Christian Doctrine, the reading-book called Casayayan. On an average,
half of all the children go to school, generally from the seventh
to the tenth year. They learn to read a little; a few even write a
little: but they soon forget it again. Only those who are afterwards
employed as clerks write fluently; and of these most write well.

Some priests do not permit boys and girls to attend the same school;
and in this case they pay a second teacher, a female, a dollar a
month. The Filipinos learn arithmetic very quickly, generally aiding
themselves by the use of mussels or stones, which they pile in little
heaps before them and then count through.

[Marriage age.] The women seldom marry before the fourteenth year,
twelve years being the legal limit. In the church-register of Polángui
I found a marriage recorded (January, 1837) between a Filipino and a
Filipina having the ominous name of Hilaria Concepción, who at the
time of the performance of the marriage ceremony was, according to
a note in the margin, only nine years and ten months old. Frequently
people live together unmarried, because they cannot pay the expenses
of the ceremony. [115]

[Woman's work.] European females, and even mestizas, never seek
husbands amongst the natives. The women generally are well treated,
doing only light work, such as sewing, weaving, embroidery, and
managing the household; while all the heavy labor, with the exception
of the beating of the rice, falls to the men. [116]

[A patriarch.] Instances of longevity are frequent amongst the
Filipinos, particularly in Camarines. The Diario de Manila, of
March 13th, 1866, mentions an old man in Darága (Albay) whom I knew