FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120  
121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   >>   >|  
her husband's position had given her the entree. On Sundays Rizal fenced at Juan Luna's house with his distinguished artist-countryman, or, while the latter was engaged with Ventura, watched their play. It was on one of these afternoons that the Tagalog story of "The Monkey and the Tortoise"[2] was hastily sketched as a joke to fill the remaining pages of Mrs. Luna's autograph album, in which she had been insisting Rizal must write before all its space was used up. A comparison of the Tagalog version with a Japanese counterpart was published by Rizal in English, in Truebner's Magazine, suggesting that the two people may have had a common origin. This study received considerable attention from other ethnologists, and was among the topics at an ethnological conference. At times his antagonist was Miss Nellie Baustead, who had great skill with the foils. Her father, himself born in the Philippines, the son of a wealthy merchant of Singapore, had married a member of the Genato family of Manila. At their villa in Biarritz, and again in their home in Belgium, Rizal was a guest later, for Mr. Baustead had taken a great liking to him. The teaching instinct that led him to act as mentor to the Filipino students in Spain and made him the inspiration of a mutual improvement club of his young countrymen in London, suggested the foundation of a school in Paris. Later a Pampangan youth offered him $40,000 with which to found a Filipino college in Hongkong, where many young men from the Philippines had obtained an education better than their own land could afford but not entirely adapted to their needs. The scheme attracted Rizal, and a prospectus for such an institution which was later found among his papers not only proves how deeply he was interested, but reveals the fact that his ideas of education were essentially like those carried out in the present public-school course of instruction in the Philippines. Early in August of 1890 Rizal went to Madrid to seek redress for a wrong done his family by the notorious General Weyler, the "Butcher" of evil memory in Cuba, then Governor-General of the Philippines. Just as the mother's loss of liberty, years before, was caused by revengeful feelings on the part of an official because for one day she was obliged to omit a customary gift of horse feed, so the father's loss of land was caused by a revengeful official, and for quite as trivial a cause. Mr. Mercado was a great poultry
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120  
121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Philippines

 

General

 

family

 
Baustead
 
father
 

education

 
Filipino
 

revengeful

 

caused

 

official


school
 

Tagalog

 

offered

 

improvement

 

foundation

 
afford
 

adapted

 

suggested

 

London

 
prospectus

institution

 
countrymen
 

attracted

 

scheme

 

papers

 

college

 

Hongkong

 
mutual
 

Pampangan

 

obtained


inspiration

 

present

 

mother

 

liberty

 

feelings

 

Governor

 

Butcher

 

Weyler

 

memory

 

trivial


Mercado

 

poultry

 

obliged

 

customary

 

notorious

 

essentially

 
reveals
 

proves

 

deeply

 

interested