Cooperation as expressed in the agricultural activities of the Bureau of Education

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Part of The Philippine Craftsman

Title: Cooperation as expressed in the agricultural activities of the Bureau of Education
Language: English
Year: 1916
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Fulltext: The Philippine Craftsman Vo l . V MANILA, JULY, 1916 No. 1 COOPERATION AS EXPRESSED IN THE AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES OF THE BUREAU OF EDUCATION. By Nor t h H. For eman, Inspector of School Gardens and Sites. In no other activity of the. Government is cooperation more essential to success nor have the people responded to a greater degree than they have in the agricultural enterprises of the Bureau of Education. This may be due largely to the fact that the Philippines are an agricultural country and the people and their representatives are primarily interested in agriculture. Rarely does one find a Philippine Government official who is not willing to lend his assistance to legitimate projects looking toward the betterment of agricultural conditions. This general interest is often so manifest that capital is made of it. Many an enterprise which does not in any way directly bear upon agriculture is advanced by telling the people that certain definite things will be done in their community to aid agriculture, if the requested assistance for the proposed project is forthcoming. At one place the people contributed the labor and materials for a bridge upon the assurance that assistance would be given them in improving an agricultural school site located in their community. This willingness to cooperate in agricultural education is not confined to any one section or to a particular class of people. Desirable examples are found in the wildest and most remote sections of the Philippines, where agriculture is often the first step in bringing these people under the authority of the Government officials. An excellent example of this is found in the Ilongot schools of Nueva Vizcaya. Practically the only Government control that has ever been established over the Negritos has been in those sections where settlement farm schools were made the medium through which Government influence reached Negrito life. The Villar Settlement Farm School is the oldest and most successful of all schools enrolling Negrito children. These wild men who have never before permitted themselves 1X1869 2 THE PHILIPPINE CRAFTSMAN to be controlled by any consideration, other than their desire for food, were made to feel the value of a certain amount of cooperation in this school project. The older folks helped to clear the ground for the school, laboring as willingly as any Negrito permits himself to. Last year several bands of Negritos of Zambales started out on a tour of pillage. They terrorized the people who, as a rule, live in deadly fear of the little black men of the mountains. Reprisals on the part of the lowland people and the activities of the Insular police in attempting to apprehend the members of the various marauding bands caused many of the Negritos who had taken up residence in Christian barrios to retire to the hills. This period was one of anxiety for those in charge of the Villar Settlement F'arm School who wondered what would happen to Th, a, Lagi the personnel of the school and to the considerable Negrito settlement of farmers which had sprung up under the influence of the school. When questioned regarding their future move, however, the headmen laughed at the idea of their going to the hills again and pointed proudly to their homes and cultivated fields. They even referred in a contemptuous way to those Negritos who had been led to desert their new homes. In rural barrios the Bureau of Education secures very definite cooperation from the people. Land is given for the school gardens and in many instances the people themselves gather at the school on a specified day, and fence the garden site for the schoolboys. Animals for breaking the land are loaned whenever needed. This form of cooperation is not limited to any particular locality, as it is found in practically every rural district in the Philippine Islands. COOPERATION 3 The same form of cooperation is found also in more developed centers. Rarely is there a community where the use of vacant lots can not be secured without cost to the pupils taking gardening. Land of considerable value is given outright to establish schools for giving special instruction in agriculture. Considerable portions of the farm sites at Batac, Ilocos Norte, and Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur, were donated to the schools. The cooperation expressed in official circles is less clearly defined and fewer specific examples of it can be given. Filipino officials, however, are partial to agricultural instruction in the public schools, and they officially support agricultural enterprises to a greater extent than any other one activity of the Bureau of Education. This official cooperation was given in the fullest degree during the recent corn campaign of the Bureau of Education. It is now as clearly manifest for the garden-day project of the Bureau. That part of the agricultural program which reaches the most people, and which receives the most assistance from the people themselves, is vegetable gardening. Through the 3,280 school gardens and 45,689 home gardens, the Filipino people are made to feel directly school influence in agriculture. Practically every one of these home gardens is an excellent home project in agriculture, in which the parents are asked to cooperate by giving the boys sufficient land and by providing protection for the crops. Rarely does a schoolboy have to purchase material for fencing his garden. Bamboo, the material most commonly used, is given by some neighbor if the boy cannot get it at home. At many schools, the garden class makes it a practice to grow a much larger number of seedlings than are desired for their own needs. These seedlings are distributed without cost to the people. In this manner the people themselves come directly under school influence. Another interesting form of cooperation is with the 15 poultry projects established by the Bureau of Education. These projects are scattered throughout the Islands. Cantonese poultry was provided for the schools by the central office. Laying hens were considered too valuable to permit them to set. Therefore, as soon as a setting of eggs was secured, a native hen borrowed from one of the neighbors was used to hatch the Cantonese eggs. The people willingly loaned the hens upon the assurance that they would be given one of the Cantonese chickens hatched from the eggs placed under the hen. In return for this aid the schools sold to the people at a very low cost Cantonese hens and roosters as soon as the flock belonging to the school warranted THE PHILIPPINE CRAFTSMAN sales being made. A cock was given to any farmer without cost upon the farmer’s agreeing to kill all other cocks on his place. The Santa Maria Farm School, in addition to the practices noted above, has exchanged the Cantonese chickens for native chickens, although the former are more valuable kilo for kilo than are the native chickens. The result of these methods is seen in the increased size of fowls and in the doubling of the average egg output. A hardy Cantonese native strain has been developed in every locality where poultry work has been carried on. Hog raising has been encouraged at all farm schools in much the same manner as poultry raising. Pure-bred Berkshire boars were placed at the schools. The services of these boars were made available for the farmers in the community. One school reports that during the past year 50 sows owned by farmers were served by the boar at the school. No charge was made for the services, as it is considered that the betterment of the stock of the locality more than recompenses the small outlay incident to the cost and keep of the boar. The people appreciate assistance in their efforts to raise better hogs by loaning sows to the school. It is a common practice at the Santa Maria Farm School to borrow a desirable brood sow and to keep it at the school for breeding purposes. The farmer is given one pig from every litter. At the Central Luzon Agricultural School where a large herd of hogs is maintained as a source of meat supply for the school, the farmers of the community are permitted to exchange the native hogs for the pure-bred Berkshire hogs kilo for kilo. In this manner, low-grade native hogs are being practically eliminated from the community. The Bureau of Agriculture has cooperated in the animal work of the Bureau of Education by making public breeding boars available for the farm schools. Likewise the herd of range cattle at the Mailag Agricultural School was provided with a Nellore bull without cost to the Bureau of Education. The schoolboys keep these breeding animals in good shape and encourage the people to use them for breeding purposes. It is an excellent form of cooperation, as it makes the animal available for public use and at the same time reduces the cost of developing the school herd. In addition to the gift of land which is a feature of the establishment of every agricultural school, the cooperation of the people is shown in a very definite way in two or three special projects. Irrigation was desired for the school farm at Santa Maria and permission was obtained for the school to become a COOPERATION 5 unit in the ownership of a cooperative ditch serving the owners of the land near the school. In this manner, the schoolboys cooperate closely in local agricultural enterprises as the school is obliged to keep up its section of the ditch and to use water only during the time agreed upon by the various coowners. In a like manner the schoolboys at Batac cooperate in maintaining a local irrigation ditch in order that they may secure water for the school farm. Their private ditch, extending from the main ditch, was constructed by themselves in cooperation with the farmers through whose land the ditch passes. This school otherwise aids the farmers of the community by distributing young plants and seeds to them without cost. The services of the breeding animals kept at the school are also available for public use. The Santa Maria Farm School does not maintain sufficient work animals to put the rice crop in as rapidly as is desired. Consequently, when the proper plowing season arrives the people freely loan work animals to the school for the five or six days of special work incident to plowing and preparing the rice fields. In the general plan for improving the public highways and public grounds, nurseries for growing plants were provided. These nurseries are located on school grounds and are maintained by school pupils as a part of their work in agriculture. With young trees available for planting, the people are asked to cooperate in the plan by securing trees from the nurseries and transplanting them along the public highways or at their homes. Most public plazas in the Philippines are now shaded with trees planted by school pupils in cooperation with municipal officials. On Arbor Days and at other times during the year the schoolboys have planted a large number of trees. At first this work of planting the trees along public highways did not meet with the approval of those locally in charge of the construction and maintenance of the public roads. Numerous mature trees growing along public roads, and young trees set out by school pupils, were destroyed because it was said that the roots would damage the road bed. The project was not dropped owing to this difficulty, but cooperation was asked from Bureau of Public Works officials and town authorities. Steps were taken to demonstrate and to explain the value of shaded highways. As a result, the planting of shade trees is considered a part of the general plan of road construction. The Bureau tries to obtain further cooperation in having trees of economic value used for shade trees. The people secure from the school nurseries young fruit trees and plant them at their homes. Schoolboys are given 6 THE PHILIPPINE CRAFTSMAN school credit for the care of home-planted fruit trees. The records of this office show that last year 40,000 fruit trees were distributed from public school nurseries and were planted at the homes of the people. Returns of a very definite nature will be received in a few years. In general improvement of public places, the people very frequently loan their animals and furnish men to drive them. At Lilio, Laguna, the entire male community worked by turns in the endeavor to make the school yard the prettiest place in the town. An incident is also reported from Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija. One of the principal men of the town assisted in the removal of a number of ant hills in the effort to improve the school premises. Free labor to the value of about 1*700 was secured. There is probably no one feature of the school-ground improvement plan which has received so much cooperation as clean-up week. Special Government assistance was secured in the form of the active cooperation of all Government officials. As a result, the towns and barrios of the Philippine Islands are cleaner than ever before. It is reported that many of the improvements have been kept up, and that lasting good has resulted. CLEAN FOOD A POSSIBILITY. “Since the housewife usually does the buying for the family, it naturally follows that the housewife controls the market— not only the kinds of products sold, but the kind of selling place. Whenever the housewife ceases to buy from the dirty food shop, the dirty food shop will cease to exist. “The most important thing for every community to do is to decide that it will have no more dirty food. The flies must go, the food shops must be clean and sanitary, the people who handle food must be healthy and clean.” If in the foregoing quotation from “The Journal of Home Economics,” the word “market” or “tienda” were substituted for “food shop” and “selling place,” the matter would be applicable here in the Philippines. It is obvious that one housewife cannot wage the battle alone. She must enlist her friends and must cooperate with the local health officials. If many women refuse to buy dirty food or to buy any food sold in a dirty place and handled by dirty unhealthy people, the food sellers in the town or district will soon have clean food for sale, because otherwise the amount of food remaining unsold will make profits impossible.