SOME HISTORICAL FOOTNOTES TO THE THOMASITES AND ITS IMPLICATIONS TO THE EDUCATIONAL LANDSCAPE OF THE COUNTRY

By  FE  ZAMORA LOBIANO

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this article is to focus on some vignettes about the first batch of Thomasites who came to the Philippines, particularly in the island of Negros and how they were perceived by modern-day educators based on my integration of datas sourced out mainly from online research papers and dissertation.

          Negros here would interchangeably refer to Negros Occidental, the capital city of which is Bacolod, Negros Oriental, the  capital city of which is Dumaguete, and Siquijor which was then part of Negros Oriental.

 I will however focus on the list of Thomasites teachers assigned in Negros Oriental as far as the date would indicate based on my research  of the same.

          In hindsight, this article is partly inspired by my late grandfather Eduardo Banjao Kabristante ( from my mother’s side Violeta Kabristante-Zamora) who was a public school teacher in the municipality of Payabon now renamed Bindoy town most of his lifetime until his retirement at age 65.

          In the way of an oral history or oral narratives, my mother Violeta  would hand down to us grandchildren of Eduardo Kabristante some bits of information and vignettes  about my grandfather having  received  indirectly his teacher training exposure or  experience  from teachers who were trained under the original batch of Thomasites teachers who then prepared some Filipino students to become teachers themselves.

One such training institution was held at the Philippine Normal College, Manila.

          In a way, the topic on Thomasites is somehow relatable  to me being a public school teacher myself on the side handling special education classes.  

After all it pays to know one’s history   so one could  learn from its mistakes if any, or build the strength from history necessary for the country to move forward.

BRIEF HISTORY OF THOMASITES’S COMING TO THE PHILIPPINES

A common knowledge by now made accessible by fully-documented materials and books including sources from  Wikipedia tells us that the the Thomasites were  originally a group of about five hundred American teachers sent by the U.S. government to the Philippines in August 1901 who arrived on the transport vessel named  USSS  Thomas. 

The term Thomasites, however, also included  other teachers from the US  who came to the American Colonial Period of the Philippines for the same mission.

The boat which brought educators to the shore of Manila Bay was named USS Thomas, hence the teachers in it were named Thomasites

There were then two batches of American teachers, namely those who were in the original batch of the Thomasites and those who came after it.

According to the Wikipedia which I validated by cross referencing other sources mainly from online publications authored by Saturnino Springer and Robert Earl Springer, Lardizabal, Sianturi, et. al,  the Thomasites arrived in the Philippines on August 21, 1901, to establish a new public school system, to teach basic education, and to train Filipino teachers using English as the medium of instruction.

On a  fully-substantiated data by Wikipedia  USS Thomas  carried in it —365 males and 165 females when it left Pier 12 of San Francisco on July 23, 1901 via the Pacific Ocean to South East Asia.  

It cost the U.S. government to spend about $105,000 for the expedition. This was followed by additional American  teachers   in 1902 bringing the  total of about 1,074 assigned in the Philippines.

The Thomasites were paid $125 dollars a month while in the Philippines although reports indicated that their  salaries were often delayed and sometimes the American teachers were paid in devalued Mexican peso.

It may be recalled however that  earlier on before the arrival of USS Thomas,  the U.S.Army soldiers were already teaching Filipinos the English language.  This made possible the opening of the first public school in Corrigidor Island where most American soldiers after Admiral George Dewey defeated  the Spanish Pacific fleet in a mock battle in Manila Bay on May 1, 1898.

          The situation led then US President William Mckinley to  appoint William Howard Taft to  head a commission that will take charge of continuing the education  started by the U.S. Army. 

Thus,  Taft Commission passed Education Act No. 34 on January 21, 1901, which first established the Department of Public Instruction. The latter was then given the task of establishing a public school system throughout the Philippines. The Taft Commission also authorized the further deployment of 1,000 more educators from the U.S. to the Philippines.

The Thomasites were first quarantined for two days upon their arrival on August 21,1901 at the walled city of Intramuros before they were deployed to their respective provincial assignments which  included among others,  Albay,  Catanduanes, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, Sorsogon,   Masbate, Samar, Zambales, Aparri, Jolo, Negros, Cebu, Dumaguete, Bataan, Batangas, Pangasinan and Tarlac.

THE PIONEERING THOMASITES ASSIGNED IN NEGROS ORIENTAL

Scholars Ninfa Saturnino Springer and Robert Earl Springer in their online research on the Thomasites revealed a  US military report dated April 20, 1900 saying that in the island of Negros   alone there were fifty-nine towns that had schools.

They did not however mention in particular which side of Negros they were referring to.

          I would in random manner mention the towns specifically under the jurisdiction of Negros Oriental province which had been assigned the first batch of Thomasites by the Americans.

This does not  attempt at giving a comprehensive list of the Thomasites’s names as I believe that some names may  have been relatively  omitted due to research limitations.

Here are the names of the Thomasites in random order and their corresponding places of assignments, as follows:  

1.          Rebecca E Berry (Dumaguete, Negros Oriental)

2.          Harry L Brown (Sequijor, Negros Oriental)

3.          Ralph R Blackney (Guijulngan, Negros Oriental)

4.          Gerow D Brill (Negros)

5.          EH Buttles (Sibulan, Negros Oriental)

6.          CE Conant (Bais, Negros Oriental)

7.          James R Fugate (Sequijor, Negros Oriental)

8.          WS Dakin (Bais, Negros Oriental)

9.          Edward Dietrich (San Juan, Negros Oriental)

10.     GW Felton (Bacong, Negros Oriental)

11.     Hayford (Larena, Sequijor, Negros Oriental)

12.      DC Montgomery (Dumaguete, Negros Oriental)

13.       Eva Montgomery (Dumaguete, Negros Oriental)

14.      Joshua B Kirkpatrick (Ayuquitan, Negros Oriental)

15.     J Hatheway (Tanjay, Negros Oriental)

16.      WS Dakin (Bais, Negros Oriental)

The lives of the Thomasites  while in line of duty according to Springer and Springer were not without risks. 

It is due to  the presence of a band of “ladrones” (Spanish term for outlaws)  who to my thinking  resisted the coming of the Americans on the Philippines soil after having experienced earlier oppression from  Spanish colonial regime.

Probably, they “ladrones” took their resistance and anger on the Thomasites which gave a dramatic face to the presence of  American colonialists in the country.

          Springer and Springer in their paper  cited the case of Thomasites Collins who was thrown from a native boat while crossing the strait from Bais, Negros Oriental to Samboan, Cebu,where he was transferred.

          Thomasites D. C. Montgomery, from Wayne, Nebraska, Division Superintendent of Schools for Negros Occidental was murdered by “ladrones” while en route to the towns of Talisay and Bacolod.      

          Four bodies of Thomasites who were on an outing were found dead after a long search.

Some Thomasites  due to inadequate  medical care also  died of epidemics like diphtheria, dysentery, cholera, and smallpox epidemics, mentioning the case of Joseph E. Allen who was stationed in  Cebu when he died of smallpox before  wife and two children.  

Mary Helen H. Fee’s historical account  as a Thomasite teacher deserves special attention in  this article.

 Through her own account one is able in a microscopic way glean from the way with which the Thomasites teachers of her kind interact with the local situation.   

  

 Both authors further wrote, “…While many Thomasites preferred to teach in Manila, Mary Helen Fee was willing to go anywhere. Fee taught school for 8 years, first in Capiz, which she described as as a rich and aristocratic town, and then in Iloilo. She agreed that English be used as a medium of instruction giving emphasis on agricultural and industrial training…Mary Fee was also engaged in the development of practical experiences in self-governing for her students. She organized a society and acting as chairman, called for an election by informal ballot.”

This was her way of  introducing  the concept of democracy by majority rule.

The curriculum in public schools from  1902 to 1935 included the following subjects English, mathematics, general courses, trade courses, agriculture, reading, grammar, geography, housekeeping and household arts like sewing, crocheting and cooking, manual trading, mechanical drawing, freehand drawing and athletics, namely baseball, track and field, tennis, indoor baseball and basketball.

  

CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE THOMASITES TEACHER

         

It can be deduced that the Thomasites built upon what has been laid down by the U.S. Army preferring to continue live in the Philippines after the termination of their teaching assignments.

          As antecedent group of the present-day U.S. Peace Corps Volunteers, the Thomasites can claim having transformed the Philippines into the third largest English-speaking nation in the world.

To honor the Thomasites’s pioneering efforts in education, the Phil. Government put up a  Thomasites Centennial Project with other leading cultural and educational institutions in the Philippines in cooperation with American Studies associations in the Philippines, the Philippine-American Educational Foundation, the Embassy of the United States of America in Manila.

Also U.S. Ambassador John D. Negroponte and ex- Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim joined hands in  dedicating a memorial cemetery for the Thomasites  at Manila North Cemetery.

CROSS-REFERENCE STUDIES ON THE IMPACT OF THOMASITES ON THE EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL LANDSCAPE OF THE COUNTRY

A doctoral dissertation in 1956 at Standford University authored  by Amparo Santamaria Lardizabal  gathered an evaluation of the early American education program by interviewing some living Thomasites in the United States with this question.  “What was the attitude of the people toward the American teachers?"

The answer was, "As far as I have observed the attitude toward the American teachers was excellent. Every place we went we were treated with high regard. We were given preference at banquets, fiestas and dances. The graciousness of the Filipino people was par excellence. Many times we were embarrassed at the attention paid us".

Lardizabal concluded that in the main,  the Thomasites succeeded in attracting to the classroom people of varied intelligence and educational background ,young and old, of both sexes, single and married, from all levels of socio-economic status .

That the students learned English and the language arts; the development of attitudes such as respect for manual labor, zeal for work, fair play, loyalty to duty, and the meaning of democracy.

          Contrary to the aforementioned perception gathered  by Lardizabal from a group of Thomasites themselves, a study titled “Pedagogic Invasion”: The Thomasites in Occupied Philippines by Dinah Roma-Sianturi, Literature Department, De La Salle University, Manila in general looked upon the system of education propagated first by the Thomasites while  often hailed an admirable initiative, was also deceptive if not a treacherous act, not  short of the proverbial Greek Trojan Horse.

Quoting some cross-referenced sources, Sianturi  revealed that these well-meaning American teachers had their own  colonial opinion of their Filipino students, adding that unconsciously, the Thomasites teachers were largely  part of the American colonial education policy.

         

The study pointed out that the directives coming from 

a colonial territory  reached  the actual sites in  discordant form given the fact that it came from the other side of the globe.

          Asserting further that the Thomasites were in a manner of speaking harbingers of implementing colonial educational policies and that their personal accounts tended if not generally  illustrated “history from below”  or history from the point of view of the colonialists. This then relegated to the background the other insightful, rich  narratives of the colonized Filipinos.

 ONLINE SOURCES:

         

1.    The American Contribution to Philippine Education, 1898-1998. Reprinted from the Philippine Free Press, Manila, August 23, 1920.

2.    Lardizabal, Amparo Santamaria. Pioneer American Teachers and Philippine Education. Phoenix Press Inc, 927 Quezon Avenue, Quezon City.

3.    “Pedagogic Invasion”: The Thomasites in Occupied Philippines by Dinah Roma-Sianturi;  Kritika Kultura 12 (2009): 005-026 <www.ateneo.edu/kritikakultura>0© Ateneo de Manila University