As we know rizal died at the age of 35.

Documentation about his life is tremendous that one could

hardly begin in his task weather preparing a treatise or a short one like what I am going to now?

Rizal always considered education as a medicine or something that could cure the problems of Colonial
Philippines. He believed in education that is free from political and religious control. He asserted that
reform can not be achieved if there is no suitable education, a liberal one available to Filipinos.

Rizal was not happy at the University of Sto. Tomas compared with his student days at the Ateneo
Municipal. At least, he enjoyed the little freedom students were given in expressing themselves. This he
could not find at the Dominican university.

In the same piece Rizal talked of the situation in detail. He said, since childhood, they have learned to act
mechanically, without knowing the purpose, thanks to the exercise imposed upon them very early in life
to pray for whole hours in an unknown language, of worshiping without understanding, of accepting
beliefs without questioning, of imposing upon themselves absurdities, while the protests of reasons are
repressed.

This condition, he continued, made the Filipinos accept the ideas that they belong to an inferior race and
this assertion has been repeated to the child and became engraved in his mind and finally seals and
shapes all his future actions.

To ensure that this orientation retained in the childs mind, Rizal observed that the child who tries to be
anything else is charged of being vain and presumptuous. The curate ridicules him with cruel sarcasm,
his relatives look upon him with fear, and strangers pity him greatly. There was no chance to go forward,
just follow the faceless crowd, was the order of the day.

It is through this scenario that we could better understand why Rizal was clamouring for a different
education, a new idea of teaching the Filipino youth. Rizal believed that even modest education, no
matter how rudimentary it might be, if it is the right education for the people, the result would be
enough to awaken their ideas of perfection and progress and eventually, change would follow.

This is the situation how education was acquired during that period. Rizals idea of education was
therefore the most enlightened. His concept of education was felt as early as when he was only 16 years
old.

In one of his poems, Education gives luster to the Motherland, he dwelt on the excellent conception of
education as a means of instilling enchanting virtue and raising the country to the high level of
immortality and dazzling glory.