Early Education in Calamba and Biñan PDF

**EARLY EDUCATION IN CALAMBA AND BIÑAN** - **Rizal had his early education in Calamba and Biñan.** - **It was a typical schooling that a son of an ilustrado family received during his time, characterized by the four R\'s:** 1. **Reading** 2. **Writing** 3. **Arithmetic** 4. **Relig...

**EARLY EDUCATION IN CALAMBA AND BIÑAN** - **Rizal had his early education in Calamba and Biñan.** - **It was a typical schooling that a son of an ilustrado family received during his time, characterized by the four R\'s:** 1. **Reading** 2. **Writing** 3. **Arithmetic** 4. **Religion** - **Instruction was rigid and strict. Knowledge was forced into the minds of the pupils by means of the tedious memory method aided by the teacher\'s whip.** - **Despite the defects of the Spanish system of elementary education, Rizal was able to acquire the necessary instruction preparatory for college work in Manila and abroad.** - **It may be said that Rizal, who was born a physical weakling, rose to become an intellectual giant not because of, but rather in spite of, the outmoded and backward system of instruction obtaining in the Philippines during the last decades of Spanish regime.** **The Hero\'s First Teacher** - **The first teacher of Rizal was his mother, who was a remarkable woman of good character and fine culture.** - **On her lap, he learned at the age of three the alphabet and the prayers.** ***\"My mother,\" wrote Rizal in his student memoirs, \"taught me how to read and to say haltingly the humble prayers which I raised fervently to God.\"*** - **As a tutor, Doña Teodora was patient, conscientious, and understanding.** - **It was she who first discovered that her son had a talent for poetry.** - **Accordingly, she encouraged him to write poems. To lighten the monotony of memorizing the ABCs and to stimulate her son\'s imagination, she related many stories.** - **As Jose grew older, his parents employed private tutors to eve him lessons at home. The first was Maestro Celestino and the second, Maestro Lucas Padua.** - **Later, an old man named Leon Monroy, a former classmate of Rizal\'s father, became the boy\'s tutor.** - **This old teacher lived at the Rizal home and instructed Jose in Spanish and Latin.** - **Unfortunately, he did not live long. He died five months later.** - **After Monroy\'s death, the hero\'s parents decided to send their gifted son to a private school in Biñan.** **Jose Goes to Biñan** - **One Sunday afternoon in June, 1869, Jose, after kissing the hands of his parents and a tearful parting from his sisters, left Calamba for Biñan.** - **He was accompanied by Paciano, who acted as his second father.** - **The two brothers rode in a carromata, reaching their destination after one and one-half hours\' drive.** - **They proceeded to their aunt\'s house. where Jose was to lodge.** - **It was almost night when they arrived, and the moon was about to rise** - **That same night, Jose, with his cousin named Leandro, went sightseeing in the town.** - **Instead of enjoying the sights, Jose became depressed because of homesickness.** ***\"In the moonlight,\" he recounted, \"I remembered my home town, my idolized mother, and my solicitous sisters. Ah, how sweet to me was Calamba, my own town, in spite of the fact, that it was not as wealthy as Biñan.\"*** **First Day in Biñan School** - **The next morning (Monday Paciano brought his younger brother to the school of Maestro Justiniano Aquino Cruz.** - **The school was in the house of the teacher, which was a small nipa hut about 30 meters from the home of Jose\'s aunt.** - **Paciano knew the teacher quite well because he had been a pupil under him before.** - **He introduced Jose to the teacher, after which he departed to return to Calamba.** - **Immediately, Jose was assigned his seat in the class. The teacher asked him:** ***\"Do you know Spanish?\"*** ***\"A little, sir.\" replied the Calamba lad*** ***\"Do you know Latin?\"*** ***\"A little, sir.\"*** - **The boys in the class, especially Pedro, the teacher\'s son, laughed at Jose\'s answers.** - **The teacher sharply stopped all noise and began the lessons of the day.** - **Jose described his teacher in Biñan as follows:** ***\"He was tall, thin, long-necked, with a sharp nose and a body slightly bent-forward, and he used to wear a sinamay shirt, woven by the skilled hands of the women of Batangas.He knew by heart the grammars by Nebrija and Gainza. Add to this his severity, that in my judgment was exaggerated, and you have a picture, perhaps vague, that I have made of him, but I remember only this "*** **First School Brawl** - **In the afternoon of his first day in school, when the teacher was having his siesta, Jose met the bully, Pedro.** - **He was angry at this bully for making fun of him during his conversation with the teacher in the morning.** - **Jose challenged Pedro to a fight.** - **The latter readily accepted, thinking that he could easily beat the Calamba boy who was smaller and younger.** - **The two boys wrestled furiously in the classroom, much to the glee of their classmates.** - **Jose, having, learned the art of wrestling from his athletic Tio Manuel, defeated the bigger boy.** - **For this feat, he became popular among his classmates.** - **After the class in the afternoon, a classmate named Andres Salandanan challenged him to an arm-wrestling match.** - **They went to a sidewalk of a house and wrestled with their arms.** - **Jose, having the weaker arm, lost and nearly cracked his head on the sidewalk.** - **In succeeding days, he had other fights with the boys of Biñan. He was not quarrelsome by nature, but he never ran away from a fight.** **Painting Lessons in Binan** - **Near the school was the house of an old painter, called Juancho, who was the father-in-law of the school teacher.** - **Jose, lured by his love for painting, spent many leisure hours at the painter\'s studio.** - **Old Juancho freely gave him lessons in drawing and painting.** - **He was impressed by the artistic talent of the Calamba lad.** - **Jose and his classmate, Jose Guevarra, who also loved painting, became apprentices of the old painter.** - **They improved their art, so that in due time they became \"the favorite painters of the class\".** **Daily Life in Biñan** - **Jose led a methodical life in Biñan, almost Spartan in simplicity. Such a life contributed much to his future development. It strengthened his body and soul.** - **Speaking of his daily life in Biñan, he recorded in his memoirs:** ***Here was my life. I heard the four o\'clock Mass, if there was any, or 1 studied my lesson at that hour and 1 went to Mass afterwards. I returned home and 1 went to the orchard to look for a mabolo to cat. 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 home at once. If there was some special dish, Leandro and I took some of it to the house of his children (which I never did at home nor would I ever do it), and I returned without saying a word. I ate with them and afterwards I studied. I went to school at two and came out at five. I prayed a short while with some nice cousins and I returned home. I studied my lesson. I drew a little, and afterwards I took my supper consisting of one or two dishes of rice with an ayungin. We prayed and if there was a moon, my nieces invited me to play in the street together with others. Thank God that I never got sick away from my parents.*** **Best Student in School** - **In academic studies, Jose beat all Biñan boys.** - **He surpassed them all in Spanish, Latin, and other subjects.** - **Some of his older classmates were jealous of his intellectual superiority.** - **They wickedly squealed to the teacher whenever Jose had a fight outside the school, and even told lies to discredit him before the teacher\'s eyes.** - **Consequently, the teacher had to punish Jose.** - **Thus, Rizal said that \"in spite of the reputation I had of being a good boy, the day was unusual when I was thot laid out on a bench and given five or six blows.** - **End of Biñan Schooling** - **Before the Christmas season in 1870, Jose received a letter from his sister Saturnina, informing him of the arrival of the steamer Talim which would take him from Biñan to Calamba.** - **Upon reading the letter, he had a premonition that he would not return to Biñan, so that he became sad.** - **He prayed in the town church, collected pebbles in the river for souvenirs, and regretfully bade farewell to his teacher and classmates** - **He left Binan on Saturday afternoon, December 17, 1870, after one year and a half of schooling in that town.** - **He was thrilled to take passage on the steamer Talim, for it was the first time he ever rode on a steamer.** - **On board was a Frenchman named Arturo Camps, a friend of his father, who took care of him** **\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\--** **Martyrdom of Gem-Bur-Za** - **On the night of January 20, 1872, about 200 Filipino soldiers and workmen of the Cavite arsenal under the leadership of Lamadrid.** - **Filipino sergeant, rose in violent mutiny because of the abolition of their usual privileges, including exemption from tribute and polo (forced labor) by the reactionary Governor Rafael de Izquierdo.** - **Unfortunately, this Cavite Mutiny was suppressed two days later by troop reinforcements froln Manila.** - **The Spanish authorities, in order to liquidate Fathers Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora, leaders of the secular movement to Filipinize the Philippine parishes, and their supporters (Jose Ma. Basa, Attorneys Joaquin Pardo de Tavera and Antonio Ma. Regidor, etc.) magnified the faded mutiny into a \"revolt\" for Philippine independence.** - **Accordingly, Gom-Bur-Za (Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora), despite the archbishop\'s plea for clemency because of their innocence, were executed at sunrise, February 17, 1872, by order of Governor General Izquierdo.** - **Their martyrdom was deeply mourned by the Rizal family and many other patriotic families in the Philippines** - **Paciano, enraged by the execution of Burgos, his beloved friend, teacher, and housemate, quit his studies at the College of San Jose and returned to Calamba, where he told the heroic story of Burgos to his younger brother Jose, who was then nearly eleven years old.** - **The martyrdom of Gom-Bur-Za in 1872 truly inspired Rizal to fight the evils of Spanish tyranny and redeem his oppressed people.** - **Seventeen years later, in his letter written in Paris, April 18, 1889, to Mariano Ponce, he said:** ***Without 1872 there would not be now either a Plaridel or Jacna, or Sanciangco, nor would there exist brave and generous Filipino colonies in Europe; without 1872 Rizal would be a Jesuit now and, instead of writing Noli Me Tangere, would have written the opposite. At the sight of those injustices and crucities while still a child my imagina- tion was awakened and I swore to devote myself to avenge one day so many victims and with this idea in mind I have heen studying, and this can be read in all my works and writings. God will someday give me an opportunity to carry out my promise.\"*** - **And later, in 1891, he dedicated his second novel, El Filibus terismo, to Gom-Bur-Za.** **Injustice to Hero\'s Mother** - **Before June of 1872, tragedy struck the Rizal family.** - **Doña Teodora was suddenly arrested on a malicious charge that she and her brother, Jose Alberto, tried to poison the latter\'s perfidious wife.** - **Jose Alberto, a rich Biñan ilustrado, had just returned from a business trip in Europe.** - **During his absence his wife abandoned their home and children. When he arrived in Biñan, he found her living with another man.** - **Infuriated by her infidelity, he planned to divorce her.** - **Doña Teodora, to avert family scandal, persuaded him to forgive his wife.** - **The family trouble was amicably settled, and Jose Alberto lived again with his wife.** - **However, the evil wife, with the connivance of the Spanish lieutenant of the Guardia Civil, filed a case in court accusing her husband and Doña Teodora of attempting to poison her.** - **This lieutenant happened to have an ax to grind against the Rizal family, because at one time Don Francisco (Rizal\'s father) refused to give him fodder for his horse.** - **Taking the opportunity to avenge himself, he arrested Doña Teodora, with the help of Calamba\'s gobernadorcillo, Antonio Vivencio del Rosario, a menial of the friars.** - **These two ungrateful men had been frequent guests at the Rizal home.** - **After arresting Doña Teodora, the sadistic Spanish lieutenant forced her to walk from Calamba to Santa Cruz (capital of Laguna Province), a distance of 50 kilometers.** - **Upon arrival in Santa Cruz, she was incarcerated at the provincial prison, where she languished for two years and a half until the Manila Royal Audiencia (Supreme Court) acquitted her of the alleged crime.** - **Recounting this incidence of his mother\'s imprisonment, Rizal said in his student memoirs:** ***\"Our mother was unjustly snatched away from us and by whom? By some men who had been our friends and whom we treated as honored guests. We learned later that our mother got sick, far from us and at an advanced age. My mother was defended by Messrs. Francisco de Marcaida and Manuel Marzan, the most famous lawyers of Manila. She finally succeeded to be acquitted and vindicated in the eyes of her judges, accusers, and even her enemies, but after how long? After two and a half years.\"***