Sangkusing

That same year, the acquisition of additional property in the same block enabled the Ateneo to offer boarding facilities.  In 1870, the first ten students to complete the secondary curriculum received the degree of Bachelor of Arts.  Two years later, a new boy entered who was later to make history, Jose Rizal.

The school made steady progress during the following decade, and in 1881 the student body consisted of 150 boarders and 500 day scholars.  Hitherto the superior of the Mission had also served as the rector of the Ateneo.  The two offices were now separated and Father Pablo Ramon was appointed rector.  During Father Ramon’s term of office, the curriculum was revised to bring it into closer conformity with the Jesuit “ratio studiorum”.  At the same time, a group of technical courses, which were being experimentally developed earlier to keep pace with the economic growth of the country received their final organization.  These were the courses in commerce, surveying, and industrial mechanics, in which the title of perito (expert) was conferred upon completion of one or two years supplementary to the basic college curriculum. 

An extensive building program was also completed during this period.  By 1883, the physical plant of the Ateneo consisted of a square 3-story structure occupying half a city block and enclosing two interior courts.  A church adjoining the mission house, begun in 1878, was completed in 1889 and dedicated to St. Ignatius.  It was planned and executed by Don Felix Rojas with the  assistance of Brother Francisco Riera.  The magnificent interior of Philippine hard woods was carved by native workmen.

RIZAL

In 1896, the revolution broke out.  The colonial government, panic-stricken, tried Jose Rizal on trumped-up charge of treason and shot him.  Rizal was no traitor, though he was prominent in the campaign for a reform of long-standing abuses in the administration of the Philippines.  He  began to take active part in this campaign when he went to Europe for further studies in medicine.  Unfortunately, political liberalism in the Spain of that period was practically identified with anti-clericalism, and during his sojourn there Rizal lost his Catholic faith.  However, his former Jesuit teachers at the Ateneo never gave up hope of winning him back.  On the eve of his execution their efforts in this direction were rewarded.  Rizal made a formal retraction of Masonry and received the sacraments.  Passing by his old school on his way to the firing squad he said, “I spent there the happiest years of my life.”

AMERICAN OCCUPATION

The course of events whereby the Revolution was interrupted by the Spanish-American War and the Philippines became a possession of the United States is well-known.  The American authorities decided to retain the Manila Observatory as a government institution, but to withdraw the government subsidy from the Escuela Normal and the Ateneo Municipal.  Accordingly, the Escuela Normal became a private college in 1901 and the Ateneo a year later.  To indicate this change, they were renamed Colegio de San Francisco Javier and Ateneo de Manila respectively.

One result of the transfer of sovereignty was that many Spanish priests working in the Philippines returned home.  Because of the dire need of Filipino priests to take their places, the archbishop of Manila requested the Society to transform the Colegio de San Francisco Javier into a seminary.  The request was granted.  The institution functioned as a seminary from 1905 to 1913, when the archdiocese was able to make other arrangements.  It then reverted to its former status as a college until 1915, when it was closed to enable the Society to take charge of the Apostolic Seminary of San Jose.

THE COLLEGE OF SAN JOSE  

The College of San Jose remained in existence even after the expulsion of the the Jesuits in 1768, as we have seen. It functioned first as a seminary for priests, then as a liberal arts college, and in 1835 it was incorporated into the Univesity of Santo Tomas as a school of medicine and pharmacy.  With the transfer of sovereignty from Spain to the United States, the question arose as to whether the endowment of San Jose, consisting chiefly of the San Pedro Tunasan and Lian Estates was the property of the state or of the Catholic Church.  In 1909 the Supreme Court of the Philippines decided in favor of the Catholic Church.  The following year, St. Pius X issued a brief returning the San Jose endowment to the Society of Jesus, to be used for the support of an apostolic seminary devoted to the training of secular priests.  The transfer of the college and its properties was not completed until 1915, when the Seminary of San Jose opened in the building formerly occupied by Escuela Manila and its successor, the Colegio de San Francisco Javier.  When the Ateneo de Manila buildings in Intramuros burned down in 1932, San Jose Seminary gave up the Padre Faura site to the college and moved, first to the old mission house then to the building of its own in the district of Balintawak.  When this was destroyed in the recapture of Manila in 1945, it transferred to another site in the same district, in Quezon City, where it is at present.

THE COLLEGE OF VIGAN

Another seminary entrusted to the Society during the American period was that of Vigan.  At the request of Bishop Dougherty, the Jesuits took charge of it in 1905 and continued to conduct it until 1924.  Besides teaching in the seminary, the fathers, Father John Thompkins in particular, under took considerable mission, retreat, and catechetical work in the diocese, thus helping to preserve the faith of the Ilocanos against the proselytizing activities of Protestant and Aglipayan ministers.

AN ARCHIPIELAGO FILIPINO

In 1901, Father Jose Algue, director of the Manila Observatory, saw through the press in Washington two large volumes and an atlas entitled El archipielago filipino, a valuable collection of scientific and anthropological data.  It was prepared by the Observatory staff with the assistance of other Jesuit fathers and was published at the expense of the U.S. government.  The status of the Observatory as the government weather bureau was confirmed by law the same year.

THE OBSERVATORY

Under the direction of Father Algue (1897 – 1926) and of his successor, Father Miguel Selga, the Observatory achieved international repute as a center of meterological, astronomical and seismic research.  The barocyclonometer designed by Father was used extensively by ships sailing in tropical waters until the advent of radio communication, and Father Charles Deppermann’s researches in the genesis and paths of typhoons constituted a distinct advance in the meteorology of the Pacific.

Less well know is the fact that the Observatory staff conducted research in other fields as well.  Father Robert Brown, continuing the entomological studies began by Father William Stanton, presented the Smithsonian Institution with specimens of one new genus and eleven new species of hymenoptera.  Father William Repetti, for many years chief of the seismic section, whose work in this field is known to seismologists and geologists, collected documentary material on the work of the Jesuits in the Philippines in his spare time, published several monographs on the subject, and was writing a full-scale history when failing eyesight obliged him to abandon the project.

The seizure by the Japanese Occupation Forces of the Observatory’s buildings, instruments, and records and their total destruction in the Battle of Manila in 1945 put an end to its meteorological work and hence to the status as the government weather bureau.  However it reopened at Mirador in Baguio City with Father Deppermann as director.  Seismic work was resumed with new instruments, ionosphere research was undertaken by Father James Hennessey, the present director, and solar research is now in progress under Father Richard Miller. 

NEW DEGREES AT THE ATENEO

Government recognition was extended to the Ateneo de Manila when in 1908 it was authorized to confer the degree of Bachelor of Arts and certificates in commerce, stenography, mechanics, electrical engineering, and topographic measurement.   The course in electrical engineering had been introduced the previous year at the suggestion of the Manila Electric Company.  English gradually replaced Spanish as the medium of instruction and adaptations were made to the American system of education as introduced in the public schools of the Islands, without sacrificing the basic education and methods of Jesuit education.  By 1914, the school had been reorganized into three departments; a department of elementary instruction consisting of three grades (infima, media and superior), corresponding to the three intermediate grades of the public-school system; a college department comprising six years of humanities and scientific studies, corresponding to the four-year high school and two-year college of the public school system; and a department of applied studies, in which courses were given in commerce, surveying, mechanics, and electricity.  Electives were: painting, music, stenography, typewriting and gymnastics.