The plan of public instruction as stated elsewhere in this report is in accord with the standards in the corresponding grades of the public schools of Luzon and the Visayas, with modifications in details adapting the schools to peculiar local conditions. The specific objectives of school instruction are practical training in agriculture and citizenship. A decided effort is made to extend the scope of the schools, so far as possible, to the parents of school children and to other adults in the communities as well as the children themselves. The progress made during the year has been eminently of a constructive character and highly encouraging to responsible officers of coordinate branches of government whose interest in the schools is no less than that of the school officials and teachers themselves.

The first interdepartmental athletic meet held in Mindanao-Sulu occurred at Zamboanga December 20 to 23, 1916. Representative individuals and teams from all the Provinces of the East Visayas and from Mindanao-Sulu competed in the program, which was carried out in accordance with the rules of the Philippine Amateur Athletic Federation. The meet was a complete success, and has contributed greatly to the increase of popular local interest in school athletics.

PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

The private schools described in detail in previous annual reports have continued during the past year. No information is had of either increase or decrease in the number of these schools. During the latter part of the year a representative of the secretary of public instruction began the work of inspection of private schools here and is still engaged thereon. There has been a continued serious effort on the part of mission clergy and other persons responsible for these schools to bring them to standards corresponding to those of the public schools by which they may obtain recognition and authority from the government to issue certificates and diplomas. It is regretted that it will not be possible before forwarding this report (Jan. 30) to secure complete statistics as to the private schools, especially the number of schools, teachers, enrollment, and attendance of pupils at the close of the year. In these cases, as in the case of the public schools, statistics are prepared at the close of the school year in March rather than for the calendar year. While there is reported in some instances a considerable reduction in the attendance at private schools by reason of transfers to public schools, there have been increases in attendance at private schools at other points where no public schools have as yet been established, and it is believed that the total enrollment in all private schools in the department at the close of the year was somewhat greater than at the close of the preceding year, when there were reported approximately 4,500 pupils in private schools.

11. PRISONS.

There is to be recorded for the past year a general improvement in the security and sanitation of provincial and municipal jails. The provincial government of Agusan had completed in April, 1916, a

modern sanitary provincial jail of steel and concrete. In addition to necessary departments for prisoners of both sexes, hospital and sanitary closets are provided. The prisoners are required to work in the provincial gardens, consisting of a plant nursery for distribution of economic and ornamental plants and trees and a garden which supplies vegetables for the prisoners and also for sale in the town of Butuan. Cacao seeds have been planted and distributed by the provincial prisoners, and in other ways assistance and instruction given small landed proprietors in planting fruit trees.

The provincial governments of Bukidnon, Cotabato, Davao, Lanao, Sulu, and Zamboanga maintain joint provincial-municipal prisons. Zamboanga Province has experimented successfully during the past year in using provincial prisoners in the Lamitan agricultural colony on the island of Basilan, where the Province has produced rice for the support of the prisoners, and for the coming year a more extensive agricultural undertaking is being planned. The Lamitan colony is doubly useful for the Province of Zamboanga for the reason that the agricultural colony for immigrants' home seekers is located on the same island and facilities are given prospective colonists to obtain materials for the building of houses, clearing land, and furnishing necessary seeds, etc. Homestead surveys have been completed. There is one colony superintendent paid by the Province of Zamboanga on the island of Basilan, and a school, public dispensary, and constabulary station have been established.

Provincial and municipal prisoners generally are either used in connection with public works or agricultural labor as above stated, and local governments are practically reimbursed with the product of prison labor for expenses of maintenance, enabling them to furnish greater quantity and better quality of food, and the physical strength of the prisoners is thereby increased.

Adequate provision is made for the separation of male and female prisoners in municipal jails; medical service is always available; food and clothing are appropriate and sufficient; guards are adequate and well instructed; prison management has been efficient generally.

12. PUBLIC WORKS.

The public works activities which received especial attention during the year 1915 have been construction and maintenance of roads and trails, telephone lines, potable water supplies, removal of obstacles to navigation of rivers, port improvements and landing facilities, and construction and maintenance of public buildings, especially schools, hospitals, and provincial jails.

There existed in the department on January 1, 1916, 65 kilometers of first-class roads, 115 kilometers of second-class roads, 185 kilometers of third-class roads, 437 kilometers of improved (first-class) trails passable at all seasons of the year for horsemen and pack animals, and about 2,000 kilometers of well-defined (second-class) trails on which more or less improvements have been done.

During the year 1916 these roads and trails were maintained, improved, and extended as funds available permitted. On December

31, 1916, the road and trail system of the department comprised the following:

There was made available for expenditure in the department during the year 1916 for roads and trails, including bridges, ferries, and fords, a total of 547,639.37 derived from provincial funds, per capita allotments, special allotments by the secretary of commerce and police and special appropriations from the insular treasury.

The following statement sets forth in detail the totals of estimated local revenue accruing to the road and bridge funds of each of the several provinces comprised in the department, and exclusive of the insular allotments and appropriations just above mentioned:

These provincial funds are obviously scarcely adequate for road and trail maintenance.

First-class road construction, which costs in Luzon and Visayas from P5,000 to 8,000 per kilometer, is even more expensive in Mindanao-Sulu, because of the relatively higher cost of labor in those districts where conditions of density of population and agricultural production now require road construction. As in the regularly organized Provinces, road construction is provided for from per capita and special allotments. The funds derived from special insular appropriations are devoted to construction of trails and the very limited road work clearly required, as in Sulu, for reasons of public order rather than local convenience and benefit.

The initial cost of trail construction averages above 300 per kilometer for a "first-class trail," which is one passable at all seasons of the year for horsemen and pack animals. Such trails are obviously of compelling necessity and great administrative economy in the maintenance of public order, the supply of constabulary stations, schools, and other local government agencies, to facilitate the orderly and permanent settlement of Mohammedans and pagans and the

encouragement of surplus agricultural production. Great care is taken to give these trail locations appropriate for their eventual development into wagon roads, which, to a degree, is already occurring in some localities through the substitution of wheeled vehicles for pack animals in the transportation of local products and supplies to and from market points. While there is a great demand for the extension of road construction, the improvement of existing and much-used trails by relocation and otherwise, where necessary to make them passable not only for pedestrians but by horsemen and pack animals, is given preferential attention and merits the provision of adequate funds. There are approximately 2,000 kilometers of these trails termed "second class," which, for reasons of public order as well as for other reasons of political and economic development, should be improved to the degree of first-class trails as soon as possible. Making a liberal allowance for the voluntary labor which may be obtained for the initial work, and provided it be carried on under efficient direction and pursuant to a duly authorized definite program by which the work will be laid out and funds provided well in advance, permitting its execution in a coherent manner, taking advantage of the seasonal availability of labor and periods of minimum rainfall, the average cost per kilometer of this work may be limited to P200.

The local government has continued to be favored during the year 1916 by the Army meeting from Federal funds the expense of maintenance of the wagon road from the coast at Camp Overton, near Iligan, to Camp Keithley (Marawi), on Lake Lanao near Dansalan, the capital of the Province of Lanao. This road is the only means of supply and access of wheeled transportation to the provincial capital and the great lake region in the interior of west central Mindanao, where active military operations were constantly found necessary by the Spanish and American military governments-operations to which, perhaps, is due the fact that the problem of public order of the present time is not more serious. This road was first constructed by the United States Army, chiefly from Federal funds, and has since been maintained almost entirely from Federal funds. The unprecedented torrential rains and the consequent floods which occurred through northern and central Mindanao in January, 1916, caused serious damage to what is known as the canyon section of this road, this section being rendered impassable by slides. The Army funds then available for road construction and maintenance for the remainder of the Federal fiscal year were not sufficient to meet the expense of reopening the road, which involved some construction work. The amount necessary to complete available Federal funds to the sum necessary to put the road again in a passable condition and on a basis of maintenance expense only was P34,000, and this was made available from department funds. Otherwise the Army would have been compelled to withdraw the garrison from Camp Keithley and perhaps permanently abandon that military post. In this event the entire burden of reopening the road would have had to be borne by the insular and local governments, necessitating the abandonment of practically all other public-works activities in Mindanao-Sulu for the year 1916. It seems certain that the taking over of all expense of maintenance of this road by the insular

and local governments may be postponed not longer than the end of the Federal fiscal year, June 30, 1917.

The road is 37.2 kilometers in length, rising from sea level at Camp Overton to an altitude of 2,300 feet in Dansalan. It is compelled to carry a very heavy traffic of carts, wagons, and automobile trucks for the supply of private commercial requirements as well as the government stations in the great lake region, of which it is the only transportation outlet, and from which the exports of coffee, rice, etc., are increasing. There is now located at Dansalan one rice mill, which is inadequate to meet the requirements of the greatly increased local surplus production of palay, which has been developed by the feasibility of export to other Provinces afforded by the road. The cost of maintenance of this road is estimated by the bureau of public works at 600 per kilometer, a total of P22,320, which is an unavoidable expense that must hereafter be met by the local government.

The floods occasioned by the extraordinary torrential rains of January, 1916, throughout central and northern Mindanao, in addition to the serious road damage mentioned above, also caused in Lanao the loss of the bridge over the Iligan River and serious damage to the Iligan-Camp Overton Road; the loss of all large bridges, including those over the Mangima and Kulaman Rivers in Bukidnon, rendering impassable the road from the coast to Malaybalay, the provincial capital; the deposit of innumerable tree trunks and other obstacles to navigation in the Agusan and Cotabato Rivers; the loss of the Ayala Bridge: and serious damage to the Zamboanga-San Ramon Road, as well as to municipal streets and roads in Zamboanga. The necessity for reconstruction of bridges, extensive repairs to roads and trails, and the removal of obstacles to navigation in the rivers, in which, together with the extraordinary expense in connection with the Overton-Keithley Road, seriously disarranged the public works program for 1916. However, the situation was met to the extent of necessary repairs to roads and trails, the reconstruction of the Ayala Bridge, and all other work necessary to reopen to traffic the navigable rivers and roads, except the large river crossings at Iligan, Mangima, and Kulaman, where there have been improvised fords and temporary bridges, which, however inadequate, have been the most that could be done within our limited financial means.

In case of several smaller rivers subject to great floods carrying tree trunks, which are so destructive to ordinary bridges, an entirely satisfactory solution appears to have been reached by the bureau of public works by placing substantial concrete roadways across the beds of the rivers, with small culvert tube openings permitting the ordinary flow of the river to pass entirely under the roadbed. This avoids the construction of bridges, always expensive, and assures a safe ford for animals and vehicles at all times except during extremely high water, which rarely lasts more than a few hours, following extraordinary downpour or so-called cloudbursts in mountains drained by these rivers.

There were constructed during the year 567 kilometers of telephone lines, extensions of lines of communications from secondary radio stations or extensions of telephone lines constructed in previous years. The following statement sets forth, by Provinces, approxi