Francisco the Filipino

At the close of the Spanish-American War in 1898, Spain withdrew from the Philippine Islands after more than three centuries of residence, and turned over the responsibilities of Philippine control to the people of the United States.

A number of years have elapsed since the American people took up the white man’s burden in the Orient, and although thousands of Americans have visited our new possessions during this time, there are still many persons who think vaguely of the Philippines as a tiny group of islands somewhere in the Pacific, inhabited by half savage people who wear little or no clothing and prefer dog meat to all other kinds of food.

When one stops to note that the archipelago consists of more than three thousand islands, which, if placed within the United States, would occupy an area extending from Minneapolis to New Orleans and from Denver to Kansas City, he secures a more definite idea of their magnitude. And when he learns further that the soil of these islands is astonishingly fertile, that they abound in valuable timber, coal, gold, copper, iron, lead, and platinum, and that of the eight million inhabitants, only about half a million are uncivilized, the remainder being Christians, some of whom are highly educated, with all the graces and accomplishments of a European, he again finds himself startled at the importance of these new American territories across the seas.

It was with the idea of giving American boys and girls a clearer idea of the Filipino people,—how they live, what they eat and wear, how they work and how they play,—that this little book was written. The author recalls with the greatest pleasure the two years spent among the school boys and girls of Albay Province, and is glad to number among his warmest friends the Filipinos of southern Luzon.

B. M. L.