Mga Kababayang Dalaga ng Malolos

[2][4][5][6] Charles R. Boxer surveyed literature and correspondence from the colonial era and referred to them as generally misogynistic, further describing the state imposed on the women as "the cult of Mary and the practice of misogyny.

[12][13][14] The German travel writer Fedor Jagor, writing in 1875, found the education in the seminaries lacking, noting that "in spite of the long possessions of the islands by the Spaniards, their language has scarcely acquired any footing there.

The native should learn how to read the prayer-books and hagiographies translated into the country's dialects, but he must not know Spanish because then he would understand the laws and the decrees issued by higher authorities and cease to heed the advice of his parish priest, the friar.

"[2] In the Beatrio de Pasig, founded in 1740 for the education of Filipino women, the curriculum was described as "reading, writing, Christian doctrine, sewing, embroidery, and other employments fitting for their sex.

"[10] During a commission to draft a new set of regulations for schools in the Philippines, the vice-rector of the University of Santo Tomas, Father Francisco Gainza, voted against the teaching of Spanish "on the grounds that a unified language might open the door to Protestantism in the islands,"[18] but was overruled.

The decree was meant to introduce a free and compulsory educational system in the Philippines for all children between the ages of three seven and thirteen, and re-iterated the necessity of disseminating knowledge of the Spanish language to the masses.

In a letter to Queen Isabella II, the colonial minister José de la Concha relayed the state of education in the territory thus far:[12]The governments and their delegated authorities, with the powerful aid of the missionaries, and of the clergy in general, both secular and regular, have tried to accommodate their policy in regards to the Philippine Archipelago ...

[12] In their 1900 report to President William McKinley, commissioned after the Philippine territory was transferred from Spain to the United States in the Treaty of Paris of 1898, the Philippine Commission observed that the "wretchedly inadequate provision was, as a matter of fact, never carried out," adding:It will be noted that education in Christian doctrine is placed before reading and writing, and, if the natives are to be believed, in many of the more remote districts instructions began and ended with this subject and was imparted in the local native dialect at that.

It is further and persistently charged that the instruction in Spanish was in very many cases purely imaginary, because the local friars, who were formerly ex officio school inspectors, not only prohibited it, but took active measures to enforce their dictum.

Filipino historian Ambeth Ocampo puts forth that Father Garcia was attempting to maintain the Christian feminine ideal that the women's rightful place was in the home, for which they did not need a Spanish education.

[33]We the undersigned young women and others before Your Excellency introduce and present with all due respect: we desire to know the rich Spanish language, encouraged and grateful for your generous intention to spread the language of Castile in the country; and as we are unable to learn it from the schools of Manila, some of us because of our scant fortune, others because of the pressing needs in their homes, nor can it be done in the daytime because we are busy with peremptory domestic chores: For this purpose, we humbly beseech Your Excellency to permit us to open a night school in the home of a relative of ours, where we will go accompanied by our mothers to receive lessons in Spanish grammar from a teacher of Latin, salaried by us, who has in a short period given evidence of his aptitude for teaching the Castile language through the progress shown by his students, while the teachers of the town, whose professional good name we do not want to offend, have not achieved positive results.

This mercy we do not doubt we shall obtain from the well-known kindness of Your Excellency, whose important life God may preserve for many years.The actions of the women of Malolos were praised by the political reformists of the Propaganda Movement.

[35] After the first issue of La Solidaridad was published, the writer Marcelo H. del Pilar, who himself was from the province of Bulacan, sent a letter to José Rizal, suggesting that he read the article of López Jaena.