You call
'father' the one who is in command over you. Perhaps there will come
a time when you will be more civilized, and you will break out in
revolution; and you will wake terrified, at the tumult of the riots,
and will see blood flowing through these quiet fields, and gallows
and guillotines erected in these squares, which never yet have seen an
execution." [6] Thus moralized a Spanish traveler in 1842, just as that
dolce far niente was drawing to its close. Already far-seeing men had
begun to raise in the Spanish parliament the question of the future of
the Philippines, looking toward some definite program for their care
under modern conditions and for the adjustment of their relations
with the mother country. But these were mere Cassandra-voices--
the horologe of time was striking for Rome's successor, as it did
for Rome herself.
Just where will come the outbreak after three centuries of
mind-repression and soul-distortion, of forcing a growing subject
into the strait-jacket of medieval thought and action, of natural
selection reversed by the constant elimination of native initiative and
leadership, is indeed a curious study.
Pages:
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49