No work accomplished since the American occupation is of more fundamental and far-reaching importance than that of the Bureau of Education. In order to appreciate it one must gain some familiarity with the conditions which prevailed in Spanish times. The first evidence of the Spanish governmental attitude toward education in the Philippines is found in a royal edict of March 21, 1634,1 in which Felipe IV orders all archbishops and bishops to take steps for the education of the Filipinos in the Spanish language and in Christian doctrine.