known, European prejudice made itself manifest. It was said that the choice of a tragic subject could unquestionably be traced back to the descent of the artist from "savages." But when did artists of the white race ever shrink from such subjects? Luna has had cause enough to complain of European injustice. The natives are charged with not being independent in art. "They can only imitate," it is said. But how many European nations one would have to strike out of the list of the civilized if that title is to belong only to those which have an art of their own! It should not be forgotten that the Spaniards have, during their three hundred years' rule, impressed a Spanish mark on the native artistic tendencies. The ethnographer who is acquainted with the woven and carved designs of the heathen tribes which have remained free from the Spaniards and from Christian civilization will certainly not be able to deny that the Malays of the Philippine Islands have a great talent for ornamental art. But if the reproach is cast against the Filipinos that they have tried to Europeanize themselves in plastic art as well as in music, they have not done differently from the Europeans—that is, they denationalize themselves and come into the great international circle of civilization, a thing that can hardly be charged as a sin against them. It is very remarkable, they say, that Europeans condemn in the Filipinos, as a mark of inferiority that which they regard in themselves as a sign of progress.
Rizal also has spoken of the injustice of the judgments which Europeans pass upon Philippine conditions. I have published his views on this subject in the tenth volume of the Internationalen Archivs für Ethnographie, and will therefore on the present occasion only give a sketch of them, with a few additional observations to complement them. Dr. Rizal says that most Europeans judge the natives from their servants, which would be as false as if anybody should form his conception of the German people from the complaints which German housewives are always ready to make concerning their domestics. At one time while he was visiting me we strolled out of town. He gathered some wild flowers and asked me their names. I had to confess respecting many of them that I knew neither their common nor their botanical names. He laughed and said: "Well, you are a cit; let us ask a countryman." We met a peasant, but he could not give us any information about any of the flowers. "Why," Eizal said, "is this the first time you ever saw the flowers?" The peasant replied that he knew the flowers very well, but did not know what they were called. When the countryman had gone, Rizal said to me: "How fortunate you Europeans are as compared with us poor Tagals! If such an experience as I have just gone through should happen to a European
