Spanish engineer frankly confessed to him that "in the sciences Spain
was a hundred years behind France, and that in Manila they were a
hundred years behind Spain." Nothing of electricity was known but
the name, and making experiments in it had been forbidden by the
Inquisition. Le Gentil also strongly suspected that the professor
of Mathematics at the Jesuit College still held to the Ptolemaic
system. [128]

But when we keep in mind the small number of ecclesiastics in
the islands we must clear them of the charge of intellectual
idleness. Their activity, on the other hand, considering the climate
was remarkable. [129] An examination of J.T. Medina's monumental work
[130] on printing in Manila and of Retana's supplement [131] reveals
nearly five hundred titles of works printed in the islands before
1800. This of course takes no account of the works sent or brought
to Spain for publication, which would necessarily comprise a large
proportion of those of general rather than local interest, including
of course the most important histories. To these should be added no
small number of grammars and dictionaries of the native languages,
and missionary histories, that have never been printed. [132] The
monastic presses in the islands naturally were chiefly used for the
production of works of religious edification, such as catechisms,
narratives of missions, martyrdoms, lives of saints, religious
histories, and hand-books to the native languages. Simpler manuals
of devotion, rosaries, catechisms, outlines of Christian doctrine,
stories of martyrdoms, etc., were translated for the Indians. Of
these there were about sixty in the Tagal, and from three to ten
or twelve each in the Visayan, Vicol, Pampanga, Ilocan, Panayan,
and Pangasinán languages. [133]