Visions Of Empire Through The Public Education System: The Central Luzon Agricultural School as A Site Of Colonial Knowledge Production, 1901–1938
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58355/dirosat.v4i3.257Keywords:
American colonial education; agricultural education; Central Luzon Agricultural School; colonial knowledge productionAbstract
This article critically examines the origins and early development of the Central Luzon Agricultural School (CLAS), now Central Luzon State University (CLSU), as a site of colonial knowledge production between 1901 and 1938 during the American period in the Philippines. It argues that CLAS was not just an American-established provincial school, but also a product of a deliberate colonial strategy that combined public instruction, land settlement, agricultural modernization, and a cosmopolitan tradition of industrial education. Its pedagogical lineage extended from the Hilo Boarding School in Hawaii through Hampton and Tuskegee institutes in the United States, while its administrative form reflected the centralized bureaucracy created by Act No. 74. Evaluating statutes, executive orders, official reports, periodicals, and institutional histories together, the article reconstructs the establishment of CLAS and explains how its campus produced knowledge about land, labor, citizenship, and rural life. It concludes that CLAS’s significance lies in educational innovations and state consolidation.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Marvin Soriano, Augusto V. de Viana
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