Highlights

1. Paciano Mercado, student of Father Burgos.

2. Rizal at the Ateneo – selects literature as
foremost among many talents
3. First poems in Spanish
4. Basic political conclusion at fifteen
5. The need for enlightenment
 Rizal’s mental evolution in
boyhood represents an
intellectual phenomenon, the
growth and development of a
patriot and political thinker.
Father Gomez,
Father Burgos,
and Father
Zamora were
garroted in
public.
 They were
executed before
a Filipino
crowd.
 There was no
public reaction
of any kind.
There was no
public
opinion.
 There was
God’s will, as
made known
by Spanish
friars.
Paciano
Mercado
He was twenty
years old
during the
time of the
Cavite mutiny.
 He was a
person of
extreme self-
control.
 Disliking
any outward
display of
emotion.
 And
preferring
silence to a
needless
word.
 Some of his
fellow students
considered him
dangerously
outspoken.
 His mother was
imprisoned for two-
and-a-half years.
 Real Audiencia
is the highest court
in the land.
 In June 1872,
Jose Rizal aged
eleven went up to
Manila to begin
his studies at the
Ateneo
Municipal.
Jose Protasio
Rizal Mercado
y Alonso
Realonda
Society of Jesus
 Ateneo was run by Jesuits
Fathers who were members of
the recently reconstituted
Society of Jesus.
 They are in touch with
modern scientific thought,
enthusiastic teachers, and
most of them young.
 They provided a broader-
based education that any
other available in the
country.
MAP OF INTRAMUROS & others
First year he lodged in Binondo,
with the illegitimate sons of
Spanish priests “the fruits of
friar love-affairs”.
Second year he lodged
in Intramuros
 Third and Fourth year he
lodged in Ateneo, occupying
an alcove situated in the
corner of the dormitory
looking out to the sea.
 He had the
reputation of
being an
outstanding
student of the
day.
A brilliant
scholar.
 He also
revealed a
quality of
being a
natural
leader.
 He took
gymnastic
seriously.
 In his last year,
he learnt fencing,
in which he
trained hard and
kept in practice
for the rest of his
life.
 With the
improvement of
his health, he
became more
extrovert and
communicating.
There is a limit to
one person can do.
 But with him, there
seemed to be no limits
to the number of
things he could do.
 His talents showed
principally in
scholastic work, poetry,
painting, and sculpture
 He was notably
backward in Spanish.
In his third and fourth year
in Ateneo, he became part of
Father Sanchez’ class, where
his rapid progress in writing
in Spanish took place.
 Father
Francisco
de Paula
Sanchez
26 years old, a
dark, gloomy,
bat-like person,
given to
pessimistic
observations.
 “A model of
uprightness,
earnestness,
and love of the
advancement of
his pupils”
Father Jose
Vilaclara
 He taught
philosophy
and sciences.
Vilaclara advised
Jose “to give up
the society of the
Muses and give
them a final
goodbye”.
 “My second college year
[resembled] the first, with the
difference that patriotic feelings
had been greatly developed in me,
as well as an acute quickness of
perception
(una exquisita sensibilidad)
 Quickness of
Political Perception
His ideas developed in
quite another way.
 Conclusion:
He must dedicate his life to
the service of his people.
First step in such life service
is to go abroad, and learn
about the world outside
Por la Educacion Recibe
Lustre la Patria
The poem “title” was the first
important landmark in the
evolution of his public life.
 It is by means of
education that the
fatherland acquires its
glory.
Just as the gentle movement of a
breeze causes flowers to show off
their colors more vividly, so is
education the vital breath which
causes a nation to rise to its
most brilliant heights.
Nuestra cara patria
– our beloved country.
Spain – the poem reads as
a complacent statement
concerning the true source
of a nation’s greatness.
 Philippines – until the restrictive
education system of the friars is
altered and the youth of the country
invigorated by real learning, by the
eradication of the prevailing
ignorance, they will never improve
their position.
The prerequisite to any
improvement in the
Philippines lay in the
people acquiring
knowledge.
For Spanish tyranny
to be overthrown was
a chimera.
One change would
lead to another.
 He had already perceived
what he knew to be the most
fundamental problem of the
Philippines.
 That it is in the soil of
ignorance that tyranny
thrives, and that in measure
as ignorance was eradicated
so would tyranny wither
and perish.
There are no despots
where there are no
slaves.
Rizal found himself with his
baccalaureate, five medals,
and a record of studies which
had never been surpassed by
any student.
 “The last night, on going to my
dormitory and considering that
that night would be the last I would
spend in my peaceful alcove,
because, according to what they
said, the world was waiting for me.
 I had a cruel presentiment . . . The
moon shone mournfully,
illuminating the lighthouse and the
sea, presenting a silent and grand
spectacle which seemed to tell me
that the next day another life
awaited me.”
The world which lay before him
was the world in which he had
chosen to serve his own people.