RIZAL’s Life, works & writings

Lesson 4: EDUCATION OF JOSE RIZAL

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:

At the end of the topic session the students are expected to;

1. Appreciate the value of learning- education

2. Evaluate the mindset of the students, parents and
educational system today
3. Create in mind the attitude and interest to keep on
learning

TOPIC PRESENTATION

Dr. Jose Rizal once said, on this battlefield man has no better weapon than his
intelligence… without education and liberty, which are the soil and the sun of man, no reform is
possible. Hence, he epitomizes the Filipino’s love for knowledge. He did his early childhood
education from his mother, Doña Teodora. He had his elementary in Biñan with Maestro
Justiniano Aquino Cruz while his High School in Ateneo Municipal, his Philosophy & Letters and
Medical degree in Universidad de Santo Tomas. He went abroad to study in Universidad
Central de Madrid and other universities in Europe.
Alongside with his formal education, he had also in informal training like surveying,
painting, sculpture, martial arts, and other physical trainings like, horseback riding and fencing.
To learn more, he worked as assistant to the well-known eye specialists in Germany.
The challenged of Dr. Jose Rizal in his poem, A la Juventud Filipina (To the Filipino
youth) still make a sense for the Generation Z.
The sign of time is calling for a critical mind of the young generation to ascertain
between the truth and fake news. This is possible if one has enough knowledge or education.

A. RIZAL EARLY EDUCATION IN LAGUNA

i. HERO’S FIRST TEACHER

The typical schooling of an ilustrado son, like Jose was characterized by 4Rs -
Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic, and Religion. Corporal punishment was adopted to force
the pupils to learn by memorizing.

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His mother, Doña Teodora was the first teacher of Jose at the age of 3 where he
learned to read the Alphabet and to say some prayers. At this age, his mother noticed
that Jose had a talent for poetry. His mother encouraged him to write poems. To lighten
the monotony of memorizing the ABCs and to stimulate her son’s imagination, she told
him stories, like “the story of the moth.”
Jose had also a private tutor for Spanish and Latin. The first was Maestro
Celestino then, Maestro Lucas Padua and later, an old man named Leon Monroy, a
classmate of Rizal's father.

ii. JOSE GOES TO BINAN

For his formal elementary education, Jose went to the private school of Maestro
Justiniano Aquino-Cruz. He stayed in the house of his uncle, Tio Jose Alberto and being
away from the family, he experienced his first homesickness.
In one of his classes, his maestro asked him about language and his teacher
was angry because of his answers; In Spañol?... un poco…in Latin?... un poco (a little, a
bit…). His teacher beat his hands with a stick.
Jose met the bully, Pedro (Maestro Justiniano’s son). He was angry for making
fun of him during his conversation with the teacher. Jose challenged Pedro to a fight. He
was aggressive because knew wrestling from his athletic Tio Manuel and he defeated
the bigger boy. Then, another classmate named Andres Salandanan challenged him to
an arm-wrestling. Jose having the weaker arm, lost and nearly cracked his head on the
sidewalk. Jose was not quarrelsome by nature, but he never ran away from a fight.

iii. PAINTING LESSONS IN BINAN

While Jose was enrolled in Maestro Justiniano, he has also a painting & drawing
class with Juancho, father-in-law of the school’s teacher. Jose spent many leisure hours
at the painter’s studio with Jose Guevarra who loved painting too.

iv. BEST STUDENT IN SCHOOL

Jose beat all the Binan boys in academic studies. His older classmates were jealous
of his intellectual superiority. They wickedly squealed to the teacher whenever Jose had
a fight outside the school and told lies to discredit him before the teacher’s eyes.
Consequently, Jose got punish with five or six blows.

v. END OF BINAN SCHOOLING

Jose received a letter from his sister, Saturnina who was studying in Manila and
onboard of the steamer Talim which going to Calamba via Biñan. This was Jose’s first
time to ride in a steamer. The letter was timely because the classes had just ended.
Jose had no intention to return.

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Lesson 5. EDUCATION IN ATENEO MUNICIPAL

The Jesuits were considered the best educators of Spain, and perhaps of Europe, and
so, when they were permitted to return to the Philippines, although their power to administer
parishes was restricted except in the remote regions of Mindanao, the privilege of founding
colleges. Then, they had to apply to the City of Manila for subsidies. That is why, the college
which began to function in the year 1865, Escuela Pia was now called Ateneo Municipal de
Manila. In 1901 when the exclusive ownership was given to the Jesuits and the name was
shortened to Ateneo de Manila.

To enter Ateneo, a candidate was subjected to an entrance examination on Christian

doctrine, reading, writing, grammar, and elementary arithmetic. Jose did not take his entrance
examinations and returned first to his town to celebrate the fiesta of its patron saint; it was then
that his father changed his mind and decided to send him to the Ateneo instead of going to San
Juan de Letran.

He entered Ateneo Municipal. As usual, Rizal was discriminated by his classmates and
professors, mainly because he had only a little knowledge about Spain, and the fact that he was
form Calamba, Laguna – a probinsyano. He was also a late enrollee.

Since Mercado, the first surname of the family, had come under suspicion of the
authorities because it was the name used by Paciano when he was studying and working with
Father Burgos, in whose house he lived, Jose adopted the second surname, Rizal.

Paciano who accompanied Jose, found him a house in Walled City, but Intramuros
looked gloomy to Jose, and he later found lodging outside, in the house of a spinster situated on
Calle Carballo, district of Santa Cruz.

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The Jesuits system of instruction was considered more advanced than that of other
colleges. Its discipline was rigid and its methods less mechanical. It introduced physical culture
as part of its program as well as the cultivation of the arts, such as music, drawing, and painting.
It also establishes vocational courses in agriculture, commerce, and mechanics.
As a religious institute, its principal purpose was to mold the character and the will of the
boys to comply more easily with the percepts of the Church. The students heard mass before
the beginning of the class, which was opened and closed with prayers.

At Ateneo, the class was divided into groups of interns and externs: the first constituted
the Roman Empire and the second, the Carthaginian Empire. In each empire there were five
dignitaries: Emperor, Tribune, Decurion, Centurion, and Standard-Bearer. These dignities were
won by means of individual competitions in which it was necessary to catch one’s adversary in
error three times. The empires considered themselves in perpetual warfare, and when an
individual of one empire was caught in error by one belonging to the enemy empire, a point was
counted in favor of the latter.

The first professor Jose had was Fr. Jose Bech, whom he describes as a man of high
stature; lean body, bent forward; quick gait; ascetic physiognomy, severe and inspired; small,
sunken eyes; sharp Grecian nose; thin lips forming an arch with its sides directed toward the
chin." He was somewhat of a lunatic and of an uneven humor; sometimes he was hard and little
tolerant and at other times he was gay and playful as a child.

From the first days Jose learned to systematize his work; he fixed a program of what he
had to do in the twenty-four hours of the day and did not in the least deviate from it. Thus, he
disciplined his will and subjected it to the commands of his reason.

  As a newcomer, Jose was at assigned to seat at the back being at the tail of the class.
He strived and soon promoted and kept on being promoted so that at the end of one month he
had attained to the rank of Emperor. At the end of the term, he got a remark of excellent in all
the subjects and in the examinations. He had reason to feel proud of his achievements. On
vacation, he visited his mother in Sta Cruz jail and shared his best accomplishments in Ateneo.

  The second year, Jose had the same professor as in the previous year; but instead of
lodging outside the city, he resided at No. 6 Calle Magallanes. At the end of the term he
obtained a medal, and upon returning to his town, he again visited his mother and shared his joy
as student in Ateneo.

Upon the release of his mother, Jose was happy and made great influence on the result
of his studies in the third year. Jose began to win prizes in the quarterly examinations.

  Moreover, he devoted himself reading novels, like that of “The Count of Monte Cristo” and
Universal History by Cesar Cantanu.

  In the fourth year of his course, he had Fr. Francisco Sanchez as professor. Jose
describes him as a model of rectitude, a solicitude, and love for the student, and his studied
mathematics, rhetoric, and Greek, and he must have progressed much, for at the end of the
year he obtained five medals, which pleased him immensely. His aptitude for poetry revealed
itself early, and from that time on he did not cease to cultivate it.

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In the fifth years, Jose had other professors: Frs. Vilaclara and Mineves. He studied
philosophy, physics, chemistry, and natural history. His professor in philosophy advised him to
set aside poetry and this made Jose cry.

Jose was considered small of stature, and he tried to correct this defect by applying
himself regularly to gymnastics in the college. He also engaged in other physical exercises,
such as fencing. After his baccalaureate, he surprised his family with his skill in handling the
sword when he gave an exhibition bout with the best swordsman of the town.

He also devoted time to painting and sculpture. In drawing and painting he was under
the guidance and direction of the Ateneo professor, the Peninsula Don Augustin Saez, who
honored him with his affection and consideration because of his progress. In sculpture his
instructor was a Filipino, Romualdo de Jesus, who felt proud in the last years of his life of having
had such an excellent student – Jose Rizal.
 
At Ateneo, Jose Rizal enjoyed his life as a student. Though, at the beginning, he had
some difficulties yet as time goes by, he was able to overcome them and made his stay in
Ateneo more prosperous and exciting. He graduated Bachiller en artes. Rizal also earned a
degree in land surveyor’s and assessor from the Ateneo Municipal. 

“I had entered the college still a boy, possessing only my limited knowledge of the
Spanish language, my intelligence only moderately developed, and my emotions scarcely
cultivated., By dint of study, of self-analysis, of aspiring to ever greater heights, and of countless
correction, I began to be transformed little by little, thanks to the beneficent influence of a
zealous professor,” Jose Rizal recalled.

IN SUMMARY

Rizal as Atenista, enjoyed his scholastic life. He went into hispanization and this made
him more aggressive in learning both Spanish and Latin languages. He became stronger in
dealing with his adversaries in life. He had his triumph in Ateneo.

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Lesson 6. RIZAL’S LIFE IN UST

In April 1877, Rizal (at the age of 16) went to the University of Santo Tomas taking up
Philosophy and Letters. During his first-year term (1877-79) in the UST, he studied Cosmology,
Metaphysics, Theodicy, and History of Philosophy.

                It was during the following school term (1878-1879) that Rizal took up medicine,
enrolling simultaneously in the preparatory medical course and the regular first year medical
course. The reasons why he studied medicine were: (1) he wanted to be a physician so that he
might cure his mother’s failing eyesight and (2) the Father Pablo Ramon recommended him to
take up medicine.

                Notwithstanding his academic studies in the University of Santo Tomas and
extracurricular activities in the Ateneo, Rizal had ample time for love. He was a romantic
dreamer who liked to sip the “nectar of love.” His sad experience with his first love had made
him wiser in the ways of romance.

                Several months later, during his sophomore year at the University of Santo Tomas, he
boarded in the house of Doña Concha Leyva in Intramuros. He met Leonor Valenzuela, a lady
next door, a tall girl as Jose himself but their romance did not materialize. Then, Rizal’s next
romance was with another Leonor- Leonor Rivera- his cousin. Leonor Rivera was a student at
La Concordia College, where Soledad (Rizal’s younger sister) was then studying. Leonor was
described by Jose as a pretty daughter, “tender as a budding flower with kind, wistful eyes.”
Jose and Leonor had a tenderly beautiful romance, and they were engaged.

Victim of Spanish Officer’s Brutality

                A summer vacation, Rizal was a freshman medical student at the University of Santo
Tomas, he got his first taste of Spanish brutality. On dark night, he was walking in the patio of

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Calamba, near their house. He couldn’t perceive someone who is coming due to darkness. He
did not greet or gave a courteous word. The vague figure was then a lieutenant of the Guardia
Civil who struck him with his sword. Rizal was wounded. It was not fatal, but it was painful. He
had to rest for two weeks.

              When he recovered, Rizal informed General Primo de Rivera, the Spanish Governor-
General of the Philippines and nothing came out of his grievance. This was because of racial
discrimination. Rizal was an Indio, and the abusive lieutenant was a Spaniard.
TO THE FILIPINO YOUTH (1879)
While in UST, Rizal kept his love for literary. He joined literary contest by Artistico-
Literario where he submitted his poem A La Juventud Filipina (To the Filipino Youth) written in
Spanish by a native Filipino. The literary piece won first prize. He received a feather shaped and
gold ribbon decorated silver pen.

THE COUNCIL OF THE GODS (1880)

     Another literary contest by the Artistic-Literary Lyceum to commemorate the fourth
centennial of the death of Cervantes, Spanish and author of Don Quixote. Jose Rizal submitted
an allegorical drama, El Consejo de los Dioses (The Council of the Gods). The contest was
participated by priest, laymen, professors of UST, newspapermen and scholars. Rizal won the
first price. He received a gold ring engraved with bust of Cervantes.

CHAMPION OF FILIPINO STUDENTS

There were frequent student brawls between the Filipinos and the Spaniards, Jose Rizal
founded a secret society of Filipino UST students called Companerismo (Comradeship). The
society aimed to promote civic and patriotic education among its members, and mutual
protection and support against hostile and abusive hands of the Spanish professors and
students at the university.

UNHAPPY DAYS AT THE UST

Rizal was unhappy in the Dominican institution because:
1.  The Dominican professors were hostile to him
2. The Filipino students were racially discriminated against by the Spaniards
3. The method of instruction was obsolete and repressive.
Jose Rizal decided to study abroad.

SUMMARY

Jose Rizal was not happy being a student in UST. Although, he had a romance with Leonor
Rivera, this did not make him forget the discrimination and abuses of the frayle and Spanish
officials. He formed student’s organizations and wrote award-winning poems while studying.

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REFERENCES:

Zaide, Gregorio F., & Zaide, Sonia M., Jose Rizal, Life, Works and Writings of a Genius, Writer,
Scientist and National Hero, (2008- Centennial Edition) All-Nations Publishing Co. Inc, Quezon
City

https://hestories.info/prologue-rizal-and-his-times.html
https://angbuhaynijprizal.wordpress.com/rizal-in-ateneo
http://www.joserizal.ph/ed02.html
https://www.slideshare.net/HoneyGraceSantos/rizal-in-ateneo
http://thelifeandworksofrizal.blogspot.com/2016/06/rizal-at-university-of-santo-tomas-1877.html

FURTHER READING:

RIZAL, THE ATENEAN

By: Queena N. Lee-Chua - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 07:55 PM June 19, 2011

IN JUNE 1872, 12-year-old Jose Rizal Mercado y Alonzo Realonda enrolled at the Ateneo Municipal
de Manila in Intramuros.
Rizal launched himself into studies that sharpened not only his capacity for critical thinking and
discernment, but also his love for God and country. Five years later, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts
degree with the rating sobrasaliente (highest honors).
According to my fellow Inquirer columnist and Ateneo colleague, historian Ambeth Ocampo, Rizal
almost did not make it to the Ateneo because he was late for registration, and looked too frail for the
rigors of Jesuit education. (Rizal originally thought of going to San Juan de Letran.)
However, through the intercession of Manuel Jerez, a nephew of Fr. Jose Burgos (one of the three
martyred priests known collectively as Gomburza), Rizal was finally accepted into the Ateneo.
The website www.joserizal.ph (maintained by Jose Rizal University), says, “From the first days Jose
learned to systematize his work; he fixed a program of what he had to do in the twenty-four hours of the
day, and did not in the least deviate from it. Thus he disciplined his will and subjected it to the commands
of his reason.”
Rizal’s Ateneo mentors included Fr. Francisco de Paula Sanchez, who was not only an excellent
teacher of mathematics, rhetoric and Greek, but also a teacher who cared immensely for his students. Fr.
Sanchez even accompanied Rizal during the hero’s Dapitan exile.
Ateneo professor and painter Don Augustin Saez helped Rizal in drawing, and Romualdo de Jesus taught
him sculpture.

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Rizal was also close to Fr. Pablo Ramon. Greeting Father Ramon on his birthday, Rizal said, “What
might happen with the youthful energy, which burns so merrily within our breasts, but for the guidance of
thy pious hand, thy love, thy zeal!”
According to Ocampo, Rizal once said, “I owe a great deal to the Jesuit order—almost, almost everything
that I am.”

Inspiration
Rizal continues to inspire his fellow Ateneans, many of whom consider him a personal hero. In the
book “To Give and not to Count the Cost,” former Sen. Richard Gordon (Ateneo HS 1962, AB 1966) says,
“… Rizal is my Ateneo hero because he dared to break the walls built by Spanish colonizers around Filipino
minds to conquer them into servitude. His entire life was dedicated to the proposition that we Filipinos can
overcome our self-imposed apathy and indifference, and that, like our early ancestors, we can become
horizon-chasers who know no limit to our dreams and aspirations.”
Gordon says Rizal has been his guiding light from the time he headed the Subic Freeport Zone to
the present, as chair of the Philippine Red Cross.
“Like Rizal, I learned to conquer apathy and indifference by initiating change,” Gordon says. “I
grew up in a city and community that was faced with many challenges. Together with the people of
Olongapo, we made fear our friend, and faced these challenges head on. Our efforts as a united people,
rising above our own limitations and seeing what we could become, just as Rizal would have hoped, had
seen us through the most difficult times of our history” (such as the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo and the
closure of the United States naval base in 1992).
In December 1896, Rizal was martyred in Bagumbayan, now known as Rizal Park. But Gordon reminds us,
“Bagumbayan is not a place. It is an attitude. It is time for us to become horizon-chasers once again like the
Ateneo eagle. We have to change ourselves, reinvent ourselves, and we must not cease from hoping. It is
time for us to break down our walls and say we can do it. We have the power to shape our future and
determine the destiny of our country.”
Don Higino Francisco, the great-great-grandfather of Gonzalo Roque (Ateneo BS Business
Management 1988), president and chief executive officer of Kamiseta, was Rizal’s good friend.
“Don Higino had done many favors for Dr. Rizal,” Roque says, “including hiding the original
manuscripts of ‘Noli Me Tangere’ from the Spanish authorities and the exhumation of Dr. Rizal’s bones
from the Paco Cemetery, days after the American occupation; he also took care of cleaning the bones and
keeping them for a proper burial.”
“Every Filipino knows Dr. Jose Rizal’s story but each has his own way of getting inspiration from
the man,” Roque says. “For me as a businessman, I try to help my fellow countrymen in every small way I
can … I know there is a lot of change needed, but I also know that these changes cannot be achieved
overnight.”

Education
In his article “Jose Rizal, Liberator of the Philippines,” the late Fr. Raul Bonoan, SJ, who was dean
during my college days at the Ateneo, said Rizal always encouraged Filipinos to be worthy of
independence. They must prepare for freedom, primarily through education.
In his poem “Through Education, Our Motherland Receives Light,” Rizal said education “multiplies the
country’s grace.”
Personally, what I most admire about Rizal is that he fought for freedom through the pen and not
the sword. Rizal was the original nonviolent revolutionary. Yes, he died, but the Philippines became free
just two years after his death.

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A. EVALUATION

Name: ________________________________________ Section: ______________

Instruction: Answer the following questions.

1. How did Rizal defended himself from being bullied?

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2. How did Rizal become a Roman Emperor in his class at Ateneo?

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B. EVALUATION

Name: ________________________________________ Section: ______________

Instruction: Write down the experiences of Rizal in the proper column according to the
factor’s given.

Compare the life of Jose Rizal when he was in Ateneo and Santo Tomas

Ateneo Municipal
Factors Universidad de Santo Tomas

Scholastic Records

Student Life

Writings, Poems, etc

Professors

Classmates

Love life

Course

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Extra-curricular
Activities

C. EVALUATION

Name: ________________________________________ Section: ______________

Instruction: Discuss in150-250 words only

A. What do you think is the reason(s) of Muntinlupa City Government to increase the number of
scholars and their allowance?
______________________________________________________________________________
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B. What is meant by, “No Child is left behind” policy?

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