IF YOU WERE GIVEN A

CHANCE, WHERE DO YOU

WANT TO STUDY AND WHAT
COURSE?
BATA BATA PAANO KA GINAWA?
RIZAL AND HIS PURSUIT FOR
EDUCATION
TODAY'S DISCUSSION
KEY TOPICS

• To examine the various periods of

Rizal's educational philosophy;
• To discuss the conditions that
initially transformed Rizal’s
consciousness;
• To have a glimpse of Rizal’s life
abroad.
ANG TSINELAS NI RIZAL
"Naalala ko pa noon kasalukuyang kaming nakasakay sa bangka nang humulagpos
ang isa kong tsinelas. Ang tsinelas ay ang gamit namin sa pagpasok at pagpunta sa
mga lakaran kung saan ang bakya na gawa sa kahoy ay hindi nararapat. Mabilis itong
inanod sa tubig bago ko nahabol para kunin. Malungkot ako dahil iniisip ko ang
aking ina na magagalit dahil sa pagkawala ng aking tsinelas. Tiningnan ako ng
nagsasagwan nang kinuha ko ang aking isa pang tsinelas at dali dali kong itinapon
sa dagat, kasama ang dasal na mahabol nito ang kapares na tsinelas.

"Bakit mo itinapon ang iyong isa pang tsinelas?" tanong sa akin ng kasamahan ko sa
bangka.
FIRST STAGE: REFLECTION ON
HIS CHILDHOOD
IN CALAMBA (1861-1898)

"The education that received since

my earliest infancy is perhaps what
shaped my habits, like a jar that
retains the odor of the body that it
first held."

P. JACINTO (MEMORIAS DE UN ESTUDIANTE DE MANILA)

FIRST STAGE: REFLECTION ON
HIS CHILDHOOD
IN CALAMBA

I had a nurse (aya) who loved me very much and who, in

order to make me take supper (which I had on the terrace
in moonlit nights), frightened me with the sudden
apparition of some formidable asuang, of a frightful nuno,
or parce-nobis, as she used to call an imaginary being
similar to the Bu of the Europeans.
FIRST STAGE: REFLECTION ON
HIS CHILDHOOD
IN CALAMBA

I spent many, many hours of my childhood down on the

shore of the lake, Laguna de Bay. I was thinking of what
was beyond. I was dreaming of what might be over on the
other side of the waves. Almost every day, in our town, we
saw the Guardia Civil lieutenant caning and injuring some
unarmed and inoffensive villagers. The villager’s only fault
was that while at a distance he had not taken off his hat
and made his bow. The alcalde treated the poor villagers
in the same way whenever he visited us.
FIRST STAGE: REFLECTION ON
HIS CHILDHOOD
IN CALAMBA

We saw no restraint put upon brutality. Acts of violence

and other excesses were committed daily… I asked myself
if, in the lands which lay across the lake, the people lived in
this same way. I wondered if there they tortured any
countryman with hard and cruel whips merely on
suspicion. Did they there respect the home? Or ever
yonder also, in order to live in peace, would one have to
bribe tyrants?
SECOND STAGE: PRIMARY
EDUCATION
IN BIÑAN (1869-1870)

One Sunday, my brother took me to that town after I had

bade my family, that is, my parents and brothers goodbye,
with tears in my eyes. I was nine years old and already I
tried to hide my tears.

Oh education, oh, shame, that obliges us to hide our

sentiments and to appear different! How much beauty,
how many tender and pathetic scenes the world would
witness without you!
SECOND STAGE: PRIMARY EDUCATION
IN BIÑAN

Here was my life. I heard the four o'clock Mass, if there was any, or studied my lesson at that
hour and I went to mass afterwards. I returned home and I went to the orchard to look for a
mabolo to eat. Then, I took breakfast, which consisted generally of a dish of rice and two
dried small fish, and I went to class from which I came out at ten o'clock... I went to school at
two and came out of five. I prayed a short while with some nice cousins and I returned
home, studied my lesson. I drew a little, and afterwards I took my supper consisting of one
or two dishes of rice and with an ayungin. We prayed and if there was a moon, my nieces
invited me to play in the street together with others.
SECOND STAGE: PRIMARY
EDUCATION
IN BIÑAN

"Inspite of the reputation I had being a good boy, the

day was unusual when I was not laid out on a bench
and given five to six blows.”
SECOND STAGE: PRIMARY
EDUCATION
IN BIÑAN

I bade my friends my friends and my teachers farewell

with a pleasant and profound sadness, for even my
sufferings, when they have been frequent and
continuous, become so dear to my heart, so to speak
that one feels pain upon leaving them, I left Biñan then
on December 17, 1870. I was nine years old at one o'clock
on the afternoon of Saturday.
THIRD STAGE: STUDIES IN
MANILA
IN ATENEO (1872-1875)

“In spite of my 13 years to 14, I was still very small, and as

it is known that new students, especially the small ones,
are received by the big ones with jokes, so it was on my
first day, my pranks having attracted their attention. In a
chorus they teased me, I told them in tranquil voice:
“Gentleman thanks”. Since then they respected me and
they didn't tease me maliciously.
THIRD STAGE: STUDIES IN
MANILA
IN ATENEO

“Our Professor was a model of uprightness, earnest and

love of the advancement of his pupils. And so much so
was his zeal that I, who scarcely spoke very ordinary
Spanish, at the end of the short time, succeeded
already to write it moderately well. ”
THIRD STAGE: STUDIES IN MANILA
IN ATENEO

I must not speak of my sufferings, or of my troubles and pleasures. I shall record only
what happened in school during that year. By the end of the first week, I was going
up in the class. And I began to spend this siesta time studying at the Sta. Isabel
College. For this, I paid three pesos a month. I went there with Pastor Milena, a boy
with my own age. A month later I was emperor. How pleased I was when I won my
first prize – a religious picture. In the first quarter I gained another prize with a grade
excellent. After that, I did not care to apply myself. I have fully become dissatisfied
because of something my teacher said. Unfortunately, this continued at the end of
the year and I gained only second place in all my subjects. This gave me the grade of
excellent without any price.
THIRD STAGE: STUDIES IN
MANILA
IN ATENEO

“But my happiness was not yet complete for my mother

is not yet with us. I went to visit her alone without telling
my father. With delight I embrace her! But afterwards
we embraced each other weeping….

Even now I remember with as sad please the mute

scene that occurred between us. Ah! How cruel men are
towards their fellow men!”
THIRD STAGE: STUDIES IN MANILA
IN ATENEO

I studied the 5th year course with the same success as the previous one, though under other
circumstances. Upright, severe philosophy, inquiring into the why of things attracted also as
did poetry, beautiful as she alone can be, playing with the charms of nature and leaving
traces that breathe sublimity and tenderness. Physics, lifting up the veil that covers many
things, showed me a wide stage where the divine drama of nature was performed. The
movement, sound, warmth, light, electricity, a thousand varied phenomena, the most
beautiful colors and delicate beauties entertained me during my free hours... Ah how
beautiful is science when the one teaching it knows how to embellish it! Natural history
seemed to me somewhat antipathetic. Why, I asked myself, if the perusal of history and the
description of the birds and flowers, of animals and crystals captivate me so much, why do I
loather seeing them reduced to a harsh order and wild animals mixed with tame ones?
GRADUATED IN BACHELOR OF ARTS
SOBRESALIENTE
IN ALL OF HIS SUBJECTS
TEODORA ALONZO'S
OBJECTION
"Don’t send him to Manila again; he knows
enough. If he gets to know more the
Spaniards will cut off his head."
THIRD STAGE: STUDIES IN
MANILA
IN UNIBERSIDAD DE SANTO TOMAS (1877-1882)

"I enrolled in Metaphysics, because, besides my

doubt about the career that I would follow, my
father wanted me to study it, but so little my
inclination for it that I didn’t even buy the
textbook used by other students. I found myself
in Manila stupefied."
THIRD STAGE: STUDIES IN
MANILA
IN UNIBERSIDAD DE SANTO TOMAS

“I went to the Captain-General but I could not

obtain any Justice; my wound lasted two weeks.

- Rizal’s letter to Blumentritt

(March 21, 1887)
THIRD STAGE: STUDIES IN
MANILA
IN UNIBERSIDAD DE SANTO TOMAS

Students must learn Science not only by

memorizing abstract definitions, but principally
by observing and analyzing actual phenomenon.
EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

ATENEO ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS

Enrolled in Topography and Painting
Surveying Course

JESUIT RATIO STUDORIUM WRITINGS

Literary and Scientific sessions • A la juventud filipina (To the Filipino
People)
• El Consejo de los Dioses (The Council
of Gods)
FOURTH STAGE: THE EUROPEAN
SOJOURN (1882-1885)
DEPARTURE

But as God has not made anything useless in this world,

as all beings fulfill obligations or a role in the sublime
drama of creation, I cannot exempt myself from this
duty, and small though it be, I have a mission to fill as for
example: alleviating the sufferings of my fellow-men. I
realize that all this means sacrifices, and terrible ones. I
imagine the pain which I must give you, but I feel
something that obliges and impels me to leave. I shall
strive with fate, and I shall win or lose.... God's will be
done.
FOURTH STAGE: THE EUROPEAN
SOJOURN (1882-1885)
DEPARTURE

“To me , the principal purpose of your departure

is not to finish this course but to study other
things to greater usefulness or that to which you
are more inclined.”

-Paciano (Manila, May 20, 1892)

 You say we are water, you fire
Let it be so.
Let us live in peace
And we shall never have to fight in a conflagration
Rather, united by wise science,
without quarreling, without rage,
From the burning heart of the boilers
Let us produce steam, the fifth element:
Progress, Life, Light, Movement

- Isagani (El Filibusterismo)

FOURTH STAGE: THE EUROPEAN SOJOURN
AMOR PATRIO (LOVE OF COUNTRY)

Child, we love play; adolescent, we forget it; youth, we seek our ideal; disillusioned, we wee
and go in quest of something more positive and more useful; parent, the children die and
time gradually erases our pain just as the air of the sea slowly effaces the shores as the boat
departs from them. But, love of country can never be effaced, once books on all subjects
under the sun, including military engineering, in order to broaden his cultural background

Laong Laan, August 20, 1982

FOURTH STAGE: THE EUROPEAN SOJOURN
AMOR PATRIO (LOVE OF COUNTRY)

The love of country can never be expunged once it has entered the heart because it bears a
divine mark that makes it eternal and imperishable. Some have sacrificed their youth ;
others have given the splendor of their genius; all have died leaving their country an
immense fortune: liberty and glory. And what does she do for them? She weeps for them
and proudly shows them to the world, to posterity and to her sons to serve them as
exemplars.

Laong Laan, August 20, 1982

FOURTH STAGE: THE EUROPEAN SOJOURN
AMOR PATRIO (LOVE OF COUNTRY)

You who have lost your hearts' ideals ... you who wish to love but find no one worthy, look to
your country, love her! Love her, yes, but no longer as she was loved in other times, with the
practice of ferocious virtues, denied and condemned by true morality and the natural law,
not by the display of fanaticism, destruction and cruelty, no; a brighter dawn is on the
horizon, softer and more peaceful, the messenger of life and peace, the true dawn, in brief,
of Christianity, the harbinger of happy and tranquil days. It will be our duty to follow the arid
but peaceful and productive paths of Science which lead to Progress, and hence to the
union desired and called for by Jesus Christ in His night of sorrow.

Laong Laan, August 20, 1982

STUDIES AND ACTIVITIES IN EUROPE
UNIBERSIDAD CENTRAL DE MADRID PARIS
June 21, 1884: Licentiate in Medicine Dr. Louis de Wecker
June 19: 1885: Licentiate in Philosophy and Letter Costliest Place in Europe
Joined Students Demonstrations

HEIDELBERG BERLIN
Dr. Otto Becker Part of the Scientific Circle:
• Anthropological Society
• Ethnological Society
• Geographical Society
Noli Me Tangere
FOURTH STAGE: THE EUROPEAN SOJOURN
CONTROVERSIAL TOAST

In history of nations there are names that by themselves signify an achievement, that recall
passion and greatness, names that, like magic formula, evoke pleasant and smiling
thoughts, names that became a pact, a symbol of peace, a bond of love between nations.
The name Luna and Hidalgo belongs to these; their glories illuminate the two extremes of
the globe - the East and the West, Spain and the Philippines... Luna and Hidalgo are
Spanish as well as Philippine glories. They were born in the Philippines, but they could have
been born in Spain, because genius knows no country, genius sprouts everywhere, genius is
like light, air, the patrimony of everybody, cosmopolitan like space, like life, like God.

- Rizal’s Speech to the Filipino Community

June 25, 1884
FOURTH STAGE: THE EUROPEAN SOJOURN
CONTROVERSIAL TOAST

The patriarchal era in the Philippines is waning. The deeds of her illustrious sons are no
longer wasted away at home. The oriental chrysalis is leaving the cocoon. The morrow of a
long day for those regions is announced in brilliant tints and rose-colored dawns, and that
race, fallen into lethargy during the historic night while the sun illumines other continents,,
again awakens, moved by the electric impact that contact with Western peoples produces,
and she demands light, life, the civilization that at one time they bequeath her, this
confirming the eternal laws of constant evolution, of change, of periodicy, of progress.

- Rizal’s Speech to the Filipino Community

June 25, 1884
FOURTH STAGE: THE
EUROPEAN SOJOURN
GRAND TOUR IN EUROPE WITH MAXIMO VIOLA

My poor compatriots (Igorots), who are now being

exhibited in Madrid are mocked by Spanish newspaper,
except El Liberal which says that it is not consistent with
human dignity to be exhibited side by side with animals
and plants. I have done everything possible to prevent
the display of this degradation of men of my race, but I
have not succeeded. One woman died of pneumonia.

- Rizal to Blumentritt (June 6, 1887)

FIFTH STAGE: DESIRE TO
TEACH
IN BERLIN APRIL 1887

It is not sad that we have to learn so much about our

country from foreigners? Thanks to German scholars,
we learn accurate information about our country, and
when everything is destroyed in our country and we
want to learn something about our history, we shall
have to come to Germany to make our researches in
German books! It is sad that it has come to such
conclusion, but it is the fact.
FIFTH STAGE: DESIRE TO
TEACH
IN BRUSSELS MARCH 31, 1890

"Yes, I think the time is drawing near when I can return to the
Philippines. When I am there, you will also come with your
entire family and you will live in my house. I have a large library.
I shall have a little house built on top of a hill I shall devote
myself to the sciences. I shall read and write history. I shall
organize a school, and if you can stand the climate, you shall be
the director. I am certain that all the young people - the flower
and cream of youth - will flock to us"

Rizal to Blumentritt
FIFTH STAGE: DESIRE TO
TEACH
IN CALAMBA OCTOBER 19, 1887

"I am giving a rest to my sick people and to the students

in my gymnastics class, to take up the pen and write a
chatting letter to you. I want to tell you that I have
aroused interest here in physical exercises, so that
instead of going to a cockpit or playing panguingue,
those interested in games will come to my gymnastics
exercises. By this means, some sickness are also cured"

Rizal to Blumentritt
FIFTH STAGE: THE EDUCATOR
IN HONG KONG: THE CURRICULUM

FIRST CATEGORY SECOND CATEGORY THIRD CATEGORY

Ethical or Social Studies Sciences World History

FOURTH CATEGORY FIFTH CATEGORY

Languages Extra-Curricular Activities
ESSENTIAL ATTITUDE OF A TEACHER
FAIRNESS, JUSTICE AND
RESPECT
 Teach, educate and enlighten the native Filipino. Or
rather, let us teach ourselves, educate ourselves, enlighten
ourselves, and indifference, apathy and indolence will
disappear. Let us work that the generation that follow us -
the generation that will be our glory or our shame - will
get the benefits that we ourselves would wish had been
given us. The way is ours. Ours is our present. And though
we may never to the end, at least, doing our duty, we will
ensure that the future is also ours. A future full of blessings

LA INSTRUCCIÓN