THE SPREAD OF ENGLISH
1900
From time to time some statistician or student of linguistics presents an interesting array of figures in the popular magazines or the newspapers showing the relative importance of the different modern languages; i.e., the number of people speaking each one. English is usually placed at the head, by a wide margin, though its preeminence is occasionally challenged by a close competitor—Spanish. A little incident in this connection will serve to illustrate the changing status and importance of the language element among the different peoples in many of the less-frequented sections of the world.
On my disembarking at Manila in 1907, there landed with me a number of young American teachers whose entire .-previous existence had been spent on American soil. Knowing that I had lived for six years in Spanish-speaking Porto Rico, supplemented by a further stay in Spain, they were looking to me to pilot them around the city during the first few days of our residence there. Practically our first encounter was with a driver of a vehicle whom one of the teachers wished to engage to carry his baggage to a hotel. To my reiterated directions, in the best Spanish I could muster, relative to securing and delivering the baggage, I received but a blank stare. My friends broke out into hearty laughter at my expense, and to this day doubtless suppose that my knowledge was limited to a few phrases culled from a traveler's manual and that my fiasco as a linguist was due to my having "drawn" the wrong one.
In my subsequent experience in the Philippines, I have had occasion to confirm the judgment reached during my first day ashore—that for all the three hundred years of Spanish domination in the Philippines, this language had never gained a foothold except among a small percentage of the population known as the "ilustrado" class, while among the common people it was, barring a few meager expressions and names of articles which had come into common usage, particularly in the towns, absolutely a foreign tongue. A law of the Spanish Cortes in the middle of the past century had required the teaching of Spanish in the elementary schools, but the Spanish friars, with few exceptions, had found it to their advantage and convenience to leave this mandate a dead letter.
The present school system in the Philippines is almost entirely a product of American administration and American methods, though for a short period following the reopening of schools after the American invasion in 1898, some old Spanish equipment, buildings, and Spanish-trained teachers had of necessity to be used. The only relics of these early days of the American occupation now to be seen are the heavy adobe structures erected years ago for school purposes, many of which have since "been renovated or reconstructed.
The Philippine school system is furthermore thoroughly English (American) in content, form, and purpose, in spite of distance from home influences and the differing racial characteristics of the: people who have contributed to its establishment. In remote outlying islands, in the mountain fastnesses of Luzon, and among the non-Christian peoples of Mindanao as well as in the settled and civilized communities, the Filipino teacher may be found today instructing his pupils through the use of text-books printed in English specially adapted to their needs and environment.
On the schoolground the usual idioms of the athletic field are in use; and in the shop, work-room, and field the expressions `associated with different forms of industrial work are heard upon the lips of pupils. That such means are being utilized to accustom Filipino children to use English and think in that language outside of the class-room cannot be too strongly commanded, considering that home influence and surroundings are still such, in most cases, as to carry pupils back into an atmosphere where the dialect is almost invariably spoken,—a fact which tends to a considerable extent to neutralize the acquisition in the school of fluent, idiomatic English for every-day use.
The peculiar and exceptional conditions. prevailing in the administration of Philippine schools are so conducive to instilling our language into the minds of Filipino pupils and thereby causing it to become a part of their mental baggage that they are deserving of special mention. All primary pupils during the first four years of their school life engage in' some kind of industrial work for a period from thirty to forty-five minutes a day. This may be some form of hand weaving, as basketry, mats or slippers, lace making or embroidery, gardening, bamboo and rattan furniture making, or carpentry. Together with the actual construction of the article or the doing of the work, instruction is given the pupil in English regarding the materials used, processes followed, and the technic of the work. Questions and answers between teacher and pupils, and written exercises and tests on this phase of their school work serve effectively to transmute knowledge obtained in the school-room or on the school-grounds, into habits and modes of thought which are carried into their homes and their associations outside.
This effect is perhaps still more marked among intermediate pupils, who with the ground-work acquired through industrial work in primary grades, learn to have something of the ability of the Skilled artisan: in their understanding of and power to describe the industrial operations in which they engage." In periods ranging from eighty to one hundred and twenty minutes daily, participate in the work outlined for domestic science classes, acquire the essentials of home-making and housekeeping, and become skilful workers in. plain sewing, embroidery and lace, or enter upon a business training at'the School of Commerce, Manila. ' Boys in the intermediate courses devote themselves for an equal period of time to such practical work as gardening and agriculture, business, or carpentry, or similar trades. Among Filipino pupils, from fifteen to eighteen years of age, a knowledge of English with reference to operations and practices having to do with a large number of the indus- tries and agriculture, is now the rule rather than the exception.
Over five hundred thousand pupils are at present receiving this practical training in English under the direction of 8815 Filipino teachers, 5471 of whom possess academic attainments superior to the seventh grade. To these should be added some seven hundred American teachers, a large percentage of which in their capacity as teachers or supervisors, contribute directly and orally to the extension and diffusion of our language on the farm, in the shop, office, and in the home. During the fifteen years of the American regime in these Islands probably not less than one million pupils have enjoyed the beneficial results of American influence and standards as conveyed through the medium of a modern and practical school system. Provided Filipino pupils during another generation are allowed to come under its influence, the prediction may safely be made that the people of the Philippines by that time will be largely Anglicized as to their speech.
Geographically considered, the Philippine Islands would be and important addition to the English-speaking portion of the globe,—with its ten millions of inhabitants living in territory extend from the southern limits of Japan far across the China Sea to Borneo. Politically and socially, the results derived from a common speech would be greater the predominance of democratic institutions, and the principles of free government in this part of the Far East, would undoubtedly be assured through a common bond with those countries where political freedom has now been permanently implanted, and the growth and development of a people, until but recently caught in an eddy of the current of modern progress, be decisively encouraged.
A recent article appearing in the American Review of Reviews pretends to demonstrate that the English of the future in these Islands will be patois, the outgrowth of peculiar conditions of population and the prevalence of soldier-English in the early days of the American regime. No one here, so far as is known, has taken the writer's statements or contentions seriously. Many Filipino officials now have an excellent command of English. Over three years ago I heard one of the assemblymen from Tayabas, a strong admirer of ex-President Roosevelt, deliver a public address in English in which he drew largely on this distinguished American's life and work for his theme, the address being noteworthy not only in delivery hut in subject matter as well. Debating clubs and literary societies are organized in practically all of the seven hundred municipalities of these Islands and young Filipinos are becoming accustomed to discuss and exoress themselves in creditable as well as correct English regarding the topics of the day and subjects of interest in their localises. Since 1906 there has been held annually in the Bicol provinces Albay, Camarines and Sorsogon, including Masbate) a contest for the Carson trophy for English Composition, under the terms of which twenty-five compositions from each province submitted by as many pupils are adjudged by a committee designated by the Director of Education as to excellence of subject matter and expression. The subjects for this contest for the past year were- "The Value of English as a Common Language for the Filipino people"; "The Present Corn Campaign for the Philippines"; "Buildings and Grounds Necessary for a Modern Central School and the Necessity of Each Feature." In the recent bar examinations held in Manila thirteen out of the nineteen successful (candidates were graduates tof the University of the Philippines who had received their training in English and passed their examinations in that language. Only this week the Secretary of Public Instruction, a Filipino recently elevated to this important public office, gave out the following in an interview with a reporter on one of the local newspapers: "In regard to the use of English, my opinion is that whatever may happen now, it has such a firm hold on the rising generation that it must finally prevail. Further, I believe its use and spread should be encouraged in every legitimate way. The day is coming, I think, and not so very far distant, when English will be the language of the legislature and of official business generally."
The tourist, may note some bizarre expressions in use here, among Americans as well as Filipinos, and linguistic crudities of speech are by no means uncommon among school-educated Filipinos, but the future points emphatically and unmistakably not only to a wider use of English in spoken form but also to the development of literary standards in our speech, as is witnessed by an increasing number of Filipino newspapers in which there have been introduced sections in English.
