The Life and Writings of Dr. José Rizal

Today I’m going to relate to you my studies. As I had expected, I was introduced at the Ateneo Municipal to the Rev. Father Miniter [administrator - Zaide] who at that time was Father Magin Ferrando. At first he did not want to admit me either because I had come after the period of admission was over or because of my rather weak constitution and short stature: I was then eleven years old. But later, at the request of Mr. Manuel Jerez [Manuel Xeres Burgos - Zaide], nephew of the ill-fated Father Burgos (16) and now Licentiate in Medicine, the difficulties were removed and I was admitted. I dressed like the rest, that is, I put on a coat with a ready-made necktie. With what fervor I entered the chapel of the Jesuit Fathers to hear Mass, what most fervent prayers I addressed to God, for in my sadness I didn’t know whom else to invoke. After Mass, I went to class were I saw a great number of children, Spaniards, mestizos, (17) and Filipinos, and a Jesuit who was the professor. He was called Father José Bech. He was a tall man, thin, with a body slightly bent forward, with hasty pace, an ascetic, severe and inspired physiognomy, sunken, small eyes, sharp Grecian nose, fine lips forming an arch whose ends turned towards his beard. The Father was somewhat a lunatic so that one should not be surprised to find him sometimes disgusted himself, playing like a child. Among my classmates I should mention to you some were quite interesting and perhaps would be mentioned by me frequently. One boy or young man of my own province called Florencio Gavino Oliva had an excellent mind but was of ordinary studiousness. One Joaquin Garrido, a Spanish mestizo, with poor memory but bright and studious. Resembling him very much was one Moises Santiago, mathematician and penman. One was Gonzalo Marzano, who then occupied the canopied throne of a Roman Emperor. You should know that in the Jesuit colleges, in order to stimulate students, they put up two empires, one Roman and the other Carthaginian or Greek, constantly at war, and in which the highest positions were won through challenges, the winner being the one who made three mistakes less than his rival. They put me at the tail end. I scarcely knew Spanish but I already understood it.

After retreat (18) I left and I found my brother waiting for me to take me home, which I was about twenty-five minutes from the college for I didn’t want to stay in the walled city (19) which seemed to me very gloomy. I found a companion called Pastor Millena, a boy of my own age. The house was small, located at Caraballo Street. A river ran alongside two corners. The house consisted of a dining room, a drawing room, a sleeping room, and kitchen. A bower covered the small space between the gate and the stairs. My landlady was an unmarried woman called Titay, who owed us over 300. Her mother lived with us, a good old woman, almost harmless insane, and some young Spanish mestizos, the fruits of frail love affairs. I shall not tell you how much I suffered, nor shall I tell you of my displeasures and joys. I will only tell you what happened to me in the class during that year. At the end of one week, I was promoted and I stayed at noon at the Colegio de Sta. Isabel, (20) paying three pesos there. I lived with Pastor. A month later I was already the emperor. Ah, how happy I was when for the first time I got a religious print for a prize! In the first quarter I won a first prize with the grade of excellent, but afterwards I was disgusted on account of some words uttered by my professor, and I did not want to study hard any more, so that at the end of the year, to my misfortune, I obtained only accessit (21) in all my subjects, grade of excellent without getting any first prize. I spent my vacation in my hometown and I accompanied my elder sister Neneng to Tanauan for the town feast. This happened in 1873. But my happiness was never complete for my mother was not yet with us. I went to visit her then alone without telling my father about it. This was after the school term and I told her that I received accessit. With what delight I surprised her! But afterwards we embraced each other weeping. It was almost more than a year that we had not seen each other. Even now I remember with sad pleasure the mute scene that occurred between us. Ah, how cruel men are towards their fellow men! I visited her again.

When vacation was over, I had to return to Manila to enroll for the second year course and to look for a landlady inside the walled city, for I was tired living outside the city. I found one on Magallanes Street, number 6, where lived an old lady called Doña Pepay, widow, with her daughter, also a widow, called Doña Encarnacion with four sons. José, Rafael, Ignacio, and Ramon. Nothing extraordinary happened to me this year. I only had other classmates, or rather, I encountered again three who were my classmates in Biñan. They were called Justiniano Sao-jono, Angel and Santiago Carrillo. At the end of the year I won a metal and I returned to my hometown. I visited my mother again alone and there, like another Joseph, I predicted, interpreting a dream of hers, that within three months, she would be released, a prediction that was realized by accident.

But this time I began to devote myself to my leisure hours to the reading of novels, though years before I h ad already read El Ultimo Abencerraje, (22) but I didn’t read it with ardor. Imagine a boy of twelve years reading the Count of Montecristo, (23) enjoying sustained dialogues and delighting in its beauties and following step by step its hero in his revenge. Under the pretext that I had to study universal history, I importuned my father to buy me Cesare Cantu’s work, (24) and God alone knows the benefit I got from its perusal, for despite my average studiousness and my little practice in the Castilian tongue, in the following year I was able to win prizes in the quarterly examinations and I would have won the medal were it not for some mistakes in Spanish, that unfortunately I spoke badly, which enabled the young man M. G., a European, to have an advantage over me in this regard. Thus, in order to study the third year course, I had to return to Manila and found Doña Pepay without a room for boarders. I had to stay at the house of D. P. M. together with a rich fellow townsman called Quintero. I was discontented because they were strict with me but I kept regular hours, which was good for me. I prayed and played with the landlord’s children. My mother was not delayed in coming out free, acquitted, and vindicated, and as soon as she was out she came to embrace me. I wept. . . .

After two months and a half, I left that house and returned to the recently vacated room in the house of my landlady, Doña Pepay, and returned also to the same life as before. As a result of what happened to me in my studies, as I have already narrated, I received only the first prize in Latin, that is, a medal, not like last year, so that I returned to my hometown discontented, though I knew that many would have danced with joy for less. My family resolved to put me in the college as a boarder. Indeed it was time for I was giving very little attention to my studies. I was already approaching thirteen years and I had not yet made any brilliant showing to my classmates. Until here lasted my happiest days, though short; but what does it matter if they were short?

Calamba, 7 April 1879.

_______________

(01) Father José A. Burgos (1837-1872) and two other Filipino clergymen Jacinto Zamora (1835-1872) and Mariano Gomez (1799-1872) were garroted on the 17^th of February 1872 on Bagumbayan Field Manila falsely charged of complicity in the mutiny at the Cavite Arsenal in 1872.

(02) Mestizo in the Philippines to Filipinos of mixed parentage; hence, Spanish mestizo is the offspring of a Spaniard and a Filipino; a Chinese mestizo, of a Chinese and a Filipino; American mestizo, of an American and Filipino, etc.

(03) A Catholic practice consisting of a certain number of days devoted to religious meditation and exercises.

(04) This is the Walled City of Manila or intramuros where many churches and convents and government buildings were found.

(05) This was a large boarding school for girls in front of the Ateneo. Apparently it then admitted boys as day boarders.

(06) Second prize.

(07) Spanish version of Le Denier des Abencer ages a novel by Viscount Francios Rene de Chateaubriand (1768-1848)

(08) A novel of Alexander Dumas, father (1802-1870)

(09) Cantu’s book was entitled Universal History.