College Assurance Plan honors Dr. David Hibbard

Last August 23 was the 101st anniversary of the arrival of 600 trained American teachers aboard the US transport Thomas. These were teachers who have historically became known as "the Thomasites" and who established the public schools that were the forerunners of what is now the Department of Education.

Historically-speaking, they were not the very first American teachers who were sent to this country. A month earlier, 48 teachers had arrived on another boat named Sheridan. By 1902, the number of American teachers had grown to 1,074 and even those who did not arrive on the transport Thomas also came to be referred to as Thomasites. In short, Thomasites became synonymous with American teachers in the Philippines.

By sheer coincidence, last Saturday, the College Assurance Plan honored a great American educator who arrived in the Philippines in May 19, 1899, or two years and three months ahead of the Thomasites. That man was Dr. David Sutherland Hibbard, who founded what is now University of Silliman in Dumaguete on Aug. 28, 1901. It was originally an industrial school for boys with an enrollment of 15 students. It was called Silliman because the $10,000-fund that got the school established came from Dr. Horrace Brinsmade Silliman, a philanthropist from Cohoes, New York. By 1912, it became a co-educational institute for higher learning and by 1938, Silliman Institute attained a university status.

For seven years now, College Assurance Plan has been honoring Dr. David S. Hibbard with an annual symposium on education. This year’s theme was "The first freedom is freedom from ignorance" and it was discussed by a distinguished group of panelist composed of Dr. Henry A. Sojor, president of the Central Visayas, Polytechnic College, Dr. Everett L. Mendoza, vice-president for Academic Affairs of Silliman University and Mrs. Jane M. Faburada, Division Schools Superintendent, Negros Oriental. The main emphasis was not on the rights enjoyed, but the responsibilities that go with freedom. Even freedom has its limitations. To be free from everything is to be nothing. Only nothing is really free.

When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke on the four freedoms, the first two he mentioned were freedom of speech and freedom of worship. The former is political freedom, the latter is religious freedom. Political freedom developed largely from the religious notion of freedom of the will, which starts with a perception of right and wrong. In the religious notion, the only freedom is to do good. But even this can be misinterpreted. The classical example is the Spanish Inquisition that tried to suppress heresy through torture and execution.

The other two freedoms that President Roosevelt enumerated were the freedoms from fear and want. All freedoms must start with freedom from ignorance. Horrace M. Kallen was right when he said that education is the first resort to freedom. One of Roosevelt’s successors, President Lyndon Johnson, even broadened the benefits of education as not only the answer to all of the United States’ national problems, but the answer to all the world’s problems. We cannot agree more.

We ask the present administration to give education its due importance. And the first reflection of this should be in the budget.