraries; but a caution is to be uttered
against relying upon him, even for his recital of fiscal details or
for his statistical tables. Sawyer is very much more accurate and
reliable, just as he is less pretentious in the program of his work.
In studying the social process of the Filipino people from about 1860
onward, the subject of education holds the first place. [64] It is,
however, unnecessary to occupy ourselves here with the bibliography of
the subject, which has been very fully covered in VOLS. XLV and XLVI of
this work, the appendices to those volumes giving, in connection with
other documents in this series and with the bibliographical notes,
the most comprehensive treatment of the subject of education in the
Philippines that is yet available in any language.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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