by an ode in which he spoke of his patria. A
Tagalo had no native land, they contended--only a country.

At twenty Rizal finished his course at Manila, and a few months later
went to Madrid, where he speedily won the degrees of Ph.D. and M.D.;
then to Germany--taking here another degree, doing his work in the
new language, which he mastered as he went along; to Austria, where he
gained great skill as an oculist; to France, Italy, England--absorbing
the languages and literature of these countries, doing some fine
sculpture by way of diversion. But in all this he was single-minded;
he never lost the voice of his call; he felt more and more keenly
the contrast between the hard lot of his country and the freedom of
these lands, and he bore it ill that no one of them even knew about
her, and the cancer eating away her beauty and strength. At the end
of this period of study he settled in Berlin, and began his active
work for his country.

Four years of the socialism and license of the universities had not
distorted Rizal's political vision; he remained, as he had grown up,
an opportunist. Not then, nor at any time, did he think his country
ready for self-government. He saw as her best present good her
continued union to Spain, "through a stable policy based upon justice
and community of interests." He asked only for the reforms promised
again and again by the ministry, and as often frustrated. To plead for
the lifting of the hand of oppression from the necks of his people,
he now wrote his first novel, "Noli Me Tangere."

The next year he returned to the Philippines to find himself the
idol of the natives and a thorn in the flesh of friars and greedy
officials. The reading of his book was proscribed. He stayed long
enough to concern himself in a dispute of his townspeople with the
Dominicans over titles to lands; then finding his efforts vain and his
safety doubtful, he left for Japan. Here he pursued for some time his
usual studies; came thence to America, and then crossed to England,
where he made researches in the British Museum, and edited in Spanish,
"Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas," by Dr. Antonio de Morga, an important
work, neglected by the Spaniards, but already edited in English by
Dean Stanley.

After publishing this work, in Paris, Rizal returned to Spain, where,
in 1890, he began a series of brilliant pleas for the Philippines,
in the Solidaridad, a liberal journal published at Barcelona and
afterward at Mad