Skip to content

May 2, 1936

Visit to the Museum of the Bureau of Science: good collection of birds and fishes. It is amazing how few species of wild mammals there are in the Philippines. The ethnological and insect collections are defective. Then to the Botanical Gardens–a sad “petering out” of this little zoo since my time. They have one small elephant, two bears (one mangy), a few wild boars and some wretched monkeys, and one deer. Most of the cages are vacant. Then to the Philippine Library to see E. B. Rodriguez. He wishes to restrain their library to its present scope of historical works and their museum to history and art. Very canny fellows: Teodoro Kalaw and Rodriguez! They know exactly what they want and just what they cannot get out of the legislature. Rodriguez believes the other bureaus of the Government should keep their own small museum collections as at present for their studies; also that the Bureau of Science should keep its own library.