THE TOWN SCHOOLS IN THE PHILIPPINES

The town Schools in the Philippines whos original in Spanish is entitled as La

Instuccion. The national hero Rizal evaluates the elementary instruction given in the
town is schools established under the provision of the Education Decrees of 1863 and
offers proposal for its improvement. Educational system particularly the deficiencies of
Philippine Education is the main issue in these article of our national hero. German,
English, and French travellers finds us backward and because they find or do no
express frankly and clearly enough the cause of its own account of certain regards
which are not mentioned at this moment.

It is our backwardness and ignorance, that kind of first childhood in which our
people float, and that like a dense and deleterious atmosphere is drowning in their
cradle the happiest dispositions and the freshest minds. We believe that the cause of
our backwardness and ignorance is the lack of means of education. Rizal stated briefly
the aspect of the first laboratories of human knowledge.
The town in accordance to their importance, wealth, commerce and number of
inhabitants have one or two schools for boys and girls. Regularly, one school is
administered by the teachers for boys. If, there is no woman teacher, who is rare, the
school is for built sexes. He also described in this article the appearance of the school
house, also when the place destined for the school several towns, believing perchance
that, since knowledge occupies no space, teaching may well be done in the open air.

Education is limited more or less to the following:

The boys school, reading, writing, and the four principal arithmetical operations.
 In the girls schools, not: same subjects with some variation: sewing and
womans work in which they excel more than in any other thing.

Rizal also mentioned the deficiencies on the learning steps of the learners. They
only taught to read without using proper punctuations and read without understanding
the meaning of what they have read. And learn also with much ease the principal
arithmetical operations, but as they are never taught in a practical way, nor are they
given problems to solve in the majority of cases, the result is that they easily forget
them. Has the teacher forget and neglected his duties and responsibilities? Neither do
we believe so.

He also emphasizes that the backwardness of Philippines or the whipping boy of

everyone who has not studied or gone deep into the background of things are not to be
blame rather blame the defect and insensible system of education that, like a thick fog,
obscures the intellectual horizon, killing and drowning the most felicitous aptitudes. So
he encouraged his fellowmen to be educated in order to avoid ignorance. Therefore, we
need to give attention to what is ahead. Let us fulfil our duties and obligations to cure
and improve. Lets do for the generation that must follow us. The road is ours as the
present is ours, and if it is not given to us to reach the end, we may be sure of it. The
future will be ours; also the future full of blessings.
 REFLECTIONS ON THE PHILIPPINES AND THE FILIPINOS
Jose rizal

His awareness of evil that plagued Philippine society under Spain led him to write
deeply and extensively about them in order to call the attention of the peninsular
Spaniards to the cause which had made the Philippines a backward country. His novels
and essays are eloquent proof of his works as in faith in Spain. One note that in all his
works as in those Lopez Jeana, Marcelo H. del Pilar, and other reformist, the pervading
theme are not hatred of Spain and what she stood for, but contempt for the friars and
the transformation of the Philippine into a province of Spain.
The following selections, translated by Dr. Alzona, typify Rizal as a brilliant analyst:. The
irony in Reflection of a Filipino is equalled only in passage of Noli Me Tangere and El
Filibusterismo.

When rizal contemplate the present struggle between the religious corporations
and the advance groups of the his country, when he read the numerous writings
published by this and that group in defense of their ideas and ;principles, he prompted
to ask himself at times. He asked himself which party he should side. Is it to the friars or
to his countrymen? But because of the love of Rizal to his countrymen, he never leaves
them. Even if sometimes he imagined himself to be in side of the friars but he continue
to fight for the victory. What if he favours one of the groups and remains neutral? What
if all Filipinos will be hang and leave only friars and him to enjoy the country?; That
would be the best. But he will be the slave of all of them; he will be to work for them,
which would be worse.

He always cares for the next generation. Rizal saw how friars abuse the good
qualities of Filipinos described as humble, gentleman, and stupid because they are
always looking to the welfare of others before their selves. They thought that they are
always in slaves by the friars, that they have no right to have a freedom and Rizal wants
have an education unity among Filipinos to achieve victory in their native lands.
 RIZAL IN 21st CENTURY
The relevance of his ideas and texts
Cesar Adib Majul

Professor Constantino demonstrates how Rizal was an incisive critic and

commentator of his times. That his comments have cogency today reveals that the ills
of Filipino society have changed little from the time he wrote that the Filipinos today
have learned little and have not progressed much from their colonial past. Thus, an
acute problem in present day Filipino society is how to make sure characters fade away
and render Rizals criticisms of them a purely historical matter.

In brief, the task is to make Rizal obsolete (Constantino 1959). But this does not
simply mean that we must or will forget him. One professor reflects and concludes: on
the contrary, only when we have realized Rizals dream can we really appreciate this
greatness because only then will we realize the great value of his ideals.a
reorientation of our ways and of our thoughts along nationalistic lines will fulfil the dream
of Rizal and the same make them obsolete as goals because the dream will have
become the reality.

A main reason, among many others, why Rizals literacy works have generated
various schools of thought has to do with the nature and aims his analyses of social
problems;
First is the descriptive aspect dealing with facts both historical and contemporary.
Here, Rizal deals with what he considered individual and social problems.

The second is the prescriptive elements where Rizal propounds or at least

suggests solutions to the problems expounded in descriptive area.
 The third is the prescriptive aspect, which , in effect is an analysis of what may
not happen if and when the prescriptive elements is followed or not. Yet it is to be
noted that predict an event, it is not necessarily to profound or favour it.
 ANTI-FRIAR ATTITUDE OF RIZAL
(Excerpt, Rizal and Spain by Miguel Bernad S.J.)

The English word friar and its Spanish equivalent fraile are derived from the
latin word frater meaning brother . It is a term applied to certain religious orders
whose members are designated with the little brother. In the Philippine context of the
19th century with which we are dealing, the term friar had a clear and concrete meaning.
The word referred to the members of four religious orders namely Augustinians, the
Dominicans, the Franciscans, and the Augustinian Recollects.
So much for the meaning of friar.

The issue was the political and the economic power of the friars. In the Spanish
colonial administration the local parish priests held considerable political power. Not
only were the local officials very much under the parish priests power, but the fogging
by the priest of any individual us subversive could lead to that individual s vanishment
from his home to strengthened by the economic power deriving from the possession of
extensive agricultural lands. Thousands of Filipinos were tenant of Spanish friar land
owners and could be evicted by them. In such situation, any agitation agains Spanish
colonial power in the Philippines and any complaint against the abuses of colonial
administration were bound to involve agitation against the friars.

We come now to the import of Father Sanchezs letter. His point seems to be that
Rizal become inflamed against the friars because he was kept informed of the scandals
and abuses of the friars that were brought to light in the investigation made during
incumbency of Terrero, Centeno, Sainz and Quiroga. If that was what Father Sanchez
meant, and then he was clearly wrong, for Rizals anti-friar attitude antedated the
administration of these men. He had completed Noli Me Tangere by 1886, he had
written his first anti-friar article in 1884 and even before he left for Spain in 1882, he
already had anti-friar bias. His very departurefrom the Philippines was very much
influenced by his attitude towards friars. His attitude towards the friars must have been
colored by the experiences of his youth. The imprisonment of his mother must have
made an impression not easily erased nor could he have easily forgotten the fact that
his brother Paciano felt it necessary to drop out of the University of Santo Tomas in
1872 to avoid trouble with the friars and the fact Jose himself had to adopt the name
Rizal instead of Mercado nor did he forget his acquaintanceship with young people who
were the illegitimate children of friars. Those early impressions were later strengthened
by several ipainful experienced involving his family. One was an incident in Calamba
involving his father. Another one was the eviction of his family and some 300 other
families from their homes in Calamba and they become the tenant of their own land.

We cannot blame Jose Rizal for his anti-friar attitudes because as a true witness
of darkness, you feel such anguish things. Therefore, as an educated one we must love
our own country and protect it from the hands of the enemies and we must fight for what
is right.