Panorama

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Part of Panorama

Title: Panorama
Issue Date: Volume XX (Issue No. 9) September 1968
Year: 1968
Language: English
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extracted text: THE PHILIPPINE MAGAZINE OF GOOD READING Juudl mjI fcUw 'JifyiMi: PANORAMA needs intelligent readers off: 1. Informative materials 2. Interesting ideas 3. Enlightening opinions 4. Broadening views 5. Controversial thoughts 6. Critical comments 7. Idealistic suggestions 8. Humorous remarks 9. Serious statements 10. Meditations on life and work. All these are either original productions or selective adap tions and condensations from Philippine and foreign publica tions. Usually brief and compact, lasting from two to ten minutes to read, each article offers a rewarding experience in one’s moments of leisure. Relax with Panorama. We say this to the busy student and the teacher, the lawyer and the physician, the dentist and the engineer, the executive and the farmer, the politician and the preacher, the employer and the employee. PANORAMA is specially designed for Filipinos — young, middle-aged, and old, male and female, housekeeper and houselizard. Special rates on November 1, for new and renewal 1966: subscriptions to begin 1 c°py ..................................... 1 year ..................................... 2 years ............. ..................... Foreign rate: .......................... 50 centavos P5.00 P9.00 $3.00 (U. S.) For one year’s subscription of 5 pesos, a person receives the equivalent of 12 compact pocketbooks of lasting value and and varied interest. COMMUNITY PUBLISHERS, INC. Inverness, (M. Carreon) St., Sta. Ana, Manila, Philippines Vol. XX THE PHILIPPINE MAGAZINE OF GOOD READING Entered as second class mail matter at the Manila Post Of f ioe on < Deer 7, 1955 MANILA, PHILIPPINES Na. 9 THE EVIL OF COMPROMISE Acts of compromise are sometimes necessary when circumstances require adjustment for the solution of pro blems involving conflicting questions. They may be de fended as expedient measures. But a compromise is an evil when it involves the' yielding of a moral prin ciple to secure a personal advantage or to avoid a diffi cult commitment. A decision that clearly violates^ an accepted ethical rule is an evil. An action that ignored an existing law is equally an evil. In each case, it makes no difference who the author may be, what motives he might have, or what prompts him to commit it. In all these1 cases : it ’ is an evil; and compromising/ with evil is never justifiable and never excusable. No amount of rationalization suffices to relieve the party df the guilt he has committed regardless of his status or the position he occupies, be that of 1a public official, a friend, a father, a son, or a daughter. There is a moral basis in the legal declaration which says that ignorance of the law excuses no one from complying therewith. Compromises- that involve a breach of moral stan dards, or a violation of a legal rule, or an infringement of a solemn contractual commitment indicate a pitiful paucity of a high sense of values. To the author they are likely to produce a feeling of1 degradation when they (Continued on page 47) IMPROVING GRADUATE EDUCATION IN THE PHILIPPINES The college population of the Philippines today is one of the largest to be found in any country in the world. It has been rapidly increas ing from year to year. As of the year 1965, our college enrollment has reached ap proximately one per cent (1%) of the total population of the whole country or about 300,000 men and wo men students. About 90% of this number is in private institutions ope rating under what is practi cally a uniform system es tablished by rules and regu lations of our Government. This fact has two general results: First, it has helped in discouraging the mainte nance of schools unable to meet certain formal and me chanical requirements and, second, it has prevented the development of diversity in academic institutions and the cultivation of a variety of educational programs and procedures, features which have characterized the Ame rican system of higher edu cation and which most per ceptive observers consider as one of the chief causes of its vitality and dynamic nature. Incidentally, the famous Mon roe Report had noted, as far back as 1925, the dead ening uniformity and rigid standardization in our edu cational system when it ex pressly mentioned with dis approval “the characteristic feature of the methods of teaching from Abra to Jolo as being uniformity, the absence of variety.” (page 385). That criticism was particu larly directed against the public schools below the col lege level which were expec ted to be standardized in several ways. It is certainly more relevant and could be more logically stretched to include not only teaching 2 Panorama methods but also the rigid limitations in the curricula of private institutions of higher learning which spe cially cover college education of undergraduate and grad uate level. At the outset it might not be amiss to refer even very briefly to the history of col lege education in this part of the Orient. As a West ern idea, college education in the Philippines may be said to have started over three hundred years ago. Z)uring the Spanish rule ol the country, however, it was confined to a small group of students from families of wealth and high social po sition. Its main purpose in the earlier years was not so much intellectual advance ment or professional compe tence as it was social refine ment and distinction^ But with the advancing years of the 19th Century, the exist ing colleges and universities expanded their program to include professional or voca tional fields which accor dingly resulted in the pro duction of Filipino lawvers, doctors, accountants, phar macists, surveyors, and a few other skilled occupations. In the University of Santo Tomas, even before these professional studies were in troduced, courses in philo sophy, theology, and the hu manities in one form or an other had already been in troduced. All the courses then offered were naturally patterned after those given in the universities and col leges in Spain. Incidentally, it should be mentioned here that this state of things ac counted for the readiness of the Philippines at the close of the last Century to create an independent republic with leaders sufficiently qualified to organize and maintain a Western-style government. The establishment of the American rule at the opening of this century brought intd this country a different sys tem of education modelled after that 6f the United States. Elementary and se condary schools were soon organized and developed all over the country. The libe ral arts college for under graduate work was then opened and maintained for students who have completed the secondary education pro gram. As established in the University of the Philippines, it was at first a two-year program leading to the de September 1968 3 gree. of Bachelor of Arts af ter the pattern of the French lycee, which grants the bacr,ala ureal?,, or of the German gymnasium^ , This, however, was soon changed to a fourycar study tp follow the Ame rican college systeip. Way back in. its early his-, tory, the University ,of v the Philippines already began its graduate education program leading to the degree of-Mas ter in the arts and .science disciplines. This was consi dered necessary as far back as .45 years ago in thiscoun* try; and. that institution even then was already, recognized as adequately prepared to offer the program. On the need for its organization and development, the Monroe Report had this to say: “‘The opportunities for productive research in the Philippines and particularly in fields,re* movfed from the sphere of the average American and European scholar are most numerous. In the botany, zoology, anthropology, lin guistics, and history of the Philippines and neighboring countries, there is an almost inexhaustible mine. The University offers post-grad uate work in these and other fields leading to the degree of master of science. It has several .gifted scholars in its faculty 'who are peculiarly, qualified to engage in re search them^ejyes and, to di rect the research of students.. By.a reduction.in their hours of teaching and by supply-; jpg them .with adequate re-, sources, opportunity should be given to such. teachers to mgke their contributions, to knowledge and to add to the prestige.-of the University.” The entire enrollment of the University pf the,Philip pines at the time it started its.graduate1 program was just, about 3,000 . students. Its library had no more than 12,000 -volumes ; - “including those in all colleges and schools.” The, Monroe Sup vey. Commission suggested tha^ the. University should copline :it$ attention to the master’s course alone. Con scious of its standing as the standard- bearer in our- sys tem of higher education, the University .observed the max imum care in the admission and, instruction of students for advanced education and training from the beginning, for it realized that a grad uate degree symbolizes ho nor and prestige. Hence, the M.A. of the University of 4 Passobama the Philippines represented and continues to represent achievement in the academic or professional field attained through solid work. It is said that our State Univer sity’s requirements for the acquisition of the Master’s degree are in some ways more stringent than those deman ded in many colleges or uni versities in the United States. Its master’s program in this respect is, in the opinion of objective observers, as de manding and as difficult as certain doctoral programs of fered in other local institu tions. The graduate courses in that institution leading to the Ph.D. degree were more recently established. The University has always insis ted in rigorous work and high technical skill in re search. This is one reason why over the years only two persons have so far succeed ed in receiving the Ph.D, degree. The student who concentrated on biological science and to whom the Ph.D. degree in that field was awarded has produced since her graduation re searches of such excellence and high value that they have received commendation, praise, and recognition in European and American scientific societies. Turning now to the con ditions which should justify the emergence of well-estabiMhed graduate schools in cnir country, it is quite per tinent to repeat here that $ie number of secondary and college students enrolled in all educational institutions in this country in relation to our population size is the largest in Southeast Asia. As far back as 1960-1961, in the secondary schools, both pub lic and private, the enroll ment reached a total of 663,496, of which there were 114,882 in the 4th year. In 1961, there were 69,490 se condary graduates from the private schools alone; and in 1960, the number of secon dary graduates from the pub lic schools, both academic and vocational, was 48,061 students. The number of collegiate students in both public and private colleges and univer sities in the academic year 1961-1962 total 283,394. About one-half of this num ber of students were enrolled in professional courses or preparatory courses for pro fessional studies, thereby lea September 1968' 5 ving some 140,000 students in general education, arts and sciences, and teacher education. Since then, the number has considerably in creased. To take a minor example, in Foundation Col lege of Dumaguete, the en rollment, in its school of edu cation and its school of arts and science has jumped in five years from about 500 to over 2,000 students. One does not have' to go deeper in an analysis and interpretation of statistics on this particular subject to re alize that with the increasing number of secondary school graduates pressing on the colleges and the correspon ding increase of students completing their collegiate studies, the importance and urgency of graduate programs first for the master’s degree and then' after a few more years for the doctor’s should no longer be ignored. Then, there is another factor to consider — the vast incre*se of knowledge. To ignore the need for further studies af ter the baccalaureate degree is to remain blind to the new discoveries of science and scholarship which are now rapidly taking place. Right at this moment in our country advanced education and training is needed to handle the mounting tide of both secondary and collegiate students demanding a more adequate and. up-to-date pre paration not only for teach ing jobs in schools and col leges but also for industry business, agriculture, and other occupations calling for research ability and special expertise in different lines of work. Moreover, higher edu cation is also needed for a better understanding and ap preciation of modern life, of possibilities for creative ener gy, of the implication and significance of democracy and its adversaries, and of the changing values of the pre sent civilization. For these and perhaps other reasons, the Depart ment of Education has made the right decision in encour aging the opening of grad uate programs in institutions considered qualified to do this work. As of today, the records of the Bureau of Private Schools show that there are 87 private institu tions authorized to offer graduate courses. Of this number and on the basis of 1965 statistics, 25 are univer sities and 62 are colleges. Panorama These are geographically distributed as follows: 59 are in Luzon, 17 in the Visayas, and 11 in Mindanao. It is interesting to note the growing enrollment in these graduate institutions. In the academic year 19591960, the total number of students registered in private institutions for graduate stu dy was 2,104. Five years later, or in the academic year 1963-1964, the number jumped to 64532 students. This number, of course, re presents only about 2.2 per cent of the total undergrad uate enrollment in all our colleges and universities. But this rate in itself shows an increasing appreciation for advanced studies. This fact, however, does not necessarily indicate a qualitative im provement of the graduate courses offered and of the value of the graduate degrees awarded. But before discussing the particular problems and qua litative aspects of graduate education in our country, there is need to clarify in our minds the nature and purpose of graduate studies. Inasmuch as we have taken the American graduate pro gram as a general pattern for our own system, it is practically imperative for us to examine its character and broad features regardless of any plan we might later adopt to modify that sysi cm for the purpose of adjusting it to the require ments of our country’s man power. Graduate education should be primarily directed towards specialization. Properly or ganized, it must presuppose a foundation of a sound li beral . education , to give breadth to the mental scope and the intellectual horizon of the student. This should be acquired principally dur ing the undergraduate life of a person first in the high school and then in the col lege of arts and sciences. This condition precedent is indispensable. The aim is the development of the indi vidual’s basic knowledge of man qua man and the culti vation of his sense of values. In the graduate school, the chief objective should be the intensive study of a spe cific subject in a definite area of learning. It is a stu dy in depth. To be ade quately accomplished, it has to be sufficiently restricted in scope. In other words, in September 1968 graduate work attention and energy should be concentra ted on a particular subject to enable the mind to pe netrate into its very pith and core as well as to learn how this process of inquiry and investigation may be accom plished. Graduate work has, therefore, a double purpose: One is to give the student a deeper knowledge of a spe cific subject and the other is to enable him to learn the needed skill and tech nique to do research work in order that he could be an investigator and disco verer of new knowledge or an explorer in the regions of science or scholarship. The chief subjects of the undergraduate curriculum — English, physical sciences, economics, philosophy, histo ry, mathematics, psychology, etc. i — constitute the vast field out of which the grad uate program carves a spe cific unit to be intensively investigated and learned. There have been, however, some attempts to broaden the scope of graduate edu cation in spite of the fact that this objective is sup posed to have been accom plished in the undergraduate program. But these attempts have failed to materialize for several reasons: One is the necessity of avoiding the lengthening of an already long graduate program; and another reason is the rapid expansion taking place with in every discipline which makes it difficult to acquire some mastery over it if grad uate education should be di rected towards a broader field of studies. But the idea of giving some breadth in doctoral stu dies has not been entirely ignored. It is being carried out in a sense by the intro duction of interdepartmental programs or by a process of integrating into one subject of concentration certain phases of other allied sub jects within one particular discipline. An important goal of graduate studies has given rise to another question, the question which may be des cribed as pedagogical train ing. For a graduate program is usually, though not always, designed for teaching, spe cially college teaching. But except in the case of M.A. in education, graduate schools as a rule do not provide nor do they favor any formal training in teaching methods. 8 Panorama cators, however, believe that it is advantageous and desir able to have some knowledge about the organization of courses, the philosophy of education, the interests of young people, the learning process, the structuring of examinations, and a few other matters which may improve the instructional or classroom performance of new college teachers. But in the United States these days the prevailing view on the subject of graduate training for college teaching is in favor of using graduate students as teaching assistants in sections into which large classes are divided or in la boratory sessions. The pur pose is to give them a me' - sure of training through aclual teaching experience. This idea’ has been put into practice in many colleges and universities and has proved to be an effective system of teacher training.’ In fact, it is now being developed into a systematized plan which classifies student teachers in to ranks from teaching as sistants to teaching fellows. It is said that this develop ment has resulted partly from the need for more teachers to help handle the increasing college enrollments. Thus in Florida, ranks have been es tablished within this catego ry as follows: a teaching as sistant who does good work in his assignment not only receives a good mark as a student but is also raised to the rank of teaching asso ciate. In California and other universities where the student population is spe cially large this system of teaching assistantships is now generally followed. Among the advantages claimed for it is the commonly accepted idea that a person learns more of the subject he is studying by teaching it. It is said that since 1960, the great majority of all grad uate school deans, faculties, and college presidents in the United States have been in favor of requiring all grad uate students to do under graduate teaching under su pervision. In the June 4, 1965, issue of Time magazine, there is an interesting report on the satisfactory results of the em ployment of graduate stu dents as teaching assistants or fellows in prestige univer sities in the United States including Harvard, Michi gan, California, Chicago, and September 1968 One group of American eduother institutions. These universities are turning over to teaching assistants a large share of the work of hand ling the instruction in fresh man and sophomore classes. Time says: “Frantically pur suing their own Ph.D.’s while they carry a substantial share of the university teaching, TAs (Teaching Assistants) are generally the most en thusiastic, under-paid and overworked members of a university teaching staff. They are getting more nu merous all the time. Of Harvard’s 1,816 teachers, 893 are teaching fellows. The University of California’s Berkeley campus has 1,303 TA’s of 3,460 teachers. The University of Michigan had only four teaching fellows in its Literary College in 1933, has 579 today.” How they are employed in their assignments is described as follows: The teaching as sistant is made to handle sections of 15 to 30 students in introductory courses. “He lectures, answers questions, conducts laboratory sessions, grades the students. He is supervised by a professor, who usually also delivers mass lectures in the course. The TA rarely gets much formal instruction in teaching.” He may be only a few years older than his students but he has to handle heavy sub jects, a task which gives him valuable experience. “When we get to talking about our classes,” says a Michigan teaching assistant, age 27, who teaches psychology, “it makes me wish I had had teachers like us. I was in troduced to psychology by one of the highest names in the field — and it was the lousiest course I ever took.” Time magazine says: “Harvard Philosophy Chair man Rogers Albritton be lieves that ‘teaching fellows are often better teachers than the senior men. They have more energy and interest.’ Michigan’s Vice President Roger Heyns boasts: ‘Some of our teaching fellows would be instructors or assistant professors at other schools.’ Time’s report goes on to say: “Dean Elberg defends the TA system on grounds that ‘it allows the university to break up large classes into smaller units and then give individual instruction — it begins to humanize the insti tution.” 10 Panorama From the views expressed by responsible college heads as incorporated in the work of Prof. Bernard Berelson on Graduate Education in the United States, we may draw the following suggestions on the work and position of teaching assistants: (1) To be academically effective and beneficial to the teaching as sistant and the students un der him, the program should place the assistants under the supervision of the senior pro fessor; (2) there should be regular seminar discussions on the problems of teaching the subject at undergraduate level; (3) a range of teaching activities should be entrusted to the teaching assistant ra ther than just a small and mere routine part of the se nior teacher’s function, such as merely correcting themes, doing clerical chores for the head teacher, or cleaning the laboratory apparatus, etc. The teaching assistant should be required to prepare course outlines, lead small discus sion groups, and actually per form the tasks of the regu lar head or senior teacher. There is another method and practice suggested for the training of graduate stu dents for teaching work. In order that the study of the graduate student of his sub jects and his research train ing may have his full atten tion, a system of internship for those attending the higher courses should be established in the same manner as that provided by medical schools before their new graduates may be certified as regular physicians. The teaching internship should be spent in the undergraduate college, It is there where the new graduate trains on how to teach after the graduate school has taught him what to teach. The system of teaching assistantship or the intern ship -could be adopted, with proper adjustments, in the M.A. program in our coun try for the purpose of train ing graduate students for teaching secondary classes or the first two years of under graduate college classes. The assistants should be chosen from the superior type of graduate students and should receive the necessary direc tion, counsel, and suggestion from the senior teachers. Properly guided and su pervised, the system could produce a more effective teaching work for the col Septembeb1 1968 11 lege and a better disciplined staff of young instructors, for as advanced or as grad uate students they may be expected to follow readily and willingly instructions and suggestions to improve their effectiveness in their tasks. Unlike the regular teacher who expects to be left alone and to be indif ferent at times to his work and to his students’ progress, the student assistant has to show much interest in his sub ject, his students, and their performance, in order to earn the necessary mark and cre dit in his own course. Coming back to the con dition of the graduate stu dies in the United States as compared to what is done in the Philippines, the grea ter interest shown in the Ph.D. program by the more talehted 1 American students seem to have lessen the en thusiasm of most American educators in the M.A. pro gram. In fact the M.A. de gree in America today stands on such a variable position that most of the older pres tige universities seem to give it less and less attention. It is the newer institutions where the M.A. program re ceives some importance. Ac cording to Professor Berel son, Pennsylvania State Uni versity gives more M.A.’s than Harvard, Temple more than Yale, Louisiana State more than Chicago, and Ok lahoma State more than Cor nell. It is in the colleges rather than in larger univer sities where the M.A. pro gram is more extensively pro moted. And it is the M.A. degree in education which attracts more students than any other M.A. degree. In fact more than one-half of all M.A. diplomas are award ed in education. In this field Columbia Teachers College is the leader. In the academic year 1957-1958 alone, this college granted 2,757 M.A. in education; and in the same year and field of study New York Univer sity granted 2,133, Michigan 2,081, and Illinois, Wiscon sin, and Indiana have award ed each over 1,000 M.A. de grees all in education. This rapid popularity of the M.A. in education may be caused by several factors. One of them is the gradual elimination of undergraduate degree in education for se condary school teaching such as the B.S.E., and the adop tion of complete liberal arts 12 Panorama courses for teachers, with majors in content subjects, during the last 15 or 2Q years. This shift is obviously a renewed recognition of importance for the teacher to have a greater mastery of the content of the subject he expects to handle in school. Obviously it is an evidence of the realization of the lesser significance of formal methods courses as against better acquaintance with academic disciplines in the preparation of teachers. Hence to saye what may still be formally useful to the teaching profession, it is deemed advisable to move upward to the graduate school such things as school administration, supervision, and some sophisticated me thods courses for school ad ministrators and supervisors. The effectiveness of th': sys tem of teaching assistantships further reduces the need for many formal undergraduate education courses. In 1959, the University of the Philippines attempted to abolish the undergraduate course of education leading to the B.S.E, degree and to replace it with a graduate education course for all pros pective secondary school teachers after they have suc cessfully completed the li beral arts studies. Leader ship in the College of Education, however, was noc suf ficiently active and persuasive to overcome the few but vo cal defenders of the status quo. But in the near future the sensible examples of Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and other prestigious universities in the United States, which have no undergraduate nut only graduate education schools, will undoubtedly prevail to the improvement of the preparation of our teachers. We are told that the top master’s institutions are not the same ones that are known as the top doctoral institu tions. This is a fact “which emphasizes a break between the two degrees.” This break incidentally shows that the M.A,, contrary to what an official of the Bureau of Pri vate Schools stated, is still a terminal degree. It is not necessarily a step towards the Ph.D, degree, this degree being actually attainable di rectly by a student who does not care to work for an M.A. The top universities, how ever, are doubtless concen trating on the doctoral pro September 1968 13 gram because of their high prestige and, therefore, great drawing power on the men and women of talent who are really preferred for high er graduate studies. This they can do best and with great advantage considering that the Ph.D. training is intended not merely for aca demic but also for profes sional work and for which industry and public service are always willing to pay an attractive compensation. We have to admit that on the whole Philippine univer sities are not yet sufficiently equipped both as to service, facilities, and personnel, to give a Ph.D. program with academically satisfying re sults. The University of the Philippines is an excep tion; and as we stated be fore/ it has been handling this work so carefully and strictly that so far (1968) it has awarded only two Ph.D. degrees, one in biological science and another in edu cation. The University of Sto. Tomas has been, con ducting a doctoral program which covers much wider scope than that of the state University. It includes both academic and professional graduate work. It has turn ed out quite a number who have completed its doctoral program in different disci plines and professions. The Ed.D. program, being primarily a teaching course, does not usually require an intensive research training. Consequently, it does not in volve a heavy investment in scientific equipment, library, and laboratory facilities as does the Ph.D. course. It could be undertaken by col leges or universities which have moderate but high class library facilities and a faculty of knowledgeable teachers who have a deep interest in subjects pertaining to the field of education. But for the present, it is preferable for Philippine uni versities and colleges to con centrate their attention on the master’s program. Fa cilities for this purpose are more easily organized or im proved for effective work. But the plan should include not only the M.A. in Edu cation but also the M.A. in some disciplines in the so cial sciences, mathematics, the natural sciences, or the humanities. In order to make the M.A. in Educa tion more than just a pro fessional degree, its curricu 14 Panorama lum should give sufficient weight to arts and science subjects to increase its use fulness for college teaching and for a broader compre hension of the objectives of administration in elementary and secondary schools. A step in this direction should raise its prestige to the high er level of the purely aca demic M.A. as a scholarly degree. This suggestion is obviously a departure from the curriculum of the Phil ippine Normal College which provides a total of 31 units of which 12 are education and methods, 9 minors, and 10 thesis. The majority of holders of graduate degrees prefer to stay in Manila and near by places. This situation makes it difficult for provin cial colleges to secure pro perly qualified teachers for collegiate work. Consequent ly, academically enterprising provincial colleges or univer sities need to organize some graduate program and to strengthen their faculty. This will enable such insti tutions to supply colleges outside of the national ca pital with the teachers they should have. This is in addition to the fact that as more Masters are available, the teaching force as well as the administrative staff for our elementary and seconda ry schools is likely to be upgraded. This is happening in the United States these days where completion of M.A. degree is required not only for collegiate but also for high school teaching. In the Philippines, the practice of employing teach ers with M.A. degrees should receive even much more en couragement than in Ameri ca for in several ways many of our holders of tlie B.S.E. and A.B. degrees do not have sufficient mastery of the sub jects they teach and may not always be expected, therefore, to improve the educational fitness of the majority of young men and women who seek admission into our colleges or univer sities or who look for those better paid jobs that call for some mastery of English or mathematics or a particular social science discipline. The Philippine law which provides higher salaries for public school teachers with graduate degrees and for teachers who have completed a certain amount of grad uate work tends to encour September 1968 15 age teachers to improve their academic or professional qua lifications. The establishment of cen ters for graduate studies should be encouraged only when they can offer a grad uate program of substantial quality. For this purpose a graduate school should meet certain indispensable conditions. One is a college administration that thorough ly understands the aims of graduate education and wil lingly adopts adequate standards of academic excellence. The administrative head should never be satisfied with mediocre academic perform ance on the part of the stu dents. The library of tire college should receive preferential attention for no graduate education could be effective ly carried (out without a good working iibrary. It is not enough that the library mere ly complies with the nume rical requirement of the pre sent law that a university must have 10,000 Volumes. It has to be a library of up-to-date and authoritative books and reference works as well as a sufficient num ber of general, professional, technical) and specialised magazines and journals on different subjects related to arts and sciences, education, and Cultural and higher pro fessional studies. That li brary should be regularly and carefully replenished from year to year. Its sub scriptions to tne leading pe riodicals should not be al lowed to lapse. We need to remember that it is k in current publications of high quality> even more than in bound books, where the latest advances of science and scho larship may often be found. The quality of a college and university library depends upon the excellent quality of its books and authoritative publications than upon the mere quantity of the mate rials it indiscriminately keeps in its shelves. If the graduate program embraces science studies and aims at concentration or spe cialization in specific areas in the physical or biological sciences, the college should possess and develop a wellstocked library of science books as well as a well-equip ped science laboratory and workshop. Research and research training are empha tically stressed in advanced or graduate science studies 16 Panorama even more than in education, humanities, and social disci plines. Having these physical fa cilities, an effective graduate program requires dedicated teachers and well-qualified students. To be a well-qua lified student it is not enough that one should have a good mind or an active brain. It is essential that he should have a strbng personal interest in higher learning and a consuming desire to pursue his subject of specialization with some thing akin to a fanatical fervor. A smart or witty young person who is indif ferent to steady work and systematic reading is not ne cessarily the preferred type for graduate studies. We should be aware of the warn ing of experienced educators and scholars that fluency in speech does not mean depth. As Philosopher Henry David Aiken of Harvard described an important U. S. official: “His mind is more rapid than accurate, more facile than profound.”' By having these observations well in mind, we may be able to avoid any misunderstanding or misinterpretation of one very important qualification every graduate student shou'd possess which is a certain de gree of mastery of the En glish language, specially writ ten English. According to a Yale report quoted bv Be relson, writing is a tool and is part of the basic metho dology of graduate educatiop. In the study of the humani ties and social sciences, writ ing is analogous to problem drilling in mathematics or laboratory work in the natu ral sciences. It is, therefore, suggested that there should be “more writing practice early in the graduate train ing program and reliance on a larger number of shorter papers.” This suggestion is of much greater value to us. considering that English is not our native tongue. The faculty for graduate studies is as important as the faculty for undergrad uate work' if not more so in some respects. In the latter, a teacher’s task is wholly course work involv ing frequent class meetings, lectures, and discussions. While in graduate study, he has to do course and semi nar work together with re search and research training. Of course, research is less rigorous in M.A. than in September 1968 17 Ph.D. courses. It is not quite fair to expect a mas ter’s thesis to equal a docto ral dissertation in depth; but it should discuss its subject with some degree of freshness and thoroughness of ap proach. The so-called “indepen dent work” which students in graduate schools are sup posed to do is a characte ristic feature of higher stu dies in European universi ties. To some extent it is expected in American insti tutions. But more observant graduate professors and deans have come to the con clusion that independent work by students is irrelevant and dubious in value and seriousness. One professor of the University of Chica go has this to say: “The students as a group are not ready for. it (and” probably never were ( for that matter). Properly administered, inde pendent work does not save faculty time; if anything, it costs more of it. Finally, the more ‘independent work’ we have, the farther we go from a major strength of the American system of doc toral education as compared with most foreign versions, namely course and seminar work. I believe that from sheer standpoint of learning the subject, there is a cer tain wastage in the svstem that is now disguised as ‘independent work : ;d that their symbol is probably not worth its cost. After all, the graduate faculty is (or should be) the ’source of doctoral training.” It is quite apparent that these words addressed to American students pursuing a doctoral training are clearly not ap plicable to the M.A. program for Filipino students. What is suggested in place of the so-called "independent work” is a clearer, more com pact, and more specific pro grams of study, with more supervision and direction by the faculty. The Filipino student acquires a much deeper acquaintance with his subject of concentration and allied subjects and a better training in research work when the professor gives him the necessary direction and guidance and demands from him strict observance of the lines laid down for his ac tivity. In my visits during a period of about 8 years with scholars and professors of British universities, I have been impressed by their 18 Panorama admiration and respect for graduate education in several American universities. This attitude strikes me as an im plied recognition of the ef fect of the American proce dure in graduate education which principally consists in course and seminar work. It has been previously sta ted that the faculty of a graduate school should be dedicated teachers. This term is used advisedly to emphasize not so much that every member of the grad uate faculty should be a ge nius or a person of consum mate learning or the posses sor of a doctoral or a post doctoral degree. It is rather used to underline the need for a teacher who is intense ly interested in his work and in that of his students and is industrious and keenly in terested in the discipline of his choice. In a word, he should be a dedicated scho lar. On the competence and personal traits and nature of professors, the sociologist Charles Cooley made this statement: “It is strange that we have so few men of genius on our faculties, we have always been trying to get them. Of course, they must have undergone the regular academic training and be gentlemanly, depend able, pleasant to live with, and not ?pt to make trouble by urging eccentric ideas. Institutions and genius are in the nature of things anti thetical and if a man of ge nius is found living conten tedly in the university, it is peculiarly creditable to both. As a rule, professors like suc cessful lawyers or doctors, are just hardworking men of some talent.” These words remind us of the reported rule adopted by our Education authorities that every graduate program for M.A. should have in its faculty one or more teachers with a doctor’s degree. This rule is, of course, subject to exceptions, otherwise it may deprive an institution of the opportunity of securing some teachers without doctor’s de grees but with high compe tence, academic experience, and demonstrated learning. There are M.A.’s who have more talent and more devo tion to self-advancement than some Ph.D.’s or Ed.D.’s. They naturally would make better teachers for M.A. training. September 1968 19 In the second place, if a person with a higher degree than that for which he pre pares his students is neces sarily needed and unavoid ably required, then logically all graduate programs for Ph.D. should not be handled by professors with only Ph.D. degrees but by those who have had some post-doctoral studies. This is not, how ever, the case in American universities and much less is it true in our own uni versities with doctoral pro grams. In’ my own case, when I took graduate work for my LL.M, degree in the University'of the Philippines, not one of my professors was the possessor of even an LL.M. But they know their subjects from serious self-study and from actual professional experience, and they demanded strict com pliance with the rules on graduate, study which con sisted principally in written reports, seminars, thesis writ ing, and rigorous tests. In the United States, the Ph.D. degree depends for its value upon the rank, and standing of the graduate school among institutions of higher education. It is said that there are 12 universities considered top centers of graduate work. Their repu tation is based not simply on the ability and dedication of their teachers but also on the quality of the work they demand from their students, tljeir sound student admis sion requirements, and the excellent record of their grad uates. These factors affect ing faculty competence, stu dent selection, faithful and strict observance of academic duties backed up by an ad ministrative leadership that understands the value of higher education would un doubtedly contribute to the strengthening of any of the graduate schools in our coun try. Much depends upon the determination of the ad ministrators and faculty mem bers in reaching the goal of excellence in our program for higher education. One further point should be emphatically mentioned in this brief discussion. As previously stated, graduate education is mainly concern ed with specialization. As a* general proposition, excel lence in scholarly or scien tific pursuits and leadership of a high order in specific field of work these days re quire persons who are tho20 Panorama roughly prepared in their respective lines of activity. The effective teacher should know the content of the sub ject he teaches as much as could be expected of an ex pert. The same expertise and deep learning should be demonstrated in the work of the scientist or the technolo gist to enable them to take their place in the vaneruard of their respective' occupa tions. In a word, the lea dershin we need for the ad vancement of man and so ciety is hardly possible with out specialization. This is precisely the chief purpose of graduate education. The final questions, therefore, are: Is our graduate pro gram geared to this Purpose? Is not our curriculum for the Master of Education so full .of sqch subjects as me thods and supervision that it leaves but little room for the study of content subjects? To teach a college subject as history, economics, or bio logy, one should have a knowledge of it in depth. It is in line with this idea of adequate specialization in the subject one has to teach that Foundation College has adopted its system of facultv improvement. The College selects two or more of its well-qualified younger teach ers and teaching assistants for a concentrated course of at least twenty-four units in one and only subject .in the University of the Philippines such as mathematics, speech, or biology. Foundation Col lege gives them full support under scholarship grants. They are not expected to complete the M.A. course in U.P. or to work for any par ticular graduate degree. They are sent in that insti tution to specialize in one subject which is to be used as. their major in the Mas ter’s course which they even tually take in the Graduate School in Foundation Col lege. The' increasing number of students enrolled in the col leges of this country year after year and the constant changes and advances of lienee and scholarship jus tify, and even require, the organization of graduate schools which could answer the need for Filipino work ers, teachers, and professio nals trained to perform those tasks that could- accelerate national and social progress. Our graduate program should be hitched to at least three September 1968 21 vehicles of development. They are: first, specializa tion in higher knowledge for industrial, agricultural, economic, and other techni cal activities of the country; second, specialization in sub jects or disciplines to pre pare teachers for effective instructional work in colleges and universities; and third, sufficient training in research techniques that could help in the discovery or inven tion of new objects and bet ter instruments for the re alization of man’s hopes and dreams. The countries today which have considerably improved the conditions and living standards of their people have directed tlieir program for higher education toward these three important objec tives. In proportion to the degree of thoroughness with which these tasks are car ried out, the degree of the success to be attained in pro moting the welfare of nation depends. One additional considera tion should not be overlook ed, and it is this: The kind and quality of graduate edu cation that our country needs have to be seriously consi dered in terms of our con ditions and our needs. We need experts and specialists to widen our program of graduate work. * We may have to import many of them from other countries to pro duce excellent results but sooner or later they have to be our own men and women who have been brought up in our native environment and who per sonally feel the urge for in dividual change and social improvement in accordance with their personal knowl edge and their views. The question in this regard is: What incentives should we offer now and in the near future to attract our own scholars and potential experts to work in the graduate areas we need to establish? — Dr. V. G. Si neo, Foundation Col lege, Dumaguete, June 18, 1965 (Revised, August, 1968) 22 Panorama ■ The people of Sabah, not the Sultan of Jolo nor the Philippines have the right of sovereignty over their country. SABAH AND SABAHANS When the Philippines sub scribed to the United Nations Charter in 1945, we became duty-bound to “respect the principle of self-determina tion of peoples” (Par. 2, Art. I, Chap. I, UN Charter). The said Charter has a “De claration Regarding NonSelf-Governing Territories” (Chapter XI). It provides that the relations of colonial ruler and subject people shall be that of trustee and ward, not that of master and ser vant; and colonial rulers were enjoined to enter into trust agreements with the United Nations so that the administration and supervi sion of the territories ruled by them, to be known as trust territories, may be placed under the interna tional trusteeship system |o be established uncler the au thority of the United Na tions (Art. 75, Ch. XII, UN Charter); that one of the ba sic objectives of the interna tional trusteeship system is “to promote the political, ecnomic, social, and educa tional advancement of the in habitants of the. trust ter ritories, and their progres sive development towards self-government or independ ence as may be appropriate to the particular circumstan ces of each territory and its peoples and the freely-ex pressed wishes of the peoples concerned” (Par. b. Ch. XII, UN Charter). Under the above provisions of the UN Charter which were subscribed to by most, if not all, the countries of the world, a new principle of international law became consecrated, the principle of self-determination, by vir tue of which the sovereignty of the Sultan of Sulu over Sabah was transferred to the people themselves. This is the implication of the right of self-determination, for only a sovereign people has the right of self-determination and self-government. If a person can declare himself ol age, it is because he is actualSeptembeh 1968 23 Iv of age. If a people can declare themselves independ ent, it is because they have sovereign powers. As Senator Sumulong has said, “at this time and age, it is the political status which a people want for themselves which matters, not the dis position mad.e by a sultan centuries ago.” Gone is the age where countries became united, not by the consent of the peo ple, but because the dynasty of the two kings that ruled the two countries became consolidated in the person of one king. Because the Char ter of the United Nations acknowledged in the people of Sabah their right to selfdetermination, and because the existence of such a right is in consonance with our tradition ,and our own de mands for independence, when we were a colony, first of Spain, later of America, and later on occupied by Japan, the official position of the Philippines had t*> acknowledge that right in the people of Sabah in several declarations of our leaders. But it has been argued that sovereignty, rights and independence are synony mous and that a country can not have sovereignty rights if she is not independent at the same time. Those who offer this ar gument do not seem to realize that this very argu ment could also be applied against the alleged sovereign ty- rights of the * Sultan of Sulu over Sabah, in view of the undisputed fact that Sa bah admittedly was not an independent country in 1945 when it came under the trusteeship of the United Nations. If sovereignty rights do not exist without inde pendence, then neither the Sultan of Sulu or the peo ple of Sabah had sovereign ty rights over Sabah, but the United Nations. We take the view that sovereignty rights, as quali fied by the last word, is a right, while independence is a status, a condition, the actual full exercise of the sovereignty right. No Fili pino can argue otherwise, for we Filipinos maintain that the Filipino people vin dicated our sovereignty rights and became independent upon the proclamation of the first Philippine Repub lic by General Aguinaldo in 1898; that we did not lose 24 Panorama these sovereignty rights by the American Occupation and for this reason, we have been demanding constantly our independence; that this fact of sovereignty was con firmed in the Philippine Constitution of 1934-1935 in preparation to our Common wealth status; that they were finally recognized by Ameri ca by the approval of Pres ident Roosevelt of our Cons titution; and that during our Commonwealth status, our sovereignty rights were recog nized as actually existing during the whole period of American domination. But we were only able to exer cise those sovereignty rights (although still with some significant limitations due to the Bell Trade Act) once we became independent, whioh only took place about ten years later. Actually, we can say that our sovereignty rights existed even prior to thrj Declara tion of Philippine Independ ence by General Aguinaldo in 1898, for our sovereignty rights existed and gradually recognized with the develop ment of a new concept of sovereignty rights in modern international law, when gra dually, the doctrine of self determination of peoples and the doctrine that sovereignty rights reside in the people and not in the king or the ruler of the state became de veloped. So the Filipino people, and not the king of Spain, had sovereignty rights in this country once the me dieval concept of sovereign-. ty rights residing in the king or the ruler was changed with the progress of public international law and by th< conscience of the people and world public opinion trans ferring those sovereignty rights from the king to the people themselves. Our as sertion of independence by General Aguinaldo and our people in 1898 was only a vindication of the sovereign tv rights of the Filipino peo ple. it is important to dis tinguish that while the re pository of sovereignty rights is in and remains with the people, the exercise of those rights may be temporarily suspended and even ques tioned by a superior power. And this is what happened when the Spanish govern ment continued to resist our demands for autonomy which, later on, culminated in a demand for independence; September 1968 25 and this is what happened when later on, America oc cupied the Philippines. But even during the Ame rican occupation, with the enactment of the Jones Law in 1916, America came to recognize the sovereignty rights of the Filipino peo ple with the promise of a grant of independence as soon as we acquired a socalled "stable government," a recognition which became more formal and definite with the enactment of the Tydings-MacDuffie Law pro mising us the grant of in dependence on a definite date, namely, on July 4, 1946. Similarly, in the case of the sovereignty over Sabah, those rights were actually transferred from the Sultan of Stulu to the people them selves with the above-men tioned evolution of public in ternational law transferring sovereignty rights from the ruler to the people. The United Nations Charter, in granting all colonized people the right of self-determina tion, is the Jones Law of all colonized territories, a definite acknowledgment of the right of colonized peoples to self-determination. In the same way that the United States Congress, after the enactment of the Jones Law could not have validly transferred American sover eignty over the Philippines to another country, by the same token after the enact ment of the United Nations Charter, the Sultan of Sulu had no right to transfer the sovereignty of Sabah to the Philippines, say to Japan, or any other country for that matter. What position the Philippines would have taken if the Sultan of Sulu had transferred his sovereignty rights not to the Philippines but to Japan? It is for this reason that I take the position as ex pressed in my recent speech before the Philconsa on Oc tober 5, 1968, that we should not base our claim on Sa bah on medieval concepts of sovereignty over people who at present do not have any sympathy or liking for us but instead, we should capture their 16ve and admiration for us because we have made ourselves worthy of that love, not with claims, but with an extended hand of dignity, support and friendship, a hand that could be extended not only to Sabah but to 26 Panorama other Malayan states who, Federation! — Salvador Arain the future, maybe in the neta, President, Araneta Unifar distant future, might join versity, Manila Times, Oct. with us in a Pan Malayan 15, 1968. THE FORCE OF PERSEVERANCE All the performances of human aft, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance: it 'is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that dis tant countries are united with canals, If a man was to compare the effect of a single stroke of the pick-ax, or of one impression of the spade with the general design and last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion; yet those petty operations, incessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, and moun tains are levelled, and oceans bounded, by the slender force of human beings. — Johnson. September 1968 27 ■ To develop democracy in a country, we need to' avoid the spirit of anarchy and the spirit of fanaticism, says Bertrand Russell. EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY It is clear that you need a fair amount of education before democracy becomes at all possible. To start at the extreme point, if your popu lation is. illiterate, the ma chinery required for demo cracy does not work. But I am riot concerned with this elementary portion of the matter. I am concerned ra ther with the kind of educa tion that is necessary if one is to avoid the pitfalls into udiich m many democracies have fallen and which have led in m'any cases to dicta torships. There is a curiously dif ficult line to be drawn psy chologically if democracy is to succeed, because it needs two things that tend in dif ferent directions. On the one hand, every man needs to have a certain degree of self-reliance and self-confi dence, a willingness to back his own judgment; on the other hand, he must be will ing to submit to the author ity of the majority when that authority goes against him. One or the other of these two things is very apt to fail. Either men become too subservient and follow some vigorous leader into dicta torship; or they are too selfassertive, they do not submit to the majority, and lead their country into anarchy. The business of education in relation to democracy is to produce the type of character which is willing to advocate its own opinion as vigorous ly as may be, but is also willing to submit to the ma jority when it finds the ma jority going against it. There are two different parts of what education has to do in this matter — on the one hand the relation to character and the emotions, and on the other hand the intellectual part. I should like to say something about the part that has to do with character and the emotions, although it is, in the main, 28 Panorama much more a matter for the home than the schools. It is so important that we can not pass it over, but in this respect schools for parents are as much needed as schdols for children. If democracy is to be workable, the population must be relatively free from the fiercer emotions of hate and destructiveness and also from the emotions of fear and subservience. Now, these are emotions which are inculcated in early child hood. A parent of average ferocity attempts to teach his child complete obedience, and makes him either a slave or a rebel. What is wanted in a democracy is neither a slave nor a rebel, but a citizen; but you can not get the proper emotions for a citizen out of an auto cratic type of parent, nor, of course, out of an auto cratic school. It is clear that too much discipline is not a good thing if you want to produce a population capable of de mocracy. If you want to get people into the habit of ini tiative, of thinking for them selves, you must get them into attitudes of neither sub servience to, nor rebellion against, authority. This brings us to a source of trouble to a great many democrats, namely, what is called “principle.” It is wise to scan rather skepti cally most talk about prin ciple, self-sacrifice, devotion to a cause, and so on. If you apply a little psycho analysis to it, you find that it is not what it appears to be; it is really people’s pride, or hatred, or desire for re venge, that has got itself idealized and collectivised and personified in the na tion as a noble form of idealism. For example, the particular sort of idealism which consists in joining together to kill people in large numbers and is called patriotism, belongs with a certain type of cruelty, of unhappiness, of unsatisfied needs, and would tend to disappear if early education were emotionally what it ought to be. The whole modern tech nique of government in all its worst aspects is derived from advertising. Advertisers are the practical psycholo gists of our day and discov ered long ago that what makes you believe a propo Septembeb 1968 29 sition is not the fact that there is some reason to think it true. Someone puts up a simple statement mention ing somebody’s soap or pills beside a railway line, and the mere fact that the name is there in the long run causes you to think that it is good soap or those are good pills. The modern dic tators do the same thing. You see their pictures every where, hear their names everywhere, and it has much the same effect on you as the advertisements of the pills and soap. In all coun tries which have autocratic government there is com bined with that a creed, a set of beliefs to be instilled into the minds of the young while they are too young to think. And the beliefs are insti/led, not by giving rea sons for supposing that they are true; the mechanism is purely one of parrot-like re petition, insistence, mass hys teria, mass suggestion. This 'is not the sort of thing to be aimed at in a democracy. Opposing be liefs, taught in this hypnotic fashion, produce two crowds of people who clash, and there is no means by which you can mitigate that clash. Each hypnotized automation feels that everything most sacred is bound up with the victory of his side. Such fa natical factions are quite in capable of meeting together and saying, “Let us see which has the majority.” That would seem, altogether too pedestrian, because each of them stands for a sacred cause. I do not mean to say that there are no sacred causes, but I do say that you want to be very careful before you claim that your particular nostrum is sacred and the other man’s something de vilish. We have to have a kind of tolerance toward one another, and that tolerance is much easier to have if you think, “Human beings are fallible, and I am a human being. It is just conceivable that I may be wrong.” Dog matic certainty is extraordi narily dangerous. If you are quite certain you are right, you will infer that you have a right to stick a bayonet into anybody who does not agree with you, and even to asphyxiate his children with poison gas. The advertisers led the way; they discovered the technique of producing irra80 Panorama tional belief. What the per son who cares about demo cracy has got to do, I think, is deliberately to construct an education designed to counteract the natural cre dulity and incredulity of the uneducated man. I should start very young. If I had to run a children’s school' I should have two sorts of sweets — one very nice and the other very nasty. The very nasty one should be ad vertised with all the skill of the most able advertisers. On the other hand, the nice ones should have a coldly scientific statement, setting forth their ingredients and consequent excellence. I should let the children choose which they would have, varying the assortment from day to day. After a week or^ two they would pro bably chdose the ones with the coldly scientific state ment. That would be one up. Suppose there was a ques tion of an excursion to the country. I should have on the one hand marvelous ad vertisements with colored posters about some very un pleasant spot, and about an other very pleasant place I should have just maps and contour lines and state ments as to the amount of timber in the neighborhood, put in the driest language conceivable. In history I should take them through the great con troversies of the past, and let them read the most elo quent statements in favor of positions that no one now holds. For example, before the American Civil War. Southern orators — who were magnificent orators — made the most moving speeches in defense of slavery. Reading them now, you almost begin to think that slavery must have been a good thing. I should read children all kinds of eloquent defenses of views that nobody now holds at all, such as the im portance of burning witches. When they had grown a little impervious in that way, I should give them rhetoric in the present dealing with current controversial ques tions. I should give it to them always on opposite sides. I should read them every day, for example, what is said about Spain, first by the New York Times and then by the Daily Worker. In time, perhaps, they would September 1968 31 learn to infer the truth from these opposite statements. The art of finding out from the newspapers what it was that happened is a very difficult one indeed, and one that every democrat should be taught. There is a great deal to be done in this dir ection if people are to be capable o f understanding how to ' judge a political question. I do not want to teach people one opinion or another; it is not the busi ness of education to do that. The business of education is to teach pupils to form op inions for themselves, and they need for that purpose to be rather impervious to eloquence and propaganda, to be on the lookout for the things that are intended to. mislead, and to be able to pick out what really is argument’ and base them selves on that. I do not know whether any of you have had occa sion to look up a newspaper of Great War days. If you had, you would be aston ished. Because as you read it a sort of hot blast of in sanity comes out of tfce page at you. You cannot believe that we were really all col lectively in a state of excite ment in which one cannot see things right. Part of the business of education for de mocracy is to prevent people from getting too excited. It is a difficult art, because you do not want, on the other hand, that people should be without emotion. You cannot get any improve ment in the world, or any kind of good life, without a basis in the emotions. But you have to be sure that basis is the right one. I think the only emotional basis is what I should call kindly feeling — a wish, not only in regard to people you know but in regard to man kind at large, that as far as possible they should be hap py, enlightened, able to live a decent sort of life. When you find other ideals,- as you often do, strongly re commended in terms that sound like lofty morality, the victory of this or that cause, or any kind of thing that involves the suffering, the destruction, of some large group of mankind, then say, “That is not an ideal that any democrat can care for, because it is of the essence of democracy that we think every human being counts alike.” We are not 32 Panorama content with a purpose that suits one group at the ex pense of another. The emo tion that must inspire our purposes is an emotion of jxiin in the suffering of others, and happiness in their happiness. That is the only emotional basis that is any good.. — Bertrand Rus sell tn The Education Digest, April, 1939. LEARNING and power From the time 'when the exercise 'of the intel lect became the source of strength and "wealth, every addition to science, every fresh truth, and every hfcw idea became a germ of power place within teach, of the people, De T&c^u^ill^ September 1063 ■ This note discusses one reason that may explain the slower process of the educational growth of most Filipino students. AN EDUCATIONAL HANDICAP OF FILIPINOS The physical component of the Filipino brain is not likely to be different from that of the American or European or Japanese. Phy siologically the brains of all of them as individuals, ex cept perhaps those of their geniuses, are similar in size and appearance. Their po tentialities are initially of about the same strength and degree. But our school child ren and students spend more time and effort to learn the same courses or subjects prescribed for American stu dents. 'J'he reason is not really hard to find. It is not in the superiority of American brain power. It may be obviously explained by the fact that English, which the language our stu dents have to use-in our sys tem of instruction, is not fa miliar to them. The length of 40 minutes of a class session in high school and one hour in col lege may be sufficient for one whose native tongue is English. In fact, this is the measure originally establish ed in American schools. But it is too short for a Filipino who has to spend more time to understand a lesson, a question, or a dis cussion in English and who requires more time still to think, to formulate, to arti culate, and to vocalize his ideas for his answer or par ticipation in a class session in die same foreign language. The same thing happens when the non-Tagalog child or student is obliged to use Pilipino. It is not his native tongue. He was born with it. It may be a bit easier for him to learn and to use it than English but the dis advantage is still something to surmount; and it is a grea ter disadvantage in the sense that learning it gives the student no power to read and study the available 34 Panorama books of great scholars, scien tists, and writers who almost al wavs express themselves in English and European lan guages. More than 300 years ago, the great works of the intel lectual world were largely written in Latin. The mo dern European languages were not yet developed. So all students in the civilized countries had to learn and use Latin. English today ir£ a way really serves the same service as did Latin in the ancient world of learning. Most of the great master pieces of this modern age are either written in English or translated into this tongue from the other languages in which t.hey might have been originally written. But basic education given in schools could be more quickly and more effectively acquired when taught in the native tongue of the young student. The use of any other language often retards his ability to acquire basic learning. It handicaps the student in the initial pro cess of education. English should remain our preferred foreign language for many reasons. But this is better acquired through the use of the native tongue as the main vehicle of learning it. — V. G. Sinco, Sept. 1968. BREED What people are depends not a little on who and what their progenitors were. — Ascribe what influences you please to education, examples, habits, etc., and after all a great deal depends upon the breed. — Mills. September 1968 35 ■ This article is a strong presentation of the worsening condition of the Philippines. THE COMING COLLAPSE OF FILIPINO SOCIETY It has become necessary to ask questions. The reason is not that there are no more subjects to write on or that there are no more happen ings worthy of comment: the reason is that Philippine so ciety has so deteriorated that the tranquilizing answers are no longer availing. The situation that I speak of involves not only the frag mentation of once accepted values but also the all but total destruction of many of our cherished institutions. That pristine time when everything dirty used to be associated only with such agencies as the customs and the internal revenue is no more. For today, dirt is found everywhere,. Indeed, it has become so that the readers, of newspapers have long ceased to look at the profes sional criminals for the au thorship of murders and rob beries but to the policemen, the members of the unin formed gentry, who are paid by the people to uphold the law and maintain the peace. If those whose duty is to provide the rest of the popu lation with security have be come the enemies of the peo ple, where will the people find the protection they needs must have to survive? On the surface, Philippine society has all the in'truments and all the means with which to carve out or der and security. It is sup posed to be governed by laws not by men; it has law enforcing agencies and pro secutors whose duty is to mo bilize the resources of the state for the protection of the man in the street; it has judges who know the law and who can derive from it the legal justification for meting out such penalties as the guilty deserve; and above all, it is blessed xvith a free press which has always been Panorama raising its collective voice against venality and the abuses of power. But the vital question still is: why is it that the Fili pinos are in a worse situa tion today than they were, say, 10 years ago? Why is it that despite all the un restrained revelations in the columns of the press and all the denunciations disseminat ed through radio and tele vision, no cause-and-effect re lationship can be established between what has been ex posed and a consequent ac tion? Why is it that the untramelled exercise of so sacred and so necessary a right as freedom of speech and press has not produced the salu tary results that it has pro duced in democratic socie ties? Is it because the var ious. forms of mass media have been so affected by the general decay that they have become ineffectual? Is it be cause, to use the language of mass communications, intel ligent Filipinos have also be come the victims of a dys functional press and televi sion? This question is import ant for the reason that a dysfunctional press and tele vision — dysfunctional in the sense that having been bur dened by reports of corrupt acts and practices, from thievery to embezzlement, they have produced in the Filipino a feeling of surfeit which amounts to a feeling of senseless indifference — are worse than useless. What might have hap pened is that the reader of the newspaper which is bursting with news of offi cial and private corruption develops his own alienation from the unpleasant scenery and seeks an illusory refuge either in his cynicism or in his supposed moral rectitude. What is worse is that the urgent need of the rest of the population which is composed of common people and whose one consuming ambition is to have three meals a day and a. little something for the uplift of offsprings has rendered them inert. It is no wonder, then, that political leaders and govern ment officials have learned to feel safe in their periodic raids on the public till. For they know that whatever animosity they arouse among the masses is more the re September 1968 37 suit of envy than of moral outrage. And so, the people go to the polls to vote for a change in administration, not for a change in the structure of society, in the forlorn hope that sooner or later the chaos will produce a leader capable of providing a direc tion to their drab lives. But what will happen when the leader fails to ap pear? What will happen when, in the alternation of administrations, t h e inci dence of venality increases and the refinements of accu mulating unearned profits rather than the refinements of the governmental process develop? Finally, what will happen when the Filipino in the mass, his patience of a carabao exhausted, loses hope but retains his will to sur vive? The only warning I can serve is that there might not be time enough to go to the airport for that sanctuary in the States or in Switzerland where the stashed dollars can be enjoved. — I. P. So! ion gco, Manila Chronicle Septem ber 19, 1968 CLARITY Make a point never so clear, and it - is great odds that a man whose habits, and the bent of whose mind lie a contrary way shall be unable to comprehend it; — so weak a thing is reason in competition with inclination. — Bp. Berkeley. 38 Panorama 0 The Chief Justice of our Supreme Court now echoes the popular criticisms against reelections. THE EVILS OF ELECTIONS AND REELECTIONS It seems conceded that the practice of lavish electoral spending of rival candidates or political parties is inimi cal to democracy. The short ening of the period of time open for election campaigns, as provided in a recent le gislation, is a step in the right direction; but, it is far from sufficient. More effec tive measures should be tak en to curb election expenses. Such measures would net only insulate the voters from the corrupting influence of money. .They would, also, assure that all candidates, regardless of their financial condition, shall have an equal opportunity to be elected on the basis of their personal qualifications and capacity for public service. Thus, ours wotdd truly be a government of the people — and, hence, by and for the people — as it should be, if we are to have a strong de mocracy. (It has become all too common to regard lavish electoral spending as some thing we cannot do anything about. This defeatist atti tude is manifestly ominous. If it persists, our republican system will be doomed to dismal failure. As for the Commission of Elections, recent develop ments would seem to indi cate the need for a constitu tional amendment ensuringbipartisan representation in the composition of that body. What I mean is that one of its members should al ways be a nomine!^ of t|ie minority party, The present Constitution does not gua rantee minority representa tion in the Commission. In deed, not long ago, that body was composed entirely of nominees of the majority party. The result was that, in many instances, the intention and motives of the Commission were regarded by the other party w>ith suspicion, even in September 1968 39 connection with measures ad opted by said body which, otherwise, could have been taken on their face value. Such suspicion is not con ducive to peaceful and or derly elections. Moreover, it tends to hamper the work of. the Commission. In connection with “re elections,” there is no deny ing the fact that we are having an overdose of poli tics everywhere, not only in most activities of the govern ment, but, also, in the field of business, commerce, and industry, and even in civic or charitable institutions and student organizations. One of the most practical means to minimize the cor roding effects of too much politics is, admittedly, to prohibit or limit re-elections. I venture to make this state ment because there has been and there seems to be a con sensus on the advisability of amending the Constitution to prohibit . immediate re election of the President. This proposal ' is mainly based upon the belief that a public officer who seeks second term is under a ter rific handicap in the per formance of his functions. Indeed, a re-electionist is likely to be under the suspi cion that he has used the powers and influence of his office for the advancement of his candidacy, .instead of, primarily, for the promotion of the commonwealth. More over, the danger of alienat ing much needed votes may be an obstacle to the proper and impartial performance of his duties. Although the prohibition of immediate re-election may have certain disadvantages, I believe that the same are far outweighed by the bene fits resulting from said pro hibition. There is, to be sure, a consensus, if not un animity, on the evils of im mediate re-election. What defies logic, from a purely academic viewpoint, is that the ban on re-election is sought to be applied to the Office of the President only. Why not extend it to all elective offices? — Portions of the Speech of Chief Jus tice Roberto Concepcion on September 16, 1968. 40 Panorama ON GETTING INTO RUTS Almost everyone who hears of it is apused at the rigid routine of daily activity that was prescribed for himself and exactly carried out by Immanuel Kant. Winter and summer, he rose at five o’clock every morning, stu died two hours, lectured two, and spent the rest of the time until noon at writ ing. He then took his only meal of the day at a res taurant, walked for exactly an hour by the watch with his man-servant following twenty paces behind, um brella in hand, and returned home to read until bedtime. This regimen he maintained for more than half a centu ry. He never traveled more than 40 miles from his na tive Konigsberg. During nearly all of his 80 years he walked a beaten round. He wore a rut, and he stayed in it. He seemed to enjoy ruts. To most people the main tenance of this exacting routine seems at best an amiable oddity. Most of us would feel that knowledge is increased almost exclusive ly by stirring about, by see ing new faces and places, or. in short, by keeping out of ruts. Our sympathies are all with the sort of charac ter exemplified by Tenny son’s Ulysses, whose wisdom and knowledge had grown in constant travel, in personal observation of “manners, cli mates, councils, govern ments.” Like Ulysses, we “cannot rest from travel,” and we have no notion what ever of the advantages to be gained by sitting still and letting the world come to us. Consequently, it seems to us simply inexplicable that the little man who never left Konigsberg, a second-rate Prussian town, and who ne ver varied for half a centu ry the even jog trot of his routine, ^should have been one of the best-informed men in history, and one of the two or three most influential thinkers of modern times. But perhaps we have not been quite fair to ruts. The September 1968 41 example of Immanuel Kam is by no means unique, for everyone will think at once of Henry Thoreau who was as singly devoted to his na tive region so long and philosopher to his little town. “I cannot but regard it as a kindness in those that have the steering of me,” he writes, “that I have been nailed down to this my na tive Concord as the German steadily, and made to study and love this spot of earth more and more. What would signify in comparison a thin and diffused love and knowledge of the whole world instead, got by wan dering?” Thoreau and Kant would have understood and ap proved the remark of Ham let that he could confine himself in a nutshell and yet Count' himself a king of infinite space, for they both realized that freedom, far from being lessened, is po sitively and often greatly in creased when we lay certain external restrictions upon it. Something of this sort is probably the explanation of the large amount of work often done by persons who are obliged to give the greater amount of their time and strength to some prescribed activity. The suc cess of George Grote as an historian may have been won not in spite of the fact that much of his time had to be given to banking but in some degree because of that fact, and we may pos sibly attribute the brilliant writing of Walter Bagehot to a similar cause. These were business men. Chau cer was also a business man. All three were men of routine. It is more than possible that they did so much for literature because they had something else to do, because they were fol lowing ruts of daily routine which gave regularity to all their efforts. Karit brought the knowl edge and intelligence of the world into sharp focus at Konigsberg and Thoreau’s thought traveled abroad Irom Concord to ancient Greece and Rome, but the opportunities of one who sits quietly at home today are vastly greater than those that these two men enjoyed and used. In addition to the written and the printed page which was their chief means of communication with the outer w'orld we 42 Panorama have the telephone, the te legraph, the radio, the cine matograph, modern journal ism, photography, the air plane, and many other such devices for making ruts glorious. One who lives in a hermit’s hut in the midst of a wilderness today may know much more of whai is going on in the world, may hear more music and see more people and think more world-wide thoughts, than the citizen of a metro polis did a century ago. The rewards of sitting still and waiting have always been great, but they have never been so obvious as they are today. And this is only a small part of what may be said in favor of ruts. Who gets the most solid and enduring hap piness put of reading? Clearly, the reader who re turns again and again to one author, one book, one pass age. To whom does friend ship mean most? Probably to the person who has few friends but those of long standing and intimately known. If the truth of this be granted, then certain prac tical consequences follow. Almost all of us, today, are bound in some sense of the word to a fixed routine; in some degree we are obliged to move in ruts. But why should we not look at the definite advantages of the situation? The place that we cannot get away from sets us free when we cheerfully decide that we would not leave it even if we were able, and it becomes a watch tower from which we look out over a wide surrounding country. The routine to which we have seemed tied becomes a source of strength and gives a liberty such as purposeless drifters can never know when we accept it as our own. Why is it that we are con tinually warning one another not to “get into ruts”? The reason for all this is appa rently, that ruts are fre quently misused. People sometimes get into them, it would almost seem, with the primary intention of hiding themselves and of shutting away all the pros pect of the outer world to gether w’ith as much as pos sible of the light that streams in from above. — Excerpt from The Christian Science Monitor (Nov 1929). September 1968 43 ■ The kind of education persons must have to be intelligent ana responsible and effective leaders. A criticism of student demonstrations. A REBEL'S VIEW OF THE YOUNG REVOLUTIONARIES These activists are show ing all the signs of an "un educated mind. Not that they hold incorrect opinions, though I don’t judge other people’s education by "whe ther their opinions check with my opinions, but how they defend their opinions and how well they listen. And I must say that intel lectually most of them are pretty trivial. Practically none of them showed the slightest interest in the prob lem that I naively supposed was foreniost in their minds. That is, “what’s wrong with the university as a teaching institution?” Most of them want to use the campus — or misuse it — to organize a revolution. It’s that simple. And they want complete sexual rights. They want the rest of us to pay taxes to put up the facili ties so they can have this house party and hatch the revolution. I tried to get their minds on the problem of getting an education. I thought they were, and some students are, concerned with the fact that with the publish or perish policy and so on they’re not getting a break educationally. Nobody gives a damn whether they are really educated. They’re to lerated. A great number of profes sors in our leading institu tions don’t want to teach undergraduates. They do it under duress and do it, of course, pretty badly — as most of us do under duress. My own interest, not just at St. John’s but before that, has always been undergra duate education because it seemed to me the Achilles’ heel in American education. We are not in the position to do graduate work or pro fessional work because the 44 Panorama B.A.s and B.S.s we teach are not up to it_ They just haven’t got enough grounds ing. I wanted people to read and write. I think it is that simple., Of course, a lot of people teaching in colleges are not so high faintin’. They say “my students read and write.” I don’t want their opinions. I want the opinion of the professors of law, the professors of medi cine, the professors who teach • graduate -students. They say that the students don’t know how to read and write, and I would add un, kindly that a hell of a lot of people teaching them don’t know how to read or jvrite either. If they were really able to read and listen and speak and think clearly, they could do this graduate and profes sional training in quite an other manner. We are try ing to teach the liberal arts, and the best way to do it, I think, is the way little children learn to talk — by listening to somebody who already knows how. When I read Shakespeare, I’m ,ab ways jolted by how damned badly I write and talk and think and it’s such trivial crap compared to this man. You can do it with Shaken speare, you can do it with Newton, you can do it with any of the minds that have operated superbly. You soak them in first-class minds for four years. These kids for the first year , or .two would sav with all candor, "I don’t kpow what in the hell he’s talking about,” and, you say “stick with it.” .I’m talking about people who do what has been done centuries of timer read only first-class -stuff : so they -get off their tails, intellectual ly, and come to grips with ideas. I jthink this may hap pen in. some colleges, parti* cularly in those that have no graduate or professional work. The. professors can’t very well say that don’t take undergraduate teaching se riously; it’s the only teach ing they do. So they can’t hide in the graduate school. The awful thing is that libera] education has been so punk in my lifetime. The faculty and administration are behaving so stupidly, they can’t, do anything about it — nor can the students. Until sometliing is dome September 1968 4® about the quality of educa tion, you can’t answer the question of who ought to run it, where the students are to be fed, what kind of housing they need. Now these activists are not talking about the problems of education. They’re talk ing about secession. They’re through. They’ve had it. They don’t believe in the system. They we’re all a pack of liars and hypocrites— and we’re pretty good at ly ing and hypocrisy. It does n't occur to them that they're liable to do a little lying themselves before they are really through. They want power and they want change. If you ask why they want change, I think -the popular word is alienated. They don’t like this society. be lieve they can remold it to their heart’s desire. They’re saying, “I want to get rid of this system because it is a bad system. And in order to do this, I want power.” This is the nearest they come to talking about edu cation. They want to dic tate what courses would train men best to be revolutionary. They aren’t ashamed of this or embarrassed by this. I don’t mind them being revolutionaries. I think re volutionaries have a real so cial function. I object to people who are as ignorant as they obviously were de ciding what courses they ought to have, even to be a revolutionary. If one of them had said, "I want to be a revolutionary, What’s your advice?” I would have said "get a decent educa tion” — the same advice I’d give to people who want to go into law or medicine. And you’ll find out four years from now that you un derstand. You’ll be a better revolutionary. You might abandon the idea of being a revolutionary, just as you might abandon the idea of going into medicine, but that’s the risk of education. I don’t feel we are any where near a solution. Af ter all, if these kids are not interested in education, but in revolution, it can also be said that the faculty is not much interested in education either. They’re interested in their subjects. If you have ever seen people who really cared for undergraduates and who were exciting intel lectually, it’s not remotely 46 Panorama like what we’re looking at now. Whether or not these little rebels can actually bring the university to a grinding halt, as they put it, they have already created such a mess that many campuses are frantic. It’s possible that the faculty will be forced to get jobs as plumbers or sit down with the students and really do a job of educating them. - By Stringfellow Barr, in College and Uni versity. THE EVIL OF . . . (Continued from page 1) have been repeatedly performed with apparent impunity. The depressing consequences may be hidden from third parties for a time; but sooner or later the evil doer, the compromiser of an evil, may himself suffer from a sense of guilt or a sense of inward inferiority despite any de fensive pretension and any self-serving rationalization he might offer to justify his misdeed. When one finds himself in this predicament, there is only one way of escape open to him: To gather enough courage to admit in all frankness and honesty the moral lapses or the illegal omissions he has com mitted and then to turn over a new leaf and to follow the high ideal of integrity with patience and humility. ■ These are not idle words of self-righteousness. They should not even be taken as counsel of perfection. They are practical suggestions for a peaceful way of extricating oneself from a painful human situation that could become a heavy burden more and more difficult to bear with the passage of time. — V. G. Sinco, August 20, 1968. September 1968 47 Republic of the Philippines Department of Public Works and Communication BUREAU OF POSTS Manila SWORN STATEMENT (Required1 tty Act 2580) The undersigned,, .APOL B. DE LA PENA, Managing editor, ©f PANORAMA, published Once a Month, in English, at Com munity Publishers, Inc.,' after having been duly s^vorrr in ac cordance with law:, hereby submits the following statement of ownership, management, circulation, etc., which is required, by Act 2580, as amended by Commonwealth Act No, 201, Name Editor: ARTURO G, SINCO .......... Managing Editor* APOL B, DE LA PENA Business Manager: ARTURO G. SINCO Owner: COMMUNITY' PUBLISHERS, INC. Publisher: — do — Printer: — do —Office of Publication: — do — A ddr e s s 2131 Dr. M. Carreon St. Sta. Ana, Manila 2105 Suter Street Sta. Ana, Manila 213T Dr. M. Carreon St. Sla. Ana, Manila 2131 Dr. M. Carreon St. Sla. Ana, Manila —do— —do— —do— If publication is owned by a corporation, stockholders owning one percent or more of the total amount of stocks: V. G. SINCO, SOFIA S. 'SINCO. ARTURO G. SINCO, LEANDRO G. SINCO & SYLVIA SINCO-DICHOSO, 2131 Dr. M. Carreon, Sta. 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Ana, Manila, Philippines Contents The Evil of Compromise ......................................................... 1 Improving Graduate Education in the Philippines ... 2 Sabah and Sabahans ................................................................ 23 Education for Democracy ...................................................... 20 An Educational Handicap of Filipinos .............................. 34 The Coming Collapse of Filipino Society ...................... 36 The Evils of Elections and Reelections ........................... 39 On Getting into Ruts .............................................................. 41 A Rebel's View of the Young Revolutionaries ............. 44 THE COVER — The worsening condition of Philippine so ciety may be likened to a diseased coconut tree, like the one shown in photo. Tranquilizing answers to its problems might no longer be availing.