Book Description

From the Preface. This compilation was suggested by Mrs. Carrie Stein Ledjard, of the Department of Modern Languages of the College of Agriculture, University of the Philippines. It seems to afford to the Filipino student of French essential rules clearly presented and varied reading involving a particularly wide and useful vocabulary. The subject matter is much more entertaining than the customary contents of such textbooks, and, besides, there is the inspiration and interest which attaches to its being the work of the Philippines' great hero. The first articles, or about half the material, are from a Rizal notebook recently brought to light, and were published in the magazine "Cultura Filipina" by the well known historical student, Hon. Epifanio de los Santos. The latter portion is from the so-called "Clinical notebook", which is in the Ayer Collection in Chicago, and the copy was made by Dr. Jose P. Bantug, now of the Philippines General Hospital, a zealous and active member of the Rizal Association formed by Filipino students who went to the States. The facsimiles, on pages 5 and 6, of Rizal's handwriting in French, English and German show his facility in those language, and the letter from which the two pages were reproduced had a rather curious history. During Dr. Rizal's deportation in Dapitan, from 1892 to 1896, all his correspondence was read by his "jailer", the military commandant in whose custody he was. This censorship at one time became so critical making the most stupid eliminations from his letters to and from friends, that the exile wrote the following tri-lingual letter to return some of the annoyance he had experienced. No one of the censors understood more than a single other European language beside his native Spanish so that it was necessary to send the suspicious letter to three different persons before its inoffensiveness was officially established. French, German and English had been the languages in which Rizal had made his higher studies, and they came as easily to his tongue or pen as did Spanish.