Rizal's Education in Manila: Ateneo Years (1872-1877)

Rizal's Education in Manila

• June 1872: Rizal was sent to Manila to study at the Ateneo Municipal, four months after the execution of GOMBURZA at Bagumbayan.
• Rizal was 11 years old and took entrance examinations in Christian doctrine, Arithmetic, and Reading at Colegio de San Juan de Letran, but was rejected due to his young age.
• He then took the examinations at the Ateneo Municipal, where Fr. Magin Fernando, the school registrar, initially refused to accept him due to his frail appearance, but was accepted after the intervention of Manuel Xeres Burgos, the nephew of Father Jose Burgos.

Ateneo Municipal

• Founded in 1859 as Escuela Pia or Charity School of Manila, it was renamed Ateneo Municipal in 1865.
• Rizal's first landlady in Ateneo was Titay, where he stayed as payment for her debt of P300 to Don Francisco.
• Later, he stayed with Doña Pepay at 6 Magallanes St. in Walled City, with no curfew.

Jesuit System of Education

• Emphasized rigid discipline, character building, and religious instruction.
• Classes began and ended with prayers.
• Encouraged competition among students, dividing them into Romans (those living inside the Ateneo) and Carthaginians (those living outside).
• Students were further divided into standard bearer, decurion, centurion, tribune, and emperor.

Rizal's Favorite Books

• Universal History by Cesar Cantu
• Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
• Travels of the Philippines by Feodor Jagor

Rizal's Poems in Ateneo

• Mi Primera Inspiraccion (My First Inspiration) - dedicated to his mother
• Felicitacion (Felicitation) - a gift to one of his sisters' wedding
• Un Recuerdo A Mi Pueblo (In Memory of My Town) - in honor of his birthplace, Calamba
• Themes of his poems: Pro-Spanish, Religious, History, and Education

Rizal as Painter and Sculptor

• Studied under Agustin Saez, a famous painter
• Romualdo Teodoro de Jesus, a noted Filipino sculptor

University of Santo Tomas

• Rizal enrolled in Philosophy and Letters in April 1877 at the age of 16.
• Fr. Pablo Ramon, the Vice Rector of Ateneo, suggested he take up Medicine.
• Rizal shifted to Land Surveying Course, a vocational course which he finished in 1877-1878.

Rizal's Later Life

• He became a member of El Compañerismo, a group formed for mutual support and companionship, inspired by Alexander Dumas' Three Musketeers.
• Rizal joined the Liceon Artistico Literario de Manila, an organization of art lovers, and won first prize in a poetry contest in 1879 and 1880.
• He wrote several plays, including Junto Al Pasig, and a sonnet, A Filipinas, urging Filipino artists to glorify the country through their works.