Let's Talk About:

Chapter 4
Rizal at the University of Santo
Tomas (1877-1882)
 After Jose completed his
education at the Ateneo, his
mother wanted him to return
home and look after the family
business. According to her, Jose
had learned enough. She feared
for his safety as she knew what
happened to the Filipino
intellectuals of 1872.
• Three Filipino priests, fathers Gomes, Burgos and
Zamora were garroted while scores of others like Fr.
Toribio del Pilar, Jose Ma. Basa, Antonio Ma. Regidor,
and Balbino Mauricio were exiled and condemned
never to return to their native land.
• Doña Teodora feared that with additional knowledge,
the Spanish authorities might cut off Jose's head.
• In April 1877, Jose, then 16 years old, enrolled at the
University of Santo Tomas taking Philosophy and
Letters
• Jose was still unsure of what course to take but his
father liked it and Jose himself was inclined towards
the arts. He tried to seek guidance from the priests
at the Ateneo, especially Fr. Pablo Ramon for
guidance but since the priest was in Mindanao, he
was left to decide for himself
• Other Atenean professors suggested that he took up
priesthood or farming. Jose considered going into
literature, medicine or law.
• For his first term in 1877-1878, Jose studied at the
philosophy program taking up cosmology,
metaphysics, theodicy and the history of philosophy
• In the following term in 1878-1879, Jose decided to
shift to medicine. His decision was prompted by his
desire to cure his mother's failing eyesight and Fr.
Ramon wrote back advising Jose to take up medicine
• While studying at the university, Jose returned to the
Ateneo in 1877- 1878 to take up land surveying
course which was then a vocational course.
• He completed the surveyor's course and was awarded the
title of perito agrimensor.

• He passed the final examination for the course. However,

Jose could not practice the surveyor's profession since at
the age of 17, he was underaged. He was issued the
certificate on November 25, 1881.
 • Even as a student in the University of Santo Tomas
Jose frequent visited his old school at the Ateneo.
Aside from attending the surveyor class there he was
still active in the Ateneo's extracurricular scene. He
was president of the Academy of Spanish Literature
and continued h membership in the Marian
Congregation where he held the post of secretary
• THE THOMASIAN STUDENT
As a student at the University of Santo Tomas, Jose's
academic performance paled with that in the Ateneo.
Though he garnered some excellent grades there were
some lower grades. His scholastic records a the university
were the following:
1877-1878
Preparatory Course of Theology and Law

• Cosmology • Sobresaliente
• Metaphysics • Sobresaliente
• Theodicy • Sobresaliente
• History of Philosophy • Sobresaliente

1878-1879
Preparatory Course of
Medicine
• Advanced Physics • Aprovechado (Very good)
• Advanced Chemistry • Sobresaliente
• Advanced Natural History • Aprovechado
 First Year of Medicine
• General Anatomy and Histology I • Bueno (Good)
• Descriptive Anatomy I • Bueno
• Exercises of Osteology and Dissection • Bueno

1879-1880

Second Year of Medicine

• General Anatomy and Histology II • Bueno
• Descriptive Anatomy II • Bueno
• Exercises of Dissection • Bueno
• Physiology, Private and Public • Bueno
Hygiene
 1880-1881
Third Year of Medicine
• General Pathology, Its Clinic and Pathologic • Aprobado (Passed)
Histology • Sobresaliente
• Therapeutics, Medical Matter and the Art of • Bueno
Prescribing
• Surgical Anatomy, Operations, External Medical
1881-1882
Applications and Bandages
Fourth Year of Medicine
• Medical Pathology • Notable (Very Good)
• Surgical Pathology • Notable
• Obstetrics, Sicknesses of Women and Children • Notable
• Siphilography • Notable
• All in all, Rizal took twenty-one subjects at the University of
Santo Tomas. He garnered one "passing" grade, eight "good"
grades, six "very good grades, and six "excellent" grades.
Most students would have been satisfied with such grades
and Rizal never said or wrote anything complaining about his
grades in the university.
• On the other hand, many of Rizal's biographers from
Wenceslao Retana to Austin Coates to Gregorio Zaide to
Carlito Garcia chorused that Rizal's low grades were the
result of racial discrimination and bigotry; that the
Dominican professors were hostile to him and that he was
not given a full education in the Dominican institution
• Zaide wrote that Filipino students were "racially
discriminated" in the university and that there was an
excessive harping of the intellectual superiority of the
• Spaniards over the
On the contrary theIndios.
Dominican university favored Rizal
instead of discriminating him. He was granted by the
university the rare privilege of studying simultaneously the
Preparatory Course of Medicine and the First Year of
• Medicine.
Rizal's biographers made use of the chapter Class in Physics in
the El Filibusterismo in illustrating the arrogance of Dominican
professors and that students were not given the opportunity to
use the scientific apparatuses which were just placed in the
cabinets for the visitors to see. This allegation was far from the
truth and students were actually allowed to use such
instruments.
• As for the arrogance of some professors, there was at least one
incident in which a professor named Jose Franco threatened to
fail an entire class of which Rizal was a part over an argument
in a lesson. The professor however did not make good his
threat and Rizal passed his subject (based on the research of Fr.
Villarroel). The chapter of Placido Penitente was entirely fiction
and has no basis in fact.
• If there was discrimination in Rizal's class all the Spanish
students would have passed. During the first year of Medicine,
Rizal's class had 24 students. Due to academic failures and for
other reason, seventeen students have dropped out. Only
seven managed to take the final examinations. Rizal landed
behind Cornelio Mapa
• In the first year of the course, there were six Spaniards
enrolled with Rizal. These consisted of three peninsulars and
three Philippine-born Spaniards. If the Dominicans
discriminated against the Filipinos, these six Spaniards would
have passed the entire course.
• By the time Rizal reached his fourth year, only one Spanish
student, Jose Resurreccion y Padilla remained. He was able to
get a rating of aprobado. In the following year after Rizal left
the university, Ressureccion received the grade of suspenso or
failed .
• Rizal's not so stellar grades while studying at the University of
Santo Tomas could be attributed to other causes. Compared to
the Ateneo where Jose was an interno in his latter years, Jose
was an externo or a living-out student when he was studying at
the university.
• There were also various distractions around Jose. As said
earlier he was still active in extracurricular activities in the
Ateneo. It was also Inevitable that he became involved with
groups of boys his age.
• Among these groups was El Compañerismo (The Comradeship). El
Compañerismo was inspired by Alexander Dumas' Three
Musketeers. It was a group formed by students for mutual
companionship and support. Its leaders were Rizal who served as
its president, and Galicano Apacible who was its secretary.
• Its other members were Vicente Gella and Rizal's other
boardmates at the Casa Tomasiana. The group's members
called themselves Compañeros de Jehu which was also
inspired by another of Dumas' novel Les Compagnons de Jehu.

• The novel was about a group of French aristocrats who

resisted the French Revolution. They wanted to restore King
Louis XVIII to the French throne The characters in the novel
got their inspiration from the Old Testament
• According to author Frank Laubach, members of El
Compañerismo figured in clashes with the Spanish students.
Clashes took place not only in Intramuros but also in Escolta in
Binondo. Rizal was reportedly involved in some of the clashes as
he was an expert in fencing and wrestling.
• After Rizal left the Philippines for Spain in 1882, the group went out
of existence, however, its members continued to write to each
other. Vicente Gella wrote to Rizal that he would follow all his
advice and that there's great satisfaction in everything he said.
• Another source of distraction for Jose was the attraction of the
opposite sex. After recovering from the loss of Segunda Katigbak,
Jose courted a a young woman whom he hid under the name of
"Miss L." He describe her as "fair with seductive and attractive
eyes."
• After visiting her house several times, he stopped wooing her
and his romance ended.
• Nobody know who Miss L was as Jose never gave her name. Jose
later gave reasons for stopping his liaison: the girl's father
objected to their relationship and the memory of his romance
with Segunda Katigbak was still strong.
• When he was in his second year as a student in the
university, Jose boarded in the house of Señora
Concepcion Leyva, one of the richest women in
Intramuros. His landlady's neighbors were Capitan Juan
Valenzuela and his wife. The couple had a charming
• daughter named
Jose was often Leonor.
invited at the parties held by the
Valenzuelas. He entertained the guests with his clever
sleight of hand tricks Later Jose began courting Leonor.
• The girl was almost as tall as Jose himself and had a regal bearing.
He called her "Orang" and he excharged letters with her using
water saturated with table salt as ink. The contents of the letter
revealed themselves when passed over a candle. Jose stopped
short of proposing to Leonor.
• Jose's next love was another young girl named Leonor
Rivera. Leonor hailed from Camiling, Tarlac and was six years
younger than Jose being born on April 11, 1867. In 1879, Jose
lived at the Casa Tomasiana which was managed by Leonor's
father, Antonio.
• Leonor then was a student at La Concordia. Jose described
her as "a frail, beautiful girl, tender as a budding flower with
kind beautiful eyes." Romance bloomed between the two,
who tried to hide their intimate relationship from relatives
and friends.
• Often the couple wrote to each other in code with Leonor
writing her name as Taimis. Leonor's mother objected to the
relationship and later hindered the romance.
• According to the university records, there was no
discrimination against Rizal and the Filipino students. On the
other hand, it gave him the opportunity to win top prizes in
literary contests especially in the Liceo Artistico Literario de
Manila in 1879. For the contest Jose submitted a poem
entitled A La Juventud Filipina (To the Filipino Youth).
• The poem won first prize in the contest and Rizal was
awarded a silver quill for his prowess in poetry. The poem
became known for its immortal words when it referred to the
youth as the fair hope of the motherland (la bella esperanza
de la patria mia the fair hope of my country).
• It was Jose's display of patriotism since his first poem Sa Aking mga
Kabata and this was done without the help of his mentor Fr.
Sanchez who guided and inspired him in writing poems. Far from
being a victim of discrimination, one can see the true Rizal as a
student at the University of Santo Tomas
• Jose continued to win top prizes in literary contests while in the
university. In 1880, the Liceo Artistico Literario held a contest
commemorating the 400th death anniversary of Spain's national
poet, Miguel de Cervantes. It was participated in by members of
the Spanish community which included newspapermen, priests,
and professors.
• Jose joined the competition with his entry entitled El Consejo de los
Dioses. It was a play written in praise of Spain's national poet
Miguel de Cervantes in which Jose made him being a coequal of
Homer and Virgil. The jury which was composed of Spaniards
awarded Jose the grand prize.
 • The Castillian community howled in protest. Nevertheless the
Board of Judges of the contest stood firm on their decision and
awarded Jose the grand prize consisting of a gold ring on which
there was an engraved bust of Cervantes.
• The second prize went to a Spaniard named D. N. del Puzo. In
awarding the highest prize the Board declared:

"The idea and the plot of the work are of great originality to
which should be added the circumstances that throughout the
same shine to the utfood correct style, an admirable richness of
details, delicacy of thought and figures and lastly, a taste so
Hellenic that the reader imagines himself relilang delicious
passage of Homer with such frequency the Olympic sessions
describe (sic) to us in their (sic) works."
• When the prize was finally awarded to Jose there was
practically silence. It was the first time a Filipino excelled
in that national literary contest beating the best Spanish
writers of the Philippines at that time. Jose did not lost
heart but was able to prove that the Filipinos were not
racially Inferior to the Spaniands as long as there was a
level playing field and all people were given the same
opportunities.
• Also in 1880, Jose wrote a one-act play entitled Junto al
Pasig at the request of the Jesuits and it was staged at the
Ateneo on the occasion of the feast day of the Immaculate
Concepcion.
• Other literary works while Jose was a student at the
university was a sonnet entitled A Filipinas in which he
urged Filipino artists to glorify the country through their
works.
• Earlier in 1879, he composed a poem entitled Ald el-Aziz y
Mahoma which was declaimed by Manuel Fernandez. In
1881 he produced a poem in honor of the Rector of
Ateneo, Fr. Pablo Ramon entitled Al M. R. P. Pablo Ramen
(To the Most Reverend Fr. Pablo Ramon) who provided him
with valuable advice and assistance even when he was no
longer in the Ateneo.
DECISION TO CONTINUE STUDIES IN
SPAIN
• After completing his fourth year of medical studies at the
University of Santo Tomas, Jose decided to finish his
education abroad. Rizal's biographers attributed Rizal's
decision to study abroad to discrimination and bigotry in the
University of Santo Tomas. This has been disproven earlier in
this chapter
• His decision to go abroad was clouded with suspicion. During
his first year of medical studies at the university Jose was a
victim of Spanish brutality while vacationing in Calamba he
passed by a Spanish civil guard Lieutenant.
• During those days, it was customary for citizens to salute of
greet such officials.

• One night, since it was already dark, Jose failed to notice the
official and the latter seeing the disrespect not accorded to
his status took out his whip and started hitting Rizal Jose had
seen similar incidents before during his childhood.
• In 1881, the Dominicans leased to lim additional lands in
barrio Pansol near Los Baños to support all his sisters in case
Don Francisco passed away.
• No rent was to be paid to the Dominicans for five years
and during that time Paciano gathered very good harvests.
The second reason was there was no really such blacklist.
• The best possible reason why Rizal left for abroad was to
widen his knowledge and compare the greatness and
progress of the cultured nations of the world with the slow,
monotonous and retrograde march of the colony.
• A second reason was to avail of more conducive conditions
in Europe. Medical education at the University of Santo
Tomas was relatively new having started only in 1871 and
the worsening eye condition of his mother only prompted
him to push through with his decision.
• In Europe, Rizal made a name for himself in research and
propaganda work without the fear of retaliation. He availed
of Europe's free society in organizing patriotic Filipinos to
work for reforms for the Philippines. When reforms were
given by Spain, it is highly possible that Rizal and fellow
ilustrados would represent the Philippines in the Spanish
• Cortes.
Rizal's decision to leave for Spain had the blessings of his
brother Paciano and his uncle Antonio Rivera, Leonor's
father.
• He would also have to leave his sweetheart Leonor to
whom he did not even say that he was leaving the country.
He was afraid that she might not be able to keep a secret.
• During vacation time in 1882, Jose with the assistance of
Paciano secured the endorsement of Pedro Paterno, one of
the prominent citizens of Manila, to introduce Jose to his
friends in Spain. Later Jose visited the Jesuit fathers at the
Ateneo and secured similar letters of introduction.

• On May 3, 1882, Jose left on the vessel Salvadora on the

first leg of his trip to Spain. This opens the way to the
important phase of his nationalistic work in exposing and
fighting not only Spanish tyranny but also the
complacency divisiveness of his fellow countrymen.
Thank
You