same provinces where they have not been able for some reason to get
possession of the best tracts of land, their plantations, like Baurand
and Liang, are inferior to Taal, Balayan and Lipa, regions cultivated
entirely by the natives without any monkish interference whatsoever.

Add to this lack of material inducement the absentee of moral stimulus,
and you will see how he who is not indolent in that country must
needs be a madman or at least a fool. What future awaits him who
distinguishes himself, him who studies, who rises above the crowd? At
the cost of study and sacrifice a young man becomes a great chemist,
and after a long course of training, wherein neither the government
nor anybody has given him the least help, he concludes his long
stay in the University. A competitive examination is held to fill
a certain position. The young man wins this through knowledge and
perseverance, and after he has won it, it is abolished, because
......... we do not care to give the reason, but when a municipal
laboratory is closed in order to abolish the position of director,
who got his place by competitive examination, while other officers,
such as the press censor, are preserved, it is because the belief
exists that the light of progress may injure the people more than all
the adulterated foods (26). In the same way, another young man won a
prize in a literary competition, and as long as his origin was unknown
his work was discussed, the newspapers praised it and it was regarded
as a masterpiece, but the sealed envelopes were opened, the winner
proved to be a native, while among the losers there were Peninsulars;
then all the newspapers hastened to extol the losers! Not one word
from the government, nor from anybody, to encourage the native who
with so much affection was cultivating the language and letters of
the mother country! (27)