the eighteenth century would serve not unfairly for much of the
nineteenth. The first example of secular prose fiction I have noted
in his lists is Friar Bustamente's pastoral novel depicting the quiet
charms of country life as compared with the anxieties and tribulations
of life in Manila. [140] His collection did not contain so far as I
noticed a single secular historical narrative in Tagal or anything
in natural science.

Sufficient familiarity with Spanish to compensate for this lack of
books of secular knowledge was enjoyed by very few Indians in the
country districts and these had learned it mainly while servants of
the curate. It was the common opinion of the Spanish authorities that
the Friars purposely neglected instructing the Indians in Spanish,
in order to perpetuate their hold upon them; but Zúñiga repels this
charge as unjust and untrue. [141]

It is obvious that it was impracticable for the Indians to learn
Spanish under the mission system. For the pastor of a pueblo of
several hundred families to teach the children Spanish was an
impossibility. A few words or simple phrases might be learned, but
the lack of opportunity for constant or even frequent practice of
the language in general conversation would make their attainments in
it far below those of American grammar-school children in German in
cities where that has been a compulsory study. [142] As long as the
mission system isolated the pueblos from contact with the world at
large, it of necessity followed that the knowledge of Spanish would be
practically limited to such Indians as lived in Manila or the larger
towns, or learned it in the households of the Friars. Slavery with
its forced transplanting has been the only means by which large
masses of alien or lower races have been lifted into the circle