EARLY EDUCATION:

● Rizal had his early education in Calamba and Biñan.

● He was born and raised in an Ilustrado family and received a special type of education,
characterized by the four R’s- reading, writing, arithmetic, and religion.
● That time instruction was rigid and strict and the learning methods were used by force
compared to our way of learning nowadays.
● Despite all his struggles during the Spanish Regime, Rizal climbed his way to the college
stage.
● He has a weak physical stance and had rough education but still, he rose to become an
intellectual giant.

THE HERO’S FIRST TEACHER:

● Rizal’s mother, Teodora Alonso Realonda y Quintos was his first teacher who was a
remarkable woman of good character and fine culture.
● At the age of 3, she already taught Rizal the alphabet and the prayers.
● Doña Teodora was patient, conscientious, and understanding and later on discovered
Rizal’s talent for poetry.
● She encouraged him to write poems and help him every step of his way during his early
education.
● As Jose grew older, his parents employed private tutors to give him lessons at home.
● The first was Maestro Celestino and the second, Maestro Lucas Padua. Later, an old
man named Leon Monroy, a former classmate of Rizal’s father, became the boy’s tutor.
This old teacher lived at the Rizal home and instructed Jose in Spanish and Latin.
Unfortunately, he did not live long. He died five months later.

THE EARLY RELIGIOUS FORMATION

● Young Rizal was a religious boy. A scion of a Catholic clan, born and bred
in a wholesome atmosphere of Catholicism, and possessed of an inborn
spirit, Rizal grew up agood Catholic
● At the age of 3, he began to take part in the family prayers. When he was
five years old,he was able to read haltingly the family bible.
● He loved to go to church to pray, to take part in novenas, and to join
the religious processions. It is said that he was so seriously devout that
he was laughingly calledManong Jose by the Hermanos and
Hermanas Terceras.
● One of the men he esteemed and respected in Calamba during his
boyhood was thescholarly Father Leoncio Lopez, the town priest.
● On June 6, 1868, Jose and his father left for Calamba to go on a pilgrimage
● to Antipolo,in order to fulfill his mother’s vow which was made when
Rizal was born.
● It was the first trip of Jose across Laguna de Bay and his pilgrimage to Antipolo.
● He was thrilled, as a typical boy should, by his first lake voyage. He did
not sleep thewhole night as the casco sailed towards the Pasig River
because he was awed by “ the magnificence of the watery expanse and the silence of the night.
● After praying at the shrine of the Virgin of Antipolo, Jose and his father went to Manila.