Name: Cherry Mae M.

Banda
Class Section/Schedule: ELGEN D (MTH)
Name of Instructor: Sir Joshua Castillo
Subject: Life and Works of Rizal

Guide Question Education

1. What were the school Jose Rizal can choose amongst to further his
education?
The school that Jose Rizal choose is Dominican College of San Juan de
Letran, Ateneo Municipal.
2. Why did he have to use Rizal as his surname instead of Mercado?
Jose Rizal to F. Blumentritt (undated) after the sad catastrophe [to 1872]
[Paciano] had to leave the university because he was a liberal and because he
was dislike by the friars for having lived in the same house as Burgos. I had to
go to school in Manila at the time and he advised me to use our second
surname, Rizal, to avoid difficulties in my studies. My family never paid much
attention [to our second surname] but now I had to use it, thus giving me the
appearance of an illegitimate child.
3. What were include in the curriculum of the Jesuits? How did Rizal
fare?
The Jesuit curriculum for the six years course leading to the degree of
Batchelor of arts was considerably tougher than the present equivalent for high
school and college. Beside Christian doctrine, it included Spanish, Latin, Greek
and French, world geography and history, the history of Spain and the
Philippines, mathematics and the science (arithmetic, algebra, geometry,
trigonometry, mineralogy, chemistry, physics, botany and zoology), and the
classic disciplines of poetry, rhetoric and philosophy.in all of these subjects
Jose was consistently to be graded “excellent”.
4. How did the Jesuits influence Rizal?
The influence of the Jesuits on Rizal cannot be underestimated. As he
himself pointed out, “I had entered school still a boy, with little knowledge of
Spanish with an intelligence only partly developed, and almost without any
refinement in my feelings”. He had been subjected thereafter to one of the
world’s most thorough and gripping systems of indoctrination, the Jesuit ratio
studio rum, under tight and constant discipline, with every incentive of
competition and reward. Few students of the Jesuits ever outgrow their
affection, trust and instinctive deference to these superb teachers.
5. What were the traits that manifested in Rizal as his contact with
Spanish student increased?
The young Jose was a pious child even before entering Ateneo. Two other
traits must be remarked in the young Rizal for the importance they would have
in his later life. His sensitiveness and self-assertiveness, which have already
been observed, now took on a strong racial tinge. Probably for the first time in
his life he came into direct contact and competition with boys who were not
natives, indios, like himself. Blumentritt recalled in his short biography of
Rizal. Rizal used to say that as a boy he felt deeply the little regard with which
he was treated by the Spanish simply because he was an indio. From that time
on he strove to find out what moral right the Spanish, or for that matter any
white people, had to despise a man who thought like them, learned the same
things and had the same capabilities, simply because he had a brown skin and
wiry hair.
6. How did Rizal’s racial consciousness developed throughout his
education?
Rizal asked himself: Are these views just? He put his question to himself
while still a schoolboy, when he used to examine closely not only his white
classmates but himself. He soon noticed that, in school at least, there was no
difference in the standard of intellect between whites and indios; there were
lazy and diligent, unruly and well behaved, leas talented and more highly gifted
boys as much among the white as among the colored. These racial
comparisons suddenly spurred him on in his studies; a kind of race jealousy
had taken hold of him. He rejoiced whenever he succeeded in solving some
difficult problem which his white classmates had been unable to tackle. This
he regarded not so much as a personal success as a triumph for his own
people. Thus it was at school that he first gained the conviction that, other
things being equal, whites and indios had the same capacity for mental work
and made the same progress. From which he concluded that whites and indios
had the same mental ability.
7. Describe briefly the “empire” system in Ateneo. How did Rizal fare?
One educational device at the Ateneo was calculated to stimulate to the
outmost his competitive instincts. At that time each class was divided into two
teams or "empires," named in imitation of the classic wars as the "Roman" for
boarders and the "Carthaginian" for day-scholars or out-boarders. Each
"empire" in turn had its ranks and dignities. The best scholar in each team was
the "emperor", and the next best were the "tribune" the "Decurion" the
"centurion" and the "standard bearer". The two "empires" competed with each
other as teams, while the individuals within each team also strove to rise in
rank by means of challenges. One student would challenge another to answer
questions in the day's lesson. His opponent lost his place in the line if he
committed three mistakes; so also might one "empire" defeat the other. Each
had banners: red for the "Romans", blue for the "Carthaginians". At the start of
the term, both banners were raised at an equal height on the right side of the
classroom. Upon the first defeat, the banner of the losing "empire" was moved
to the left. Upon the second, it was returned to the right but placed below the
other flag; upon the third it was dipped and moved back to the left; upon the
fourth, the flag was reversed and returned to the right; upon the fifth, the
reversed flag was moved to the left; upon the sixth- final catastrophe. The
banner was changed with the figure of a donkey. Jose, as a newcomer, started
at the tail-end of the "Carthaginian" team; in a month he was "emperor" and
was given a holy picture for a prize. Then, as we have seen, he went into a sulk
although, since his final grades consistently remained ''excellent", he cannot
have inflicted on his "empire" the humiliation of being represented by a donkey.
His journal does not follow his fortunes in this classroom war but we may
fancy, in the light of his observations to Blumentritt, that he took a special
pleasure in challenging his Spanish classmates. Nor was he content with
proving mere equality. There became apparent in Riz~l, as he himself realized,
a kind of self-pre8umption. He began to be-, live that the Tagalog were mentally
superior to the Spaniards (the only white8 with whom he had so far come into
contact) and Rizal liked to relate how he arrived at this paradoxical conclusion.
He told himself that in school only Spanish was used, that is to say, the whites
were taught in their mother-tongue while the indios had to struggle with a
foreign language in order to obtain instruction; hence, the indios were mentally
superior to the Spaniards if they succeeded not only in keeping pace with the
whites but even in managing occasionally to sure pass them.
8. What was Rizal’s favorite subject throughout his stay in Ateneo?
Discuss briefly.
Literature Jose's favorite subject, and its professor his favorite teacher.
His name was Father Francisco de Paula Sanchez and Rizal described him in
his student journal as "a model of rectitude, solicitude and devotion to his
pupils' progress".
9. What was the apprehension of the family concerning Rizal’s pursuit of
University education?
"My mother said that I knew enough already, and that I should not go
back to Manila," Jose noted in his journal. "Did my mother perhaps have a
foreboding of what was to happen to me? Does a mother's heart really have a
second sight?" I still remember and will never forget that when I was sixteen
my mother told my father: "Don't send him to Manila any longer; he knows
enough; if he gets to know any more, they will cut off his head." My father did
not reply, but my brother took me to Manila despite my mother's tears.
10. What career paths did Rizal ponder upon?
At first he had been attracted to the priesthood he take up farming. His
real choice was between literature and the law and medicine.
11. What did Rizal choose? Why?
In the next term he made up his mind to study medicine because his
mother's sight was failing. He was far below his usual standard; in the pre-
medical and medical courses which he took in the University he was given in
sixteen subjects’ three passing grades, eight "goods", three "very goods" and
only two "excellent".
12. Describe the Dominicans in the University of Sto. Tomas.
Dominicans professors who played favorites and treated their Filipino
pupils with contempt, addressing them "like good friars" in the familiar to and
even in pidgin Spanish.
13. What were the three works that made Rizal’s reputation notorious in
Manila society?
His first infatuation-and clearly it cannot have been more than that-was
with a saucy little Batangue:fia by the name of Segunda Katigbak. He tells this
story best himself. "
"To the Youth of the Philippines",
"Along the Pasig", A group of boys make ready to greet the Virgin of Antipolo
from the banks of the Pasig as she is taken down the river to Manila in great
pomp. One of them. Leonido. On his way to join them, is challenged by a
sinister stranger, Satan himself, dressed as a priest of the ancient native cult.
It can be read as an uncanny prophecy of fifty years of revolution, invasion
after invasion, defeat, subjugation and civil tumult. Or it can be read, with
much greater justification than the ambiguous appeal to the "bella esperanza
de la patria mia", as a left handed rebuke to the "alien people" under whose
rule the Filipinos "groan, disconsolate and afflicted."
14. Who induced Rizal to leave the country for Europe? Describe him.
He in fact won first prize at a contest of the Liceo, "El Consejo de los
Dwses". Perhaps these literary triumphs, combined with his disappointments
in the University, tempted the young Rizal to try his fortune abroad. Paciano
was one of de la Torre's generation of young liberals and progressives. He had
lived in the same house with Burgos. Perhaps he had been one of those who
had marched in the parade to celebrate the Spanish Constitution of 1869,
wearing a red tie and waving a colored lantern, and at the reception in the
Palace had cheered the red ribbons of Maria de Sanchiz, with their slogans:
"Long live the Sovereign People" and "Long live Liberty".
15. Rizal’s first trip to Europe was of two purposes. What were they?
He was getting on in years; what is more decisive, he seems to have
taken over the management of the family lands from Don Francisco. If anyone
was to go abroad it had to be the younger son. It would have to be kept from
their parents. The cautious Paciano also thought that the less people knew
about the trip, the better. There was no visible reason why the authorities
should have prevented Jose from going abroad. ; Jose's passport would be
solicited under the surname "Mercado" because the younger brother's exploits
had made "Rizal" in turn a name to be distrusted. To keep the trip a secret
among the smallest number of people Jose would remain in Kalamba until the
very last moment and all arrangements would be made for him by a handful of
friends and relatives in Manila. An air of mystery surrounded, and continues to
surround, Jose's voyage and its purpose. Extant letters from Paciano and
Rizal's friends only add to the perplexity. In Barcelona, not in Madrid; to my
way of thinking, the main purpose of your going is not to improve yourself in
that profession but in other more useful things or, what comes to the same
thing, that to which you have the greater inclination. That is why I believe you
should follow it in Madrid, the center of all the provinces, for, while it is true
that in Barcelona there is more activity, more business and more careful
attention to education, you have not gone there to take part in that activity and
even less to do business and, as far as a good education is concerned, if it
should not be available in Madrid, the application of the student can supply it.
It should be more convenient for you to be there together with our countrymen
who can show you around until you can get the hang of things.