Henry who called the attention of his brethren to the fact that the
organization was, by its very name, consecrated to the _advancement_
of science--to the discovery of new truth. He reminded them that the
association was not designed to furnish opportunity for the
restatement of what was already known. Its purpose was rather to add
to the existing body of knowledge in the world. Let not the hopes of
the founders be brought to naught by allowing the organization from
which they expected so much to be thus eviscerated!
We see, then, that the _social feature_, with what it legitimately
includes, deserves to hold as prominent a place among the objects of
the association at the end of the century as was given to it by its
founders when first established.
Two other objects which were deemed worthy of being incorporated into
the organic law of the association remain to be considered. To the
treatment of each a few words will be devoted. Neither of them
commands as high regard from us as they seem to have had at the
beginning.
2. The second object of the association as declared by the founders
was "to give a stronger and more general impulse and a more systematic
direction to scientific research in our country."
It is not easy for those who were born after the middle point of the
century to think themselves back into the conditions under which the
words above quoted were written. At that time there were but two or
three schools of science in the United States, and not one west of the
seaboard. The degrees of bachelor, master, and doctor of science were
unknown. There was but one journal of science published in the
country, and foreign scientific journals and reviews, comparatively
weak and few at the best, seldom found their way to the New World. The
men who cultivated science were widely separated, and for the most
part rarely met their peers. As a natural consequence, there must have
been more or less misdirected effort. Many a worker must have attacked
problems already solved, or have attacked them by inadequate or
obsolete methods.
How great the changes that fifty years have wrought in this country,
in the world indeed, in all these respects! Now there is not a State
in the Union that has not at least one fairly equipped school of
science, and in some of the older States such schools can be counted
by the dozen or the score. These schools are manned by teachers
trained at the foremost centers of science in this country and Europe,
familiar with all the great problems and with all the most improved
methods of research. Moreover, on the library table of every one of
these schools are the latest periodicals and special reports of the
two continents in which science is cultivated. The untrained and
isolated investigator can no longer justify his existence. There is no
occasion for the survival of such qualities as these terms imply.
This wonderful transformation in educational scope and methods effects
to a great degree just what the founders hoped to accomplish through
the agency of the association. The ground has thus been cut from under
the second of the objects of the association as avowed in its
constitution. In other words, while the result aimed at deserved the
prominence given to it fifty years ago, it no longer depends on the
association for its accomplishment.
3. The third of the objects which the association was organized to
accomplish was "to procure for the labors of scientific men increased
facilities and a wider usefulness." This clause evidently refers to
the endowment of science by founding and equipping institutions,
professorships, laboratories, museums, and the like, and to a more
cordial and general appreciation of the results of scientific work.
In this direction, also, such immense progress has been made in the
country at large that the need of special effort in this line no
longer exists. Munificent gifts to science from private fortunes are
now the order of the day. It is a poor year for science in America
when such contributions do not exceed a million dollars. This work was
begun in the large way under the elder Agassiz, and the Museum of
Comparative Zoölogy at Cambridge is its first important monument. It
has gone forward in the addition of scientific departments worthy of
the name to the older institutions of learning, and in the
establishment of new institutions wholly devoted to science.
Such beneficent use of private wealth, the unparalleled increase of
which during the last fifty years has become a matter of grave concern
to the whole body politic, does more than anything else can do to
reconcile the public to the conditions which make such accumulations
possible. Still more significant is the policy which the General
Government entered upon, forty years ago, of establishing, in
conjunction with the several States, schools of general and applied
science. The State colleges and universities thus founded have already
become potent factors in American education, and science lies at the
heart of them all. It would be hard to overrate their influence on the
development of science for time to come.
When the American Association was established, fifty years ago, a new
day was breaking on the world. The men who were cultivating science
then saw something of the conquests over Nature that the new
method--the method of science--rendered possible. They were wise in
demanding that all who use this method should recognize the common
bond. The association was the outcome of that demand.
At the end of the century we who have shared in the mighty advance and
who have been taught by our experience to discard limitations in the
possibilities of the future, feel the same and an even more urgent
need of some unifying and interpreting agency for the ever-widening
fields to which the method of science is now applied.
RACE QUESTIONS IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.
BY FERDINAND BLUMENTRITTE.
When I published my article on the History of Separatism in the
Spanish colonies, in the _Deutsche Rundschau_ for July, 1898, I said
that the colored peoples of a colony would always be inclined to
struggle for the independence of their native country, because the
rule of the mother country of the colony makes their access to the
highest positions in the state impossible. I declared, further, that
in the Philippine Islands the contempt manifested toward the colored
tribes by the Spanish press had contributed very much toward making
the gulf between rulers and ruled progressively deeper and harder to
bridge. The natural conceit and sensitiveness of the colored races in
America could never weigh as heavy in the scale as those of the
colored Filipinos do, because in America the creoles and their
numerously represented crosses were the real upholders of separatist
ideas, so that when the idea ripened into an act they held the leading
of the movement in their hands. Indians and negroes have there never
been more than the _plebs contribuens_, or the tributary class, and
"food for cannon." Only in single exceptional cases have leading
spirits ever risen from out of these lower castes; and where the
separatist movement has been confined to these colored primitive
races, as in Haiti, it has led not only to cutting loose from the
mother country, but also to a more or less complete renunciation of
European civilization. In saying this I cast no condemnation upon the
negroes, for, whenever in our civilized states the proletariat and the
populace have struck down or cast out all the cultivated and
half-cultivated classes, the same sort of "nigger management," with
only differences corresponding with the environments, has gained place
among us as in the great islands of the Antilles.
Very different are the conditions in the Philippine Islands; and, in
view of the importance which the "skin question" plays in the conflict
raged by the Americans, I think it proper to deal further with this
fundamental question of Philippine politics, especially since the
journals and the politicians, at least those of America, have given
very little attention to the matter.
The small number of creoles, of whom, besides, the principal part live
in the city of Manila, which the Americans have in their power, would
not alone explain why the war of independence and the formation of the
Philippine republic must be spoken of as pre-eminently the work of
Christian, civilized Malays and mestizos. For there are in America
countries, like Paraguay, where the number of whites is even smaller
than in the Philippine Islands, and yet the separatist movement and
the foundation of the state were the exclusive work of the creoles.
Why has it been thus? Because the Indians and the negroes do not
possess that inclination toward civilization and that capacity for
assimilation that are evident in the colored populations of the
Philippine Islands. It is supposed that the Philippine Malays have
Japanese blood in their veins; but, all the same, whether the
supposition is founded or unfounded, it is certain that not only do
they resemble the Japanese more or less in features, but that also
many mental traits are common to them with these wide-awake Orientals,
and they even excel them in a moral respect. The school statistics
show them superior to their Spanish lords. The Filipinos have no
larger percentage of illiterates than Spain of those who can not read
and write. And, as a bishop exclaimed with astonishment, there are in
those islands villages where it would be hard to find a person unable
to read. The pressure of the colored people to the higher studies and
the special schools far exceeds the percentage which one would
anticipate from their proportion to the whole population. And if we
add to these those who seek their education in Spain and other foreign
countries we shall find Malays and mestizos in the first line, and the
creoles in the last. It should be remarked on this point that many
more natives would have gone to Europe for education if the Spaniards,
and especially the monks, had not perceived conspirators in all
Filipinos who studied away from home. The fear of persecution deterred
many fathers from sending their sons over the sea.
More than ten years ago a prominent monkish writer showed how the
professions of medicine and the law were crowded with Malays and
mestizos. But besides these two professions and that of the secular
clergy the colored Filipinos turned also to engineering and art. With
respect to art, I am not thinking of the skillful goldsmiths and
silversmiths of Manila, although these artificers are among the best,
but I refer to artists of divine gifts, among whom the mestizo F.
Resureccion Hidalgo, resident in Paris, and Don Juan Luna, of the
tribe of Ilokans of northwestern Luzon, brother of the Philippine
minister Antonio Luna, are most conspicuous. Luna is not unknown to us
Germans, for the Leipsic _Illustrirte Zeitung_ some time ago published
a wood engraving of his great prize-crowned picture Spoliarum. The
best testimony to his eminence is the fact that the Spanish Senate
honored this artist, who was then living in Paris, with the commission
to paint for its chamber a pendant to Padilla's famous picture Boabdil
Surrendering the Keys of Granada to the Catholic Queen, and he painted
The Battle of Lepanto. And among the Filipino poets the name of the
great Tagal, Dr. Rizal, has become known to the whole world through
his skill in tragedy.
There is no need of mentioning any other names, for those we have
given are enough to show that these Malays and mestizos are
susceptible of cultivation, and, as Bismarck used to say, "carry a
rocket-charge in their bodies."[6]
[Footnote 6: Einen Raketensatz im Leibe führen.]
As the Spaniards who came to the archipelago were for the most part
only monks or officers, trade, so far as it was not in the hands of
foreigners, was dependent on the participation of the colored
population, particularly of the mestizos. And what of large land
ownership the monkish orders had not absorbed likewise belonged for
the most part to the colored races. None but foreigners and colored
took part in all the great enterprises of the country. The Spaniards
only ruled.
This position of the colored population in the country was the more
perilous to the Spaniards, because the Spanish press, particularly the
monkish journals, systematically treated them with scorn, called them
anthropoids, and denied their capacity to attain European
civilization. The educated Filipinos foamed with rage when spoken to
about these attacks upon their race. "Besides," they said, "it makes
the color of our skin a stigma with the Spanish lords, and with all
Europe too; why thus insult us and in so cowardly a way, when the
censorship at Manila makes it impossible for us to defend ourselves?"
But all these noisy revilings of their race could only outwardly, not
inwardly, disturb the self-esteem of the Malays, because their leading
spirits had by critical psychological studies of the white race
confirmed the opinion of the simple Tagal peasants that the whites are
made out of the same earth as the colored, and that the latter could,
under equal conditions, have done as well as they. Only the whites
have adopted that lordly code of morals which, like the flag with
contraband goods, covers the grossest breaches of right and other
outrages, which a white gentleman would not venture, indeed, to commit
upon his peers, but which, in the treatment of colored men, belong, so
to speak, to good tone, to "European smartness."
The educated brown man generally feels in his intercourse with the
European that uneasiness, that poorly concealed embarrassment, which
the parvenue with us feels in the presence of one of the blue-blooded
aristocracy. He feels every instant that the white man's critical eye
is upon him, and knows that the criticism will be pitiless and harsh
to injustice. He knows, further, that this criticism in every case
does not apply only to him, the individual, but that conclusions are
drawn at once from his errors, even though they may be only presumed,
that are applied to his whole race or caste--conclusions which are
never flattering, but always culminate, in agreement with the scorn of
the superior, in a severe condemnation.
This consciousness of running the gantlet before the eyes of Europeans
often causes the brown man to commit mistakes in European society,
which refuses to pass him among people whose favor he would be sure to
enjoy.
The opinion which Europeans living in the tropics form of the brown
men is generally unfavorable and unjust to them. We Europeans, or
rather our nations and states, already judge one another harshly and
in a more than partisan manner, because we see first only the
weaknesses, often even only the fancied weaknesses, of our neighbors.
How, then, could we expect anything better when a European has to pass
an opinion on a brown man? We should not forget that only those
Europeans go to the tropics who display special energy and force of
will--a kind of chosen lot among our race--while the natives there
include all the levels of the people. If we add to this that all the
Europeans believe in their own superiority and in the inferiority of
the brown men, it will seem quite natural that when the Europeans
begin to make comparisons between themselves and the natives the
comparisons will always be flattering to those who make them.
In the Philippine Islands, on the other hand, the reaction of the
natives against this extreme self-conceit of the whites has been
making itself felt for more than twenty years. This has come to pass
since the philosophical heads among them have carefully studied the
whites in the various countries of Europe, and have in consequence
lost faith in the divine likeness of the Caucasians.
Single examples of the studies of these men have been published, such
as that of the war minister of the Philippine republic, Don Antonio
Luna, a pure-blooded Malay like his brother the painter. Luna studied
in Spain and in Paris (under Pasteur), and lived a little while in
England, so that he had opportunities to become acquainted with three
civilized nations at their home. His literary works are represented to
us in the garb of novels and _feuilletons_, the sarcasm of which,
while it certainly escapes the uninitiated European, will be all the
more effective and precious upon those who are acquainted with the
purpose of the brilliant author, which is to satirize the depreciatory
accounts by European travelers of the land and people of the
Philippine Islands. This he does by telling of his rummaging through
the critics' home and finding all the weaknesses and faults which are
accredited to the brown men as signs of their incapacity no less
prevalent in Europe than in the Philippine archipelago; and arguing
that therefore the whites and the browns differ only in the color of
their skin, in build, and in language, but not in mind.
If space allowed I should be glad to follow my inclination to repeat
some of Luna's descriptions, which are given in a style that reminds
one of Maupassant's. I shall only say that Luna has drawn within the
circle of his observations the movements of all classes in the
aristocratic saloon and in the workman's beerhouse, and remarks that
everything that has been charged against the brown man appears
likewise in the European. The first sketch is excellent. European
travelers speak in their works of the "stupid staring" at their
white-skinned, thoughtful faces by the "brown savages." Luna, whose
pen-name is Taga-ilog,[7] parodies these stories by simply relating
that on his arrival in Europe and during his earlier residence there
the people on the streets stared at him, and some of the boys threw
stones or stuck out their tongues at him. He did not, however, care
for that, while he expected that the better circles would convince him
of the superiority and the innate tact of the lordly race by their
more refined behavior. But it did not turn out so. He saw the ladies
in the saloons tittering behind their fans and making merry over "the
queer man." And then at the table! How plain was the expression of
astonishment among the gentlemen of the saloons that the brown man
behaved in his eating just as the whites did! They had apparently
anticipated that the "black" would act as if he were tearing live
pigeons to pieces and swallowing them. The indolence of the Europeans
is shown up no less amusingly. Luna finds it apparent in all
conditions, prevailing in the highest and the lowest social strata. He
asks what would become of the industry and activity of the European
peoples if they were suddenly given the climate and the fruitfulness
of his native land. These two examples are all we can give. Likewise
interesting are the studies of my Tagalog friends Don Marcelo H. del
Pilar and Don Mariano Ponce. The former, an advocate from the province
of Bulakan, in the island of Luzon, and a descendant of King
Lakandola, of Manila, was the leader of the Reformist party and the
chief editor of the journal _La Solidaridad_, published in Madrid,
which he directed with a remarkable skill that was recognized by his
opponents. He died in Barcelona in the summer of 1896. His compeer,
Ponce, is now living in Japan and is no less distinguished than Pilar
for his keen wit and his zeal in research.
[Footnote 7: From over the water; or it may be derived from
Ilokos, or Tagal.]
These two Malay jurists carefully examined the criminal records of
Europe. Why? Because, whenever an extraordinary or especially heinous
crime was committed in the Philippine Islands, the Spaniards were
accustomed to use it to confirm their conclusions as to the innate
inferiority of the Malay race. "That could occur only among a people
of inferior intelligence," was their standing phrase. Del Pilar and
Ponce gathered the accounts of trials from the European journals, and
were able to reply to the Spaniards quietly: "No, that is not so. All
these crimes occur among you Europeans, and relatively more frequently
than with us. Your conclusion is therefore false, or else you too have
a defective intelligence such as you ascribe to us." Del Pilar, from
his studies of the colonial enterprises of all peoples, came to the
conclusion that "the Europeans founded most of their colonies at a
time when the holding in vassalage of men of their own race by whites
and the slavery of negroes and Indians were not regarded as offenses.
If, now, we look at colonies in which, as in the Philippine Islands,
agricultural populations are living with a civilization of their own,
the development of the native races will depend on their religion. In
a colony where Islam or a dogmatized heathen religion prevails no
assimilation between Europeans and natives can take place. It is
otherwise in countries like the Philippines, where the natives
accepted Christianity at a time when religion had more importance
among Europeans than now; a common basis was formed for the
co-operation of both parts, the whites and the colored. But the
circumstance that rulers and ruled had the same religion and the same
official language may have led directly to another evil--that the
colors became marks of condition, the whites being the Spartans, the
mestizos the perioikoi, and the colored men the helots or servile
people. So long as no pressure toward higher ambitions occurred from
among those of the perioikoi and the helot grades, and so long as the
whites were able to keep their prestige freely recognized by their
dependents, the view of the whites, that the colored were both
socially and intellectually a lower caste, seemed to be justified. The
case has been different in the present century, especially in the
second half of it. People of our (Philippine) race attended the high
schools, appropriated to themselves the civilization and the knowledge
of the whites, and still the brand of inferiority stuck to them. And
this happened, too, when the quality of the whites had deteriorated.
They were no longer exclusively _señors_, but there came bankrupted
Spaniards or those of the lowest classes into the country, among them
persons who could not read and write, who should be rated as beneath
our school-trained people. And yet these illiterates claimed, by
virtue of their color, to be respected as lords of the land, an
absurdity which left the idea of 'European prestige' without
justification, for how could beggars, spongers, bummers, rowdies, and
illiterates impress anybody? The decent Spaniards committed the
mistake of avowing their solidarity with the sorry fellows of their
caste, instead of rejecting them and holding aloof from them and
sending them back to Spain. So the Spaniards have brought it to pass,
through a mistaken policy, that the Filipinos on their side, too,
throw the good elements of the Spanish population into the same pot
with the foul. Another reason why a Spanish prestige can not be
thought of among us is that, with the exception of the tobacco
companies, all the great enterprises in our country are carried on by
foreigners and Filipinos. We owe all that is called progress not to
the Spaniards, but to our own force or to foreigners."