Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Report of a Visitation of the Philippine Mission: Of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America
In his remarkable book on Social Evolution, Benjamin Kidd reminds us that the social development which is called Western civilization, is not the product of any particular race of people; that it must be regarded as an organic growth, the key to the life history of which is to be found in the study of the ethical movement which extends through it. If we look at the matter in this light, and then call to mind what the histories of the nations and races embraced within the life of this organic development have been; if we re?ect how deeply these peoples have been affected at every point by the move ment in question; how profoundly their laws, institutions, mental and moral training, ways of judging conduct, and hab its of thought have been in?uenced for an immense number of generations in the course of the development through which they have passed, we shall at once realize that it would be irrational and foolish to expect that any individuals, or classes, or all the individuals of a single generation, should have the power to free themselves from this in?uence. We are, all of us, whatever our individual opinions may be con cerning this movement, unconsciously in?uenced by it at every point of our careers, and in every moment of our lives. We, like our times, are mentally and morally the product of it; we simply have no power to help ourselves. No training, however religious and prolonged, no intellectual effort, how ever consistent and concentrated, could ever entirely emanci pate us from its in?uence. In the life of the individual, the in?uence of habit of thought or training once acquired can be escaped from only with the greatest difficulty, and after the lapse of a long interval of time.
The unwillingness of the Filipino to work is a serious problem in the development of the Islands. Rich soil, perpetual summer, and simple wants are not conducive to hard labor. Little toil is necessary in a land where bananas, cocoa nuts, and hemp grow spontaneously, and where sugar cane, once fairly started, thrives so vigorously that weeds cannot compete with it. A few hours' work with a bolo will con struct a hut of bamboo, and the leaves of the abundant nipa palm will thatch it. Clothing is an equally simple matter in that soft climate. I repeatedly saw men and children of the lower classes with only a loin cloth, and the latter often arrayed only in the atmosphere, while the women drape them selves tastefully ih a pretty homemade cloth of cocoanut fibre. In the cities, however, men in neat white suits and women in silk are common.
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