Anonymous asked: paano ba nag simola ang philippine education the revolution and the history........???????
Two components that played into the formation of national identity and consciousness. One was the rise of economic empowerment in the Philippines. This allowed Filipinos to travel, buy books, become self-sufficient and so forth. The other was education.
The rise of education and the exposure to enlightenment ideas (liberty, equality and brotherhood) awoke Filipinos to the potential of their state and the nature of their circumstances.
Remember, the Revolution began, not as a movement for independence, but as a movement for reform. As Filipinos became more aware of higher ideals and cognizant that they were not “inferior” (for lack of a better term) to the Spanish, they began to desire a change in circumstances.
To remove the Revolution from the Propaganda era (hearkening back to Luis Rodriguez Varela at the Creoles) is to excise the two most important events in our recent history from each other. The Revolution (despite what some have argued) did not spring up out of nowhere. It was the natural extension of the growth of national awareness of Filipinos.
Education played a part in the development of national awareness. This is best exemplified by the battle that occurred between the Jesuits and certain Spanish elements when the Jesuits wanted to establish a liberal arts school in the Philippines. The fear was that with the exposure to the philosophers of the 17th and 18th century the Filipinos would want reform and change. They were right.
There is a marvelous quote from Jose Rizal that speaks to this very point:
“The study of Poetry and Rhetoric had further refined my sentiments; Virgil, Horace, Cicero and other authors showed a new way which I could follow in the pursuit of one of my aspirations…My second year as a boarder in school [his fifth and last year at the Ateneo], which was similar to the previous year except that in a remarkable way there had developed in me patriotic sentiments as well as an exquisite sensibility, was spent studying the principles of Logic and Physics and composing poetry.”
By expanding education, albeit accidentally, the Spanish government gave rise to a new sense of nationalism, while giving Filipinos the tools with which to express their newfound beliefs and ideals. Ilustrado, while a term that we now erroneously connect to wealth, was actually meant to reflect the “enlightened” state of our Founding Fathers. It crossed socio-economic bounds and instead spoke to the level of education and awareness they had now achieved.
Without education, it is arguable (and I would argue) that the idea of nationalism and Filipinas would not have existed in the 19th century. It was the philosophical underpinnings of the 1896 and 1898 Revolutions that differentiated it from previous isolated insurrections against the Spanish. Education informed nationalism, nationalism drove the Propaganda and the Propaganda became the Revolution.
The following sources were helpful to me (as well as conversations with some historians and my own middling interpretations of history):
Nick Joaquin, Culture and History and A Question of Heroes
Father Schumacher, The Making of a Nation, “Higher Education and Nationalism” and The Propaganda Movement
Felice Sta. Maria, Visions of the Possible
Father Jose Arcilla, “Sueldo” and “Bayad”
These are just a few, by no means an exhaustive list, but a few of the works that have directly touched on the influence of education in the 19th century.
Thanks!
