Slavery was prohibited by law as far back as the reign of Philip II.; [85] it nevertheless still exists in an occult form among the natives. Rarely, if ever, do its victims appeal to the law for redress, firstly, because of their ignorance, and secondly, because the untutored class have an innate horror of resisting anciently-established custom, and it would never occur to them to do so. Moreover, in the time of the Spaniards, the numberless _procuradores_ and _pica-pleitos_--touting solicitors had no interest in taking up cases so profitless to themselves. Under the pretext of guaranteeing a loan, parents readily sell their children (male or female) into bondage. The child is handed over to work until the loan is repaid; but as the day of restitution of the advance never arrives, neither does the liberty of the youthful victim. Among themselves it was a law, and is still a practised custom, for the debts of the parents to pass on to the children, and, as I have said before, debts are never repudiated by them. Slavery, in an overt form, now only exists among some wild tribes and the Moros. Education was almost exclusively under the control of the friars. Up to the year 1844 anything beyond religious tuition was reserved for the Spanish youth, the half-castes, and the children of those in office. Among the many reforms introduced in the time of Gov.-General Narciso Claveria (1844-49), that of extending Education to the provincial parishes was a failure. In the middle of the reign of Isabella II. (about 1850) it was the exclusive privilege of the classes mentioned and the native petty aristocracy, locally designated the _gente ilustrada_ and the _pudientes_ (Intellectuals and people of means and influence). Education, thus limited, divided the people into two separate castes, as distinct as the ancient Roman citizen and the plebeian. Residing chiefly in the ports open to foreign trade, the Intellectuals acquired wealth, possessed rich estates and fine houses artistically adorned. Blessed with all the comforts which money could procure and the refinement resulting from education, they freely associated and intermarried with the Spaniards, whose easy grace and dignified manners they gradually acquired and retain, to a great extent, to the present day. The other caste--the Illiterates--were dependents of the Intellectuals. Without mental training, with few wants, and little expenses, they were as contented, in their sphere, as the upper class were in theirs. Like their masters, they had their hopes, but they never knew what misery was, as one understands it in Europe, and in this felicitous, ambitionless condition, they never urgently demanded education, even for their children. The movement came from higher quarters, and during the O'Donnell ministry a Royal Decree was sent from Madrid establishing schools throughout the provinces.