Note 16 — Chapter II · SCHOOL-DAYS AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Before this discovery all the theory upon which Europe dominated any part of the Orient crumbled and vanished. There was no such thing, it did not exist, it was only fabrication and device. The brown man was not inferior; he was not deliberately shaped by the Creator to be the white man’s patient drudge. Put down side by side with an equal course before them, footing the same starting-line, the brown boy in school won to the goal as quickly and surely as the white. And only as quickly and surely? It seemed to Rizal, after a time, taking careful note, that the brown boy was in every trial heat the nimbler and wiser.16 As, for example, here was all the instruction in this school given in Spanish, the white boy’s native tongue, but all alien to the brown boy. So, then, the brown boy must needs compass the language in which the instruction was conveyed as well as the instruction given therein. Yet, even so, handicapped by this and no less by universal contempt and disparagement, behold him winning at least as many prizes as the Spaniard, at least as proficient, diligent, capable.