Central to the friars' dominant position is…

Central to the friars' dominant position is their monopoly of education at all levels and thus their control over cultural and intellectual life.

In 1863 the Spanish government had decreed that a system of free public primary education be established in the islands, which could have been interpreted as a threat to this monopoly.

By 1867 there were five hundred and ninety-three primary schools enrolling 138,990 students; by 1877 the numbers had grown to sixteen hundred and eight schools and 177,113 students; and in 1898 there were twenty-one hundred and fifty schools and over two hundred thousand students out of a total population of approximately six million.

The friars, however, are given the responsibility of supervising the system both on the local and the national levels.

The Jesuits are given control of the teacher-training colleges.

Except for the Jesuits, the religious orders are strongly opposed to the teaching of modern foreign languages, including Spanish, and scientific and technical subjects to the indios (literally, Indians; the Spanish term for Filipinos).

In 1898 the University of Santo Tomas teaches essentially the same courses that it did in 1611, when it was founded by the Dominicans, twenty-one years before Galileo was brought before the Inquisition for publishing the idea that the earth revolved around the sun.