Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Prospectus).pdf/13

 and valuable compilation of this sort that has yet been made in any country. It will include the best features in the works of foreign bibliographers, and others peculiar to this work; copious annotations under many titles; and information regarding prices, location, etc., of rare books. Several prominent Spanish archivists are giving valuable aid in this department of the work.

An Analytical Index in two volumes will complete the series. This will be one of the most valuable features of the work, as it will render readily accessible all the vast amount of information contained in the various letters, reports, relations, histories, etc., and in annotations thereon. It will form the “open sesame” to the work, as it will give, in the clearest manner known to modern indexing, a summary of every subject treated therein.

Coming before the public at this time, when one of the most important questions before the American people is that of our retention of the Philippines and our relations with their inhabitants, this work is of vital interest to all classes. For the proper solution of that question a correct knowledge regarding the character, customs, mode of life, religious beliefs, and history of the Filipinos is absolutely necessary; but there are few subjects which are discussed at once so widely and so ignorantly. Both the people of the United States and the legislators whom they choose to carry out their wishes must study this matter carefully, in order to secure wise and just legislation; and the information requisite for such study can be found only in this work, wherein have been collected for the first time the documents which alone truly represent Philippine history. In them will also be found matter of priceless value to scholars and students in many special lines of research—in geography, history, ethnology, linguistics, folklore, comparative religion, ecclesiastical history, colonial administration,