RIZAL

• Rizal's completion of Bachiller en Artes in Ateneo Municipal entitled him for admission to higher studies at a university.
• He was sent to UST by his father despite his mother's opposition.
• Rizal was not certain as what course ot take up
• ended up enrolling Philosophy and Letters during his freshman year at UST for it was his father who wanted him to pursue the said course.
• He also enrolled

  surveying course ni Ateneo Municipal but was conferred the title on November 25, 1881.
• After his freshman year, he shifted to medicine, the course recommended to him by father Ramon Pablo.
• His academic performance at UST was not comparable with how he managed in Ateneo.
• He was unhappy at UST because the following factors:

  1. Hostility of the Dominicans professors to Rizal

  2. Racial discrimination against Filipino students

  3. Repressive method of instruction at UST
• There were also other factors of shi below par academic performance:

  1.Medicine not his real vocation

  2. Dissatisfaction with the Dominican

  system of education

  .3 The exciting distractions of youth
• Jose Rizal joined the literary contest sponsored by the Liceo Artistico Literario de Manila, an organization of art lovers in the city.
• Three of the best literary works of Rizal were: A La Juventud Filipina (To the Philippine Youth), El Consejo delos Dioses (The Council of the Gods), Junto Al Pasig (along the pasig)
• Rizal's first taste of Spanish brutality happened during his first summer vacation at Calamba after his freshman year at UST.
• After completing his fourth year in the medical course, Rizal decided to leave the country for Europe.
• Rizal's itinerary in going to Spain to continue his studies included the following: Singapore, Naples, Marseilles and Barcelona.
• Upon arriving in Barcelona, he started writing nationalistic articles.
• One of the first he wrote was entitled, Amor Patrio or Love of Country under the pseudonym, Laong Laan. This article si the nationalistic essay written in foreign soil.
• Rizal decided to move to Madrid, the capital city of Spain to enroll in the Central University of Madrid or Universidad Central de Madrid in 1882.
• He took up Philosophy and Letters and finished it in 1885 and Licentiate in Medicine in 1884.
• Despite of busy schedules, he took lessons in painting and sculpture and lessons too in English, French a n d German.
• His decision ot migrate into these two countries was due to his desire to specialize in Ophthalmology.
• was already 24 years old and a full-pledge surgeon when he went to Paris and he was accompanied by Maximo Viola who lent him money for the reproduction of his Noli MeTangere.
• IN France, he worked as an assistant at the eye clinic of Dr. Louis de Wecker for four months.
• He left Paris for Germany due ot its high cost of living which he couldn't cope with.
• At Germany, he was privileged to work at the eye hospital of the University of Heidelberg under the tutelage of Dr. Otto Becker.
• During his tour in Germany, he sent his first correspondence with Ferdinand Blumentritt who became his best friend.
• Dr. Feodor Jagor, the author of the book, Travels in the Philippines, which predicted the coming of the Americans into the Philippines.
• Rizal's motivation to write about the novel was b e c a u s e of Luna's Spolarium, Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe for this novel portrayed the brutalities committed by American slave-owners against their Negro slaves, a n d the anti-clerical novel authored by Eugene Sue - the Wandering Jew
• i z a l started writing the Noli Me Tangere ni 1884 while he was studying ni Europe. He completed half fo ti ni Madrid.
• The 1⁄4 was written ni Paris while the remaining 1⁄4 was written in Berlin, Germany on Feb.21, 1887
• The novel camee off the press on March 21,

  1887 with the financial assistance of Maximo Viola.
• it was banned in the country upon the recommendation of the Permanent Commission on Censorship.
• Those who unjustly lambasted and criticized Rizal and his novel, Noli included Fernando Vida, a Spanish Senator who described Rizal as native who condemned the novel as anti-Catholic, Protestant and socialist in

  orientation and learning.
• Another attack onthe

  novel c a m e from Vicente Barrantes. A Spanish academician who spent many years ni high posts of Philippine Administration.
• He described Rizal as a man of contradiction. nI the Philippines, F.r Salvador Font who issued official censure of the Noli tried to prevent the circulation of the novel by publishing a few copies of his report.
• A direct attack on the Noli came from F.r Jose Rodriquez who said that the novel si full of heresies, blasphemies, offensive amd injurious to the sacred hierarchy.
• Rizal, however, replied these attacks by F.r Rodriguez through the satirical pamphlet entitled, La Vision del Fray Rodriguez.
• In response to Father Salvador Font's attack of hte Noli, Rizal wrote a satirical essay entitled, Por Telefono.
• One of those who defended his novel was F.r Francisco Sanchez, Rizal's teacher in rhetoric at Ateneo
• but the greatest defense came from a Filipino priest, F.r Vicente Garcia who lambasted F.r Rodriguez's condemnation of the novel for its alleged blasphemy and heresy.
• Another defender of Rizal's

  Noli was Marcelo H. del Pilar who wrote a pamphlet entitled Caiigat Cayo in answer to F.r Rodriguez' pamphlet entitled Caiingat Cayo.