RIZAL The Man and The Hero
RIZAL The Man and The Hero
RIZAL The Man and The Hero
JULIE F. ESTOPACE
BSA-IV
Jose Rizal, Not a Superman
Rizal was not a “born angel”.
More than once in Europe, when letters arrived telling of
atrocities against his family in Calamba, he was heard to swear
with anger.
Against his background it is remarkable that he at last
conquered the last vestiges of hatred, so that “ while he
resented the wrong of his people with towering indignation, he
viewed his own with an astonishing calm.
It is a mistake also to call him a “super mind”.
Jose Rizal: The Learned Man
Very Early he began to believed that the hope of his
country is education.
Rizal’s entire life was devoted to an educational program.
During the years of Propaganda in Europe he studied
prodigiously and inspired other young propagandist to
follow his example. That is the finest type of educator–
the man who studies with his students, so that one
hardly knows which is pupil and which is teacher, friends
in quest of the truth!.
Rizal and his friends were all studying with an intense purpose.
Their project was to find out what they could do for their
country.
When fiction seemed the channel for the education of his
country, Rizal employed that channel and became the author of
two great novels.
Rizal was himself the finest possible example of the fact that a
man teaches most by what he is.
“what he did to transform Dapitan by the cooperation of his
neighbors, introducing new ideas in agriculture, machinery, health
sanitation, and town beautification, is now, forty years later, being
called “the newest idea on education”.
Jose Rizal: The Scientist
He plunged into Sociology and Ethnology knowing that the
Filipinos had been grossly underestimated by Spain.
Dr. Ferdinand Blumentrit – Regarded Rizal as his own son.
Dr. Rudolph Virchow(greatest scientist, philosopher and
democrat of Berlin) became his friend.
Professor Fredrich Ratzel- A great historian and another intimate
friend of Rizal, wrote a long glowing tribute to his scholarship.
Dr. A.B Meyer- collaborated with Rizal and Blumentrit in
annotating a Chinese Codicil of the Middle Ages.
Dr. L de Wecker – is the leading oculist of France, found in Dr.
Jose Rizal a colleague and close friend, as did the German Dr.
Schuler.
He plunged into languages because he wanted to read what
the greatest minds in all tongues had to offer.
He was more interested in human life than in any other,
because here he found a great wrong that need to be righted.
“Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”
Rizal was eye-minded. Birds, plants and insects—all life–
interest him.
Jose Rizal: The
Reformer
Rizal was to the Philippines what the reformers like Girolamo
were to the reformation in Europe.
It became necessary for Rizal and the other real students
among the Filipino exiles in Europe to study theology and the
history of the church in an endeavor to discover an answer to
their religious and Church problems.
It was not Rizal’s liberal views that got him into trouble, nor
anything he ever said against Spain, but his frank
condemnation of the friars.
Governor General Despujol said Rizal made “attacks on the
monastic orders, and more or less casuistically wishes to
believe that this is compatible in the Philippines with respect
towards the Catholic faith.”
Rizal did not wish to separate from the Catholic Church. He
wanted to be the kind of Catholic whose mind was free to
follow his own reason.
Jose Rizal: The
Athlete
From child his shoulders were high as his chest narrow, with
a tendency to sickliness. He corrected this in the gymnasium
and by fencing half hour everyday.
He was nervous temperament with a trembling hand, so he
practiced shooting to stead his hand until he became number
one among the Filipinos in Europe.
After his visit to Japan, where he studied Jujitsu, he practiced
at Japanese exercises everyday.
Jose Rizal’s Methodical
Habits
From his days in the Ateneo, Rizal planned out every activity
of his day and then stuck to his plan.
Whenever he was and whatever his aim, in any country he
visited, the first thing he did was to make schedule of his time
and fasten this to the edge of his bed. He obeyed his
schedules with the regularity of a machine, not only for a day
or a month or a year, but all his life.
“such was his punctuality and his enthusiasm for study that
he would abandon any ceremony, no matter how important it
might be, if the hour he had previously arranged had arrived,
and go home to his books.-Tomas Arejola.
Jose Rizal: A Man of
Morality
The men who knew him best are most emphatic in saying
that he lived “the noblest, cleanest life of his generation.
He made himself a certain rules of conduct…”
Dr. Baldomero Roxas says that Rizal’s friend could depend
upon his word better than upon the oath of other men. “If
Rizal says a thing, it is as good as done.”
“ I do not think Rizal would be popular if he lived now.”
“He was too Puritanical, too much of a rigid
disciplinarian for our day. We all admired his severe
self-discipline.”
Rizal in his all life never broke a Promise! No man on
earth could persuade him to do what he considered
dishonorable.
Jose Rizal’s Social Qualities