ing this period won several prizes for poetical compositions
in Spanish, which, while sometimes juvenile in form and following
closely after Spanish models, reveal at times flashes of thought and
turns of expression that show distinct originality; even in these
early compositions there is that plaintive undertone, that minor
chord of sadness, which pervades all his poems, reaching its fullest
measure of pathos in the verses written in his death-cell. He received
a bachelor's degree according to the Spanish system in 1877, but
continued advanced studies in agriculture at the Ateneo, at the same
time that he was pursuing the course in philosophy in the Dominican
University of Santo Tomas, where in 1879 he startled the learned
doctors by a reference in a prize poem to the Philippines as his
"patria," fatherland. This political heresy on the part of a native
of the islands was given no very serious attention at the time, being
looked upon as the vagary of a schoolboy, but again in the following
year, by what seems a strange fatality, he stirred the resentment of
the friars, especially the Dominicans, by winning over some of their
number the first prize in a literary contest celebrated in honor of
the author of _Don Quixote_.

The archaic instruction in Santo Tomas soon disgusted him and led to
disagreements with the instructors, and he turned to Spain. Plans
for his journey and his stay there had to be made with the utmost
caution, for it would hardly have fared well with his family had
it become known that the son of a tenant on an estate which was a
part of the University endowment was studying in Europe. He reached
Spanish territory first in Barcelona, the hotbed of radicalism,
where he heard a good deal of revolutionary talk, which, however,
seems to have made but little impression upon him, for throughout
his entire career breadth of thought and strength of character are
revealed in his consistent opposition to all forms of violence.

In Madrid he pursued the courses in medicine and philosophy, but a
fact of even more consequence than his proficiency in his regular
work was his persistent study of languages and his omnivorous
reading. He was associated with the other Filipinos who were working
in a somewhat spectacular way, misdirected rather than led by what
may be styled the Spanish liberals, for more considerate treatment of
the Philippines. But while he was among them he was not of them, as
his studious habits an