An Epoch in History

An Epoch in History, by P. H.
Eley

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Title: An Epoch in History
Author: P. H. Eley

Release Date: April 5, 2007 [eBook #20996]
Language: English
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AN EPOCH IN HISTORY
by
P. H. ELEY

[Illustration: (signed) Very Truly, P. H. Eley.]

TO MY MOTHER, whose tender love and devotion for me are ever
unchanged, I dedicate this book.

Copyright, 1904, by P. H. Eley.

CONTENTS.
1. AN EPOCH IN HISTORY.
2. MANILA.
3. A DRAMA IN ACTUAL LIFE.
4. WHAT THE TEACHERS DID.
5. A "BAILE."
6. A SKETCH OF LIFE IN THE PHILIPPINES.

7. THE FILIPINO AT HOME.
8. A VISIT TO A LEPER COLONY.
9. A "HIKE."

PREFACE.
It was the good fortune of the author to take part in a movement
without precedent in the history of the world, and the incidents
concurrent with, together with those subsequent to that movement,
have furnished the material for this book. It has been the object of the
writer to weave into the story of his actual experiences an account of
those things which are as yet an unexplored field in the realm of letters.
The work is submitted to the reader in the hope that it will prove to be
pregnant with interest to those who are in sympathy with great
movements and to those who listen with delight to stories of personal
experiences in distant lands and among strange peoples.
THE AUTHOR.
The Virginia Polytechnic Institute, April, 1904.
CHAPTER I.
AN EPOCH IN HISTORY.
Few people pause to think that Tuesday, the twenty-third day of July,
nineteen hundred and one, not only placed a mile-stone on the road of
civilization, but also marked an epoch in the history of the world.
That day placed a mile-stone on the road of civilization because it saw
the culmination of one of the greatest movements ever attempted in
behalf of common school education. It marked an epoch in the history
of the world because, for the first time within the knowledge of man, a
conquering people, instead of sending battalions of soldiers to hold the
conquered in subjection, sent a carefully selected body of men and

women to carry to them the benefits of a highly developed society.
It was on this day that the United States Government sent from San
Francisco four hundred and ninety-nine trained men and women to
establish throughout the Philippine Islands a system of free public
schools.
The ball on the tower of the Ferry Building in San Francisco had just
fallen, announcing the hour of noon on the one hundred and twentieth
meridian, when the propellers began revolving and the United States
Army Transport "Thomas" swung out into the middle of the bay, where
it dropped anchor for a few moments while some belated boxes of
lemons and a few other articles were added to the equipment of the
steward's department.
The anchor was again on its way to the surface when a row-boat driven
by four oarsmen with drawn muscles and clenched teeth glided in under
the bow of the ship. Its passenger, a belated teacher who at the last
moment had wandered from the pier, was shouting for some one to
throw him a rope, and a few moments later our last passenger whose
silvery hair little indicated the probability of such a blunder was landed
in a heap on the deck. Our ship was now under way and soon passed
out of the Golden Gate bearing on and between her decks the largest
number of teachers as well as the largest cargo of pedagogical
equipment that any vessel in the history of the world ever bore to a
foreign land to instruct an alien people. Late in the afternoon five
whales came up and spouted and played around us. We passed on and
as their fountains of spray disappeared in the distance the sun sank
down to pay his wonted devotion before the shrine of night. We were
alone.
By good fortune we went by way of the Hawaiian Islands and touched
at Honolulu. We entered the harbor in the first faint light of the coming
morn