Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/183

Five per cent of the civilized population of the Philippine Islands are enrolled in the schools. This proportion is only a little over one-fourth of that for the United States, but it represents practically a two years' growth, as the school system may be said to have commenced with American occupation. One-sixth of all children of school age are enrolled, and three-fourths of that number are in the public schools. The attendance is 62.5 per cent of the enrollment as compared with 70 per cent in the United States. Boys constitute three-fifths of the pupils in the Philippines, while in the United States the schools are almost equally divided as to sex. Six thousand teachers are employed, four-fifths of whom are Filipinos, receiving an average annual salary of $125.02. The average public-school teacher has charge of 73 pupils, while in the United States the number is 36. Of the 3,461 school buildings, the majority of which are public, approximately one-third are built of durable materials. There is great need of additional school facilities and better buildings and equipment, and there is a general demand for an increase in the number of American teachers.

Although the study of English has met with some opposition, this opposition is diminishing. Eleven per cent of the pupils throughout the archipelago are reported as understanding the language, and this may be regarded as very satisfactory progress for the short space of two years. In Manila there are 21 night schools, with an enrollment of more than 4,000 adults, who are engaged in acquiring the English language. During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1903, about $1,500,000 were expended for educational purposes.^[1]

The density of population of the islands, as a whole, was 67 per square mile; that of Java was not less than 553, or more than eight times as great; that of the main body of the United States was 26, and that of the State of Indiana, which most nearly approached that of the Philippines, was 70 per square mile.

The most densely populated of the provinces, Ilocos Sur (on the west central coast of Luzon), had 398 inhabitants to a square mile. This was slightly exceeded by Rhode Island among the States, with 407, but in turn it exceeded Massachusetts, the second most densely populated, which had 349. Near this state in density were Cebu, with 337, and Pangasinan, with 334, to a square mile. These three were the only provinces with more than 300 inhabitants to a square mile.

Luzon is the largest island, with an area of more than 35 per cent of the whole archipelago and a population almost exactly one-half that of all. Mindanao, the second in rank, has an area of 31 per cent of that of the archipelago, while its population was only 7 percent. These two islands together contain two-thirds of the area and 56 per cent of all the people.

As a rule, the density increases as the size of the island diminishes. This is due to the fact that the population in large part is a seaboard population, no less than 65 per cent of it living in municipalities bordering on the coast. Perhaps a fairer measure of the density of the population throughout a large part of the archipelago at least would be to divide the population by the length of the coast line. Nearly two-thirds of the Christian population, 65 per cent, live on or near the seacoast, and 35 percent live inland.

There are in the Philippine Islands about 13,400 barrios, which may be re-