SH1701

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Thomasites to A New Land

Literature During the American Regime

Directions: Read the selection carefully then answer the questions below.

The following selection is an excerpt from Perez’s “From the Transport Thomas to Sto. Thomas.” A Thomasite
himself, Perez vividly recounts the departure of the first group American teachers sent by the United States to
the Philippines. He portrays the feelings of the party as they reach the Philippines.

Forty years ago in 1901, shortly after the Spanish-American War, there was in Philippine
Islands no established body of native teachers. There were few teachers, trained or otherwise, to
educate Filipinos for their own citizenship. The United States government decided to send another
army. This time it was not an army with banners and guns but an army of educators. Six hundred young
college men and women from different schools were actuated by the highest ideals and by a genuine
desire to be helpful to the new nation being built across the seas.
The teaching force had been selected with care. There was an intelligent faith that the work
could be done with honour and self-sacrifice. There were great possibilities with such a large body of
trained and enthusiastic teachers. Each had the hope of the future before everyone and the enthusiasm
necessary to accomplish a difficult piece of work in a short time. Training, hope and enthusiasm,
however, were not enough. There must be the spirit of love, of loyalty, and of faith. There must be the
knowledge that those whom they serve were akin to them with the same needs and aspirations.

It cost the American government $105,000 to furnish transportation for the first group. They
set sail from San Francisco in August 1901, on the transport Thomas, an old cattle cruiser (which was
formerly called Minnewaska, a ship that was specially noted for its low speed of twelve knots). Those
who have been selected by the United States Civil Service Commission gathered at Pier 12 of the San
Francisco wharf on that August morning, restless, excited, and expectant of what was in store for them.
They were strangers to one another and to the multitude who had gone to the pier to see them off. They
push past the vigilant patrollers and up the gangplank to the deck of the transport, which soon became
a confused mass of suitcases, canvas, telescopes, grips, baskets, bundles, bird cages, cameras,
umbrellas, musical instruments, and a bag of potatoes. The bag was for one of the teachers who had
been told that this early beloved “spuds” did not grow under tropical skies.

Then the lining up before the quartermaster’s office, the inspection, and the assignment to ship
quarters. A warning whistle signalled visitors ashore and called loitering passengers aboard. One
stowaway was discovered and duly hustled down the gangplank, his enthusiasm for self-sacrificing
service unappreciated by the assistant boatswain. The sun reached the meridian, the engines began to
purr, the cables were loosened, the anchor was lifted, and the ship slowly backed away. The crew of
the ship began to sing:
“My country, ‘tis of thee.

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Sweet land of liberty

Of thee I sing…”

but the crowd of “exiles” on the upper deck did not sing.

The luncheon bell rang and down the hatch to the mess room scrambled the throng of
“maestros” and “maestras”. Like bootblacks and newspaper vendors at a charity dinner, the teachers
crowded to the table. They grabbed all the eatables in sight and loudly called to the disconcerted waiters
to bring on anything to stay the cravings of stomach while land was still in sight.

In their passage through the Golden Gate they received a choppy welcome from the blue waters
of a not-too-pacific ocean. As they watched the vanishing shoreline, there dawned upon them a sense
of separation from home, friends and country. There was a sudden weakening of the flesh, a peculiar
dizziness, an unusual discomfort in the pit of the stomach (as the muscles of this organ reversed their
action).

“Your stomach seems a little weak,” remarked one of the teachers to a pathetic-looking
pedagogue from New York who was first at the rail.

“It can still throw as far as yours,” was the cheerful reply. “I have thrown up everything but
my appointment and it wouldn’t take much more to me to throw that up, too.

For most of the party, this was their first sea voyage. This was the first time that they had seen
a flock of seagulls following the wake of a ship and their first glimpse of a school of porpoises and
flying fish. Those who come from the northern states saw for the first time the large turtle-like
cockroach with which they would become more intimate when they settled in their stations. These
cockroaches seemed to be in full possession of the ship as pedagogical fellow-passengers, roaches that
were privileged to share the fruits and the candies. Together with the roaches were the insects whose
favourite place of attacks was around the ankles of those who wore low shoes. The group of Argonauts
would have much preferred if these had all remained on the sandlots near San Francisco wharf.

After thirty days at sea and passing Molikai and Saipan islands, they were not at the end of
their voyage. It had passed like a dream in the night that rests upon the waters. No letters, no morning
papers, no mail delivered three times a day – and yet they were happy. Those necessities if civilization
are only artificial conveniences after all, and missing them is a good preparation for the life that they
were later to lead to the solitary stations, each of them miles away from the next. Just ahead, upon a
solitary rock to the right, was a lighthouse off the coast of the island of Samar: to the right were the
mountains of Southern Luzon. Beyond the horizon, the Southern Cross stretched itself across the sky.
They had reached the Philippines. Their month of vacation has ended and they entered the world of
work again. They were now face to face with their mission that the maestro poet, Bradford K. Dacess,
very aptly expressed in verse:
First, with the courage of the land
We went to the dusky race,
Broke with one blow the chain

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That fettered; now in their place.

Bring we the bonds of peace,
Invisible, lighter than air,
Soften the Engines of War
Binding the near and the far
Aliens of aim and of blood
Into a mighty human bond.

Ten of the teachers of the Thomas had already seen service in the Philippines as soldiers, but
this time they were going to the islands with books under their arms instead of with rifles over their
soldiers.

These six hundred were the advance guard, the pioneers of a mighty army that was to follow
annually until 1933.
Source:
Lapid, Milagros G. and Serrano, Josephine B. (2012). English communication arts and skills through
filipino literature. Quezon City: Phoenix Publishing House
What is the significance of the year 1901?
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Who are the Thomasites?

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Why did America send these teachers over?

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How can you describe the process of selection of the teachers?

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What are some of the things we learned from the Americans? List those that we should accept into our
culture and those that must be rejected.
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