Literacy in the Philippines, 1903-1939

One great asset in the intellectual progress of a country is the literate population. Indeed, President Manuel L. Queson of the Philippine Commonwealth is cognizant of this fact when he once said: "Our country must have a wholly literate population, because only on the foundation of an intelligent public opinion can we build the structure of liberty and sound government". The Commonwealth Government has been aware of the problem of eradicating illiteracy among the masses, for most often Illiteracy is the cause of ignorance while ignorance is an obstruction to any political, social and economic process.The main purpose of this dissertation is to show the extent of literacy and its incident characteristics, to apprehend the underlying factors affecting the degree of literacy, and, finally, to determine the general trend of the amount of literacy among the people of the Philippines. Although the work is not far from complete, it is hoped that it will provide a very useful information for those whose duty is to promote literacy and to exterminate illiteracy wing the masses.