A Woman's Impression of the Philippines by Mary Helen Fee
page 66 of 244 (27%)
page 66 of 244 (27%)
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resentful ones at her mother.
Half an hour later, three more girls came in, and they continued to drop in during the rest of the morning till I had forty-five enrolled. Some of them were accompanied by their dogs, which curled up under the benches without disturbance. Several nursemaids also happened along to give their charges a peep at the American school, and a crowd of citizens peered in at doors and windows and made audible remarks about the new institution. Within a few days the enrolment ran up to one hundred and forty-nine. As this was too large a body to be handled by me alone, the teacher of Spanish days was brought back to the school, pending the arrival of more teachers from the States. She was a plump, middle-aged body who had a little--a very little--English, but whose ideas of discipline, recitation, and study were too well fixed to permit of accommodation to our methods. She was unfailingly polite and kind, though I could see that she was often harassed by the innovations to which she could not accustom herself. The school-house was one immense room, and one of the first acts of the Division Superintendent was to set in motion the forces which should separate it into three. This took time. First the Presidente had to approve, and the town council to act on his suggestion. The Municipal Treasurer, a native official, had to certify the cost to the Provincial Treasurer, an American civil appointee, and if the last-named official approved, the council could make the appropriation and order the work done. Pending these changes, the Filipino teacher took one end of the room |
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