00:00Who were the Thomasites?
00:02In August 1901, more than 500 American teachers sailed to the Philippines aboard the USS Thomas.
00:10Their mission was to teach English and help America rapidly expand public education.
00:16They signed on for two years at $125 a month.
00:21But the reality was brutal.
00:23Many were sent to remote provinces with scarce books and supplies.
00:27They battled malaria, brutal isolation, and the chaos of a country still recovering from war.
00:34Some became ill, some left, and some never made it home.
00:39More teachers had to be sent.
00:42By 1902, more than 1,000 American teachers had served in the Philippines.
00:47About 100 never left.
00:50They stayed for good, married Filipinos, and built new lives as farmers, businessmen, and members of their communities.
00:57And some never made it home at all.
01:00They died from disease and violence in those early years.
01:03And some were later honored at the American Teachers' Memorial in Manila North Cemetery, erected in 1917.
01:11But here's what often gets forgotten.
01:13They did not invent public schools here.
01:16Spain had already established public primary education in 1863.
01:21What the Thomasites did was expand that system on a massive scale and make English the language of the classroom.
01:28fry-pullying-pullying-m
