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98

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

[Vol. 51

Let us for a moment retrace this picture. To whom after this is it attributable that the Indian is often a vicious and degraded being, particularly in the neighborhood of Manila?

If he sees all around him thieving and enjoying their plunder with impunity, what wonder is it that he should thieve also? If his tribunals of all descriptions afford him no redress, or place that redress beyond his reach, what resource has he but private revenge?^[1] If he cannot enjoy the fruits of his labour in peace, why should he work? If he is ignorant, why has he not been instructed? There exist scarcely any schools to teach him his duties: the few that do exist teach him Latin! prayers! theology! jurisprudence! and some little reading and writing;^[2] but he

↑ Nothing has stamped the character of the Manila Indian with greater atrocity in the eyes of Englishmen, than their frequent appeals to assassination (the knife) in cases of supposed or actual wrongs.—How long is it since dirks were laid aside, because useless, in Scotland? When men cannot appeal immediately to a magistrate, they appeal to themselves. Duels too are another kind of appeals of the same sort.
↑ "At Manila, therefore, a doctor [of law] is a species of phenomenon, and many years pass without one of them being seen; in two universities there is no doctor, while in 1767 there was but one competitor for the doctoral of the cathedral. Yet it must be noted that this competitor was a Mexican, and was not born in Manila. Of what use, therefore, are two universities in this city? Would not a single one be more than enough? One who knows Latin is greatly esteemed in Manila, because that language is not common there, in spite of the two universities which I have just mentioned; what is learned in those institutions is very poor, and is only imperfectly understood. When I arrived there, a great many persons asked me if I knew Latin, and when I answered that I knew a little of it they apparently had after that more respect for me. All the ancient prejudices of the schools seem to have abandoned us of Europe only to take refuge at Manila, where certainly they have long remained, for the ancient doctrine is there in too good hands to give place to sound ideas of physics. Don Feliciano Marqués often honestly confessed to me that in Spain they were a hundred years behind France, in the sciences; and that at Manila they were a hundred years behind Spain. One can judge, by that, of the present state of physics at Manila, in the midst of two universities. In that city electricity is known only by name, and the Holy Office of the Inquisition has prohibited experiments in that line. I knew there a Frenchman, a surgeon by profession, a man of parts and of inquiring mind, who was threatened with the Inquisition for having tried to make such experiments; but I think that what really drew upon him this ill-fortune was the experiment of the "little friar." [This simple experiment in physics was made with a little figure resembling a friar; it had never before been seen in Manila, and everybody ran to look at it and laugh.] "This experiment of the surgeon, who made his little friar dance, and sometimes sink to the bottom of the vial by way of correcting him, drew upon him the displeasure of the entire body of religious with whom Manila swarms; there was talk of the Holy Office, and it was said that the surgeon's experiment was a case for the Inquisition. The surgeon, therefore—whose only intention in the experiment was to vex the friars who had prevented him from making his experiments in electricity—was compelled to cease his pleasantry, and Manila had to express its detestation of the pleasure that it had taken in seeing the experiment." [The author was visited by many people at his observatory, who desired to see the sun and the planets through his telescope;] "the women were even more curious than the men about the rare things which I showed them, and which I took pleasure in explaining to them; but not a single religious came to visit my observatory." (Le Gentil, Voyage, ii, pp. 96, 97.)—Eds.

[1] Nothing has stamped the character of the Manila Indian with greater atrocity in the eyes of Englishmen, than their frequent appeals to assassination (the knife) in cases of supposed or actual wrongs.—How long is it since dirks were laid aside, because useless, in Scotland? When men cannot appeal immediately to a magistrate, they appeal to themselves. Duels too are another kind of appeals of the same sort.

[p98-2] "At Manila, therefore, a doctor [of law] is a species of phenomenon, and many years pass without one of them being seen; in two universities there is no doctor, while in 1767 there was but one competitor for the doctoral of the cathedral. Yet it must be noted that this competitor was a Mexican, and was not born in Manila. Of what use, therefore, are two universities in this city? Would not a single one be more than enough? One who knows Latin is greatly esteemed in Manila, because that language is not common there, in spite of the two universities which I have just mentioned; what is learned in those institutions is very poor, and is only imperfectly understood. When I arrived there, a great many persons asked me if I knew Latin, and when I answered that I knew a little of it they apparently had after that more respect for me. All the ancient prejudices of the schools seem to have abandoned us of Europe only to take refuge at Manila, where certainly they have long remained, for the ancient doctrine is there in too good hands to give place to sound ideas of physics. Don Feliciano Marqués often honestly confessed to me that in Spain they were a hundred years behind France, in the sciences; and that at Manila they were a hundred years behind Spain. One can judge, by that, of the present state of physics at Manila, in the midst of two universities. In that city electricity is known only by name, and the Holy Office of the Inquisition has prohibited experiments in that line. I knew there a Frenchman, a surgeon by profession, a man of parts and of inquiring mind, who was threatened with the Inquisition for having tried to make such experiments; but I think that what really drew upon him this ill-fortune was the experiment of the "little friar." [This simple experiment in physics was made with a little figure resembling a friar; it had never before been seen in Manila, and everybody ran to look at it and laugh.] "This experiment of the surgeon, who made his little friar dance, and sometimes sink to the bottom of the vial by way of correcting him, drew upon him the displeasure of the entire body of religious with whom Manila swarms; there was talk of the Holy Office, and it was said that the surgeon's experiment was a case for the Inquisition. The surgeon, therefore—whose only intention in the experiment was to vex the friars who had prevented him from making his experiments in electricity—was compelled to cease his pleasantry, and Manila had to express its detestation of the pleasure that it had taken in seeing the experiment." [The author was visited by many people at his observatory, who desired to see the sun and the planets through his telescope;] "the women were even more curious than the men about the rare things which I showed them, and which I took pleasure in explaining to them; but not a single religious came to visit my observatory." (Le Gentil, Voyage, ii, pp. 96, 97.)—Eds.

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