o their
repressive system with an attack upon Spanish sovereignty, thereby
dragging matters from bad to worse, to engender ill feeling and finally
desperation. This narrow, selfish policy had about as much soundness
in it as the idea upon which it was based, so often brought forward
with what looks very suspiciously like a specious effort to cover
mental indolence with a glittering generality, "that the Filipino is
only a grown-up child and needs a strong paternal government," an idea
which entirely overlooks the natural fact that when an impressionable
subject comes within the influence of a stronger force from a higher
civilization he is very likely to remain a child--perhaps a stunted
one--as long as he is treated as such. There is about as much sense
and justice in such logic as there would be in that of keeping a babe
confined in swaddling-bands and then blaming it for not knowing how to
walk. No creature will remain a healthy child forever, but, as Spain
learned to her bitter cost, will be very prone, as the parent grows
decrepit and it begins to feel its strength, to prove a troublesome
subject to handle, thereby reversing the natural law suggested by the
comparison, and bringing such Sancho-Panza statecraft to flounder at
last through as hopeless confusion to as absurd a conclusion as his
own island government.

Rizal was not one of those rabid, self-seeking revolutionists who
would merely overthrow the government and maintain the old system
with themselves in the privileged places of the former rulers, nor
is he to be classed among the misguided enthusiasts who by their
intemperate demands and immoderate conduct merely strengthen the
hands of those in power. He realized fully that the restrictions
under which the people had become accustomed to order their lives
should be removed gradually as they advanced under suitable guidance
and became capable of adjusting themselves to the new and better
conditions. They should take all the good offered, from any source,
especially that suited to their nature, which they could properly
assimilate. No great patience was ever exhibited by him toward those
of his countrymen--the most repulsive characters in his stories are
such--who would make of themselves mere apes and mimes, decorating
themselves with a veneer of questionable alien characteristics, but
with no personality or stability of their own, presenting at best
a spectacle to make devils laugh and angels weep, lack