If, as is credibly asserted, the knowledge of reading and writing was more generally diffused in the Philippines than among the common people of Europe,[1] we have the singular result that the islands contained relatively more people who could read, and less reading matter of any but purely religious interest, than any other community in the world. Yet it would not be altogether safe to assume that in the eighteenth century the list of printed translations into the native languages comprised everything of European literature available for reading; for the Spanish government, in order to promote the learning of Spanish, had prohibited at times the printing of books in Tagal.[2] Furthermore, Zúñiga says explicitly that "after the coming of the Spaniards they (i. e. the people in Luzon) have had comedies, interludes, tragedies, poems, and every kind of literary work translated from the Spanish, without producing a native poet who has composed even an interlude."[3] Again, Zúñiga describes a eulogistic poem of welcome addressed by a Filipino villager to Commodore Álava. This loa, as this species of composition was called, was replete with references to the voyages of Ulysses, the travels of Aristotle, the unfor-
- ↑ Mallat says that the elements were more generally taught than in most of the country districts of Europe (i, p. 386) and quotes the assertion of the Archbishop of Manila: "There are many villages such as Argas, Dalaguete, Bolohon, Cebu, and several in the province of Iloilo, where not a single boy or girl can be found who cannot read and write, an advantage of which few places in Europe can boast." Ibid., p. 388.
- ↑ Estadismo, i, p. 300.
- ↑ Estadismo, i, p. 63.
a revolutionary work, and Herr Bruckner, who translated it, had his edition destroyed by Government." Guillemard, Malaysia and the Pacific Archipelagoes, p. 129.
