Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/45

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PHILIPPOPOLIS


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PHILIPPOPOLIS


tence 1948 teachers. After the American occupation a pubhc-school system, modelled on that of the United States, was established by the Government. The total number of schools in operation for 1909-10 was 4531, an increase of 107 over the preceding year. The total annual enrolment was 587,317, plus 4946 in the schools of the Moro Province. The average monthly en- rolment however was 427,165, and the average monthly attendance only 337,307; of these, 2300 were pupils of secondary schools, 15,487 of inter- mediate schools and 319,520 of primary schools. There were 732 American teachers, 8130 Filipino teachers, and 145 Filipino apprentices — teachers who serve without pay.

Act 74, sec. 16, provides: "No teacher or other person shall teach or criticize the doctrines of any church, religious sect, or denomination, or shall at- tempt to influence pupils for or against any church or religious sect in any public school. If any teacher shall intentionally violate this section he or she shall, after due hearing, be dismissed from the public serv- ice; provided: however, that it shall be lawful for the priest or minister of any church established in the town wherein a public school is situated, either in person or by a designated teacher of religion, to teach for one-half hour three times a week, in the school building, to those public-school pupils whose parents or guardians desire it and express their desire therefor in writing filed with the principal teacher of the school, to be forwarded to the division superintendent, who shall fix the hours and rooms for such teaching. But no public-school teachers shall either conduct religious exercises, or teach religion, or act as a desig- nated religious teacher in the school building under the foregoing authority, and no pupil shall be re- quired by any public-school teacher to attend and receive the religious instruction herein permitted. Should the opportunity thus given to teach religion be used by the priest, minister, or religious teacher for the purpose of arousing disloyalty to the United States, or of discouraging the attendance of pupils at any such public school, or creating a disturbance of public order, or of interfering with the discipline of the school, the division superintendent, subject to the approval of the director of education, may, after due investigation and hearing, forbid such offending priest, minister, or religious teacher from entering the public-school building thereafter."

That the religion of the Filipino people must in- evitably suffer from the present system of education is evident to anyone conversant with existing condi- tions. To the religious disadvantages common to the public school of the United States must be added the imitative habit characteristic of the Filipino, and the proselytizing efforts of American Protestant missionaries. The place in which the greatest amount of harm can be done to the religion of the Filipino is the secondary school. Despite the best intentions on the part of the Government, the very fact that the vast majority of the American teachers in these schools are not Catholics incapacitates a great num- ber of them from giving the Catholic interpretation of points of history connected with the Reformation, the preaching of indulgences, the reading of the Bible, etc. Accustomed to identify his religion and his Government, the step towards concluding that the American Government must be a Protestant Govern- ment is an easy one for the young Filipino. Further, as the secondary schools are only situated in the pro- vincial capitals, the students leave home to live in the capital of their province. It is among these young people particularly that the American Protestant missionary works. Even though he does not make the student a member of this or that particular sect, a spirit of inilifferentism is generated which does not bode well for the future of the country, temporally or spiritually. A nation that is only three centuries

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distant from habits of idolatry and savagerj' cannot be removed from daily religious education and still be expected to prosper. That the majority of the Filipino people desires a Christian education for their children may be seen from this, that the Catholic colleges, academies, and schools established in all the dioceses are overcrowded. For the present, and for many years to come, the majority of Filipinos cannot afford to pay a double school tax, and hence must accept the educational system imposed upon them by the United States.

El Archipiclago Filipino, por algunos padres de la minion de la Compafiia de Jesus (Government Printing Office, Washington, 1900); Report of the Philippine Commission, 1900, and following yeara (Washington, 1901 — ); Census of the Philippine Islands (Washington, 1905) : Atkinson, The Philippine Islands (Boston, 1905); S-IWYER, The Inhabitants of the Philippines (London, 1900) ; MacMicking, Recollections of Manila and the Philippines (London, 1851); Comyn, Memoria sobre el estado de las Filipinos (Madrid, 1820), tr. Walton, State of the Philippine Islands (Lon- don, 1821); Jernegan, The Philippine Citizen (Manila, 1907); Algu^, Mirador Observatory (Manila, 1909); Idem, The Climate of the Philippines (Census Bureau, Washington, 1904) ; The Min- eral Resources of the Philippine Islands, ed. Smith (Manila, 1910); Reed, Negritos of Zambales (Manila, 1904) ; Jenks, The Bontoc Igorot (Manila, 1905) ; Griffin. Philups. and Pardo de Tavera, Bibliography of the Philippine Islands (Washington, 1903), gives a list of 2850 books on the Philippines; White. Tenth Annual Report of the Director of Education for the Philippine Islands (Manila, 1910) ; Saderra Maso, Volcanoes and Seismic Centres of the Philippine Archipelago (Census Bureau. Washing- ton. 1904); Martinez, Apuntes historicos de la Provincia Agus- tiniana de Filipinas (Madrid, 1909); De Huerta, Estado de religiosos menores de S, Francisco en las Islas Filipinas (Manila, 1865); Mozo, Missiones de Filipinas de la ordende San Agustln (Madrid, 1763); Gomez Plateho, Catdlogo biogrdfico de los Religiosos Franciscanos de Filipinas (Manila, 1880) ; S.^daba DEL Carmen, Catdlogo de los Religiosos Agustinos Rccoletos de Filipinas (Madrid, 1906) ; Ferrando-Fonseca, Historia de los PP. Dominicos en las Islas Filipinas (Madrid, 1870); DE San Antonio, Cronicas de la Provincia de Religiosos Descalzos de S. Francisco en las Islas Filipinas (Manila, 1738); Provincia de San Nicolas de Totentino de Agustinos descalzos de la Congregacion de EspaHa e Indias (Manila, 1879); Fastells, Labor Emngelica de los obreros de la Compafiia de Jesus en las Islas Filipinas: Por el Padre Francisco Colin (Barcelona, 1900); Combes, His- toria de Mindanao y Jolo (Madrid, 1897); Mubillo Velarde. Historia de la Provincia de Filipinas de la CompaHia de Jesus (Press of the Society of Jesus, Manila, 1742); de San .\gustin, Conquista de las Islas Filipinas (Madrid, 1698); Herrero y Sampedro, Nuestra Prision en poder de los revolucionarios fili- pinas (Press of the College of S. Tomds, Manila, 1900); Mar- tinez, Memorias del Cautiverio (Manila, 1900) ; Retana. .4r- chito del Bibliofilo Filipino (Madrid, 1905) ; Cartas de los PP. de la Compafiia de Jesus de la misidn de Filipinas (Manila, 1896-97).

Philip M. Finegan.

Philippopolis, titular metropolitan see of Thracia Secunda. The city was founded by Philip of Mace- don in 342 B. c. on the site of the legendary Eumol- pias. As he sent thither 2000 culprits in addition to the colony of veterans, the town was for some time known as Poniropolis as well as by its official designa- tion. During Alexander's expedition, the entire country fell again under the sway of Seuthes III, King of the Odrysians, and it was only in 313 that the Hellenic supremacy was re-established by Lysim- achus. In 200 B. c. the Thracians, for a brief interval it is true, drove back the Macedonian garrisons; later they passed under the protectorate and afterwards the domination of Rome in the time of Tiberius. The city was now called Trimontium, but only for a very short time (Pliny, "Hist. N.at.", IV, xviii). From the reign of Septimius Severus, Phihppopolis bears the title of metropolis on coins and in inscriptions. It was there that the cnnventus of Thrace assembled. In 172 Marcus Aurelius fortified the city with walls; in 248 Philip granted it the title of colony, two years before its destruction by the Goths, who slaughtered 100,000 men there (Ammianus Marcelhnus, XXVI, x). Restored again, it became the metropolis of Thracia Secunda.

The exact date of the establishment of Chris- tianity in this town is unknown; the oldest testi- mony, quite open to criticism, however, is in connexion with thirty-seven martyrs, whose feast is celebrated on 20 August, and who are said to htive