Santo Tomas at Manila
Concepcion, M de Gracia
SANTO TOMAS AT MANILA By M. DE GRACIA CONCEPCION IN THE old days, students of physics at Santo Tomas were merely required to memorize the rules and principles, while the shining laboratory devices...
...The turn had come for the state institutions-to stand their own grounds...
...Father Jose Burgos, for instance, and Jose Rizal...
...Many of these won glory, Apolinario Mabini being the foremost example...
...Lay scholars and professors occupy the chairs in the faculties of civil law, medicine and pharmacy...
...Founded in 1601, Santo Tomas received the coveted royal and papal decrees in 1645, thus elevating its curriculum to the stature of a university...
...They were immersed in the arts, and ankle-deep in the sciences...
...It possesses a splendid museum of natural history which comprises over ten thousand zoological specimens...
...The influx of Filipino students to Spain was greatest from that time on to the close of the Spanish government...
...They were taught the art of living but scarcely the practical application...
...And so in the past two years the Dominican fathers have-been building one of the most stately and best-equipped of universities in that part of the Orient...
...Clerical scholars have made their mark from the walls of Santo Tomas-Cabinet officers of His Majesty's government have been contributed as well as officers holding high commands in the Spanish army...
...Intellectual rewards were not to be denied them, even in Spain...
...Yet they were scholars in their way-strong for the past-for the classics, but knowing not of contemporary life...
...it was now of equal standing with any in Spain...
...In 1854 it assumed the full title of the Royal Pontifical University of Santo Tomas at Manila...
...In fact, it knew its greatest prosperity at the very time when hatreds were flying thick in revolutions...
...It further widened its scope of service...
...There has been no lack of thinkers and poets and writers in the Castilian tongue, whose works have elicited the recognition of the Spanish Royal Academy even when the sentiments they expressed were for the Islands...
...The maturity of the university had been reached...
...They abandoned their long siege of 325 years in the walled city and celebrated their new-found freedom by the dedication of a building...
...But the institution of coeducational methods in the public schools, high schools and the University of the Philippines, gave birth to a particular problem affecting Santo Tomas and other schools of long standing...
...This was due to the growing cleavage of interests between the governing class and the governed...
...But there was the so-called Philippine republic- and the university's alumni made it...
...There were opportunities even in those autocratic days for poor students to be capped and gowned...
...They needed fresh air and they got that by a magnificent campus...
...And in Spain these students were free...
...But in spite of all disturbances agitating the country, never did the university close its doors-not even for a day...
...Many were its sons who were banished, garroted and shot because of liberal tendencies and ideas...
...The professorial staff and assistants are drawn from the ranks of the clergy for the liberal arts and sciences...
...That dedication was made notable indeed by the breakings of traditions...
...By that time, it had grown immeasurably in the esteem of the country...
...For over three hundred years Santo Tomas was a university for men only...
...The university as it is now constituted, confers doctorates in theology, philosophy, civil and canon law, literature and science, medicine and pharmacy...
...And what was stranger still was the eminent part played by these sons of the university in keeping law and order over the whole of the Philippine Archipelago when there was no Spanish government and neither was there an American government...
...The public schools and the University of the Philippines must be included in this category-began to draw the sons and the daughters of the best families...
...Santo Tomas threw open its doors for the admission of women within its classrooms for the first time in its history, and for the first time also in the experience of any of the university's grey-haired doctors, a woman addressed them in the language of Castile.of Castile...
...Although there has always been a barrier between the so-called Peninsulars and Filipinos, the latter were not deterred from attendance...
...SANTO TOMAS AT MANILA By M. DE GRACIA CONCEPCION IN THE old days, students of physics at Santo Tomas were merely required to memorize the rules and principles, while the shining laboratory devices were to be seen only as objects of admiration...
...because they cried for justice...
Vol. 11 • February 1930 • No. 15
