The Philippine Experiences of an American Teacher; A Narrative of Work and Travel in the Philippine Islands (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE BEGINNING OF WORK The Town of Solano?The Igorrote Country?A Baile in Bayombong?The Tobacco Habit?The Solano School?Coaching the Native Teachers? Teaching a New Language to a Strange People? Object and Action Lessons?The Night School ?"Home, Sweet Home"?Some Results?Linguistic Ability of Americans. No welcome could be more cordial than that given us four by the captain commanding, the lieutenant-quartermaster and the physician, who, with a small detachment of soldiers comprised the American colony at Solano. They received us into their quarters, seated us at their table, and were of the greatest assistance in the working out of our plans. The town of Solano has something more than five thousand inhabitants, belonging mainly to two peoples, the Ilocanos, immigrants into that country from the westerncoast of Luzon, and the more recently Christianized Gaddanes. The streets are wide and grass-grown. Of the dwellings, some are frame with oyster-shell windows, but most are of thatch with bamboo frame-work. A huge ditch of running water extends along one side of the main street. The stone church and convent were destroyed by lightning and fire some years ago. A portion of the convent was restored and, at the time of our arrival, was occupied by the military commissary. Upon the dilapidated ruins of the church walls a new building of thatch was erected for temporary use. Beside this church is the market-place ?a large open space containing sheds of bamboo and thatch for shelter for wares and market people, and a low palisade of bamboo stakes used as the cock-pit. Market is held on Thursdays and Sundays; the cock- fighting takes place on Sundays after mass and on legal holidays. To the north and west of the town the mountains rise to the height of nearly a mile, ...