Teodoro M. Kalaw: Aide-de-Camp to Freedom
This book is about the life of Teodoro M. Kalaw and his experience as a journalist, public servant, and historian. He earnestly defended the Filipinos and the “Filipino Soul” in his various publications and was called in diverse domains of service in which he was severely praised. A certain publication organ called The Citizen said:
What he is and what he has attained are all due to his own effort and represent the best reward for merit and worth. Unaided by family or financial influence, by sheer force of industry coupled with ability, he has scaled the heights of success. (p. 137)
Kalaw was born on 1884 in Lipa, Batangas and was from a middle class family. He even said that, “The poor, and we of the middle class, contented ourselves with just watching them (sons of the wealthy class) quietly from the sidewalks” (p. 1). During that time, his family name was spelled as Calao, a hispanicized version of the Tagalog word. He was a sickly boy until the age of seven and that became the reason why his parents took special care him (p. 3)
Kalaw was enrolled in the Escuela Pia in which he stated, “I learned there my first alphabets. My first teacher was my uncle-in-law, tall, very fat, but withal well built (p. 5). He was then transferred to the school of Don Sebastian Virrey to learn Latin and even said the following:
In the classroom and out of it, even in the vicinity of the schoolhouse, we were allowed to speak only Latin and Spanish. Tagalog, never. Its use was forbidden and punishable by fines. (p. 6)
In 1897, he was sent to Manila to study, a journey delayed by one year because of the political turmoil caused by the activities of the Katipunan. He returned to Lipa to continue his studies at the prestigious Instituto Rizal, where he first began writing by contributing poems, essays, and short stories to the student paper. “I finished my fourth year course with first honors, to the great joy of my parents and other relatives”, he supposed. He was then
What he is and what he has attained are all due to his own effort and represent the best reward for merit and worth. Unaided by family or financial influence, by sheer force of industry coupled with ability, he has scaled the heights of success. (p. 137)
Kalaw was born on 1884 in Lipa, Batangas and was from a middle class family. He even said that, “The poor, and we of the middle class, contented ourselves with just watching them (sons of the wealthy class) quietly from the sidewalks” (p. 1). During that time, his family name was spelled as Calao, a hispanicized version of the Tagalog word. He was a sickly boy until the age of seven and that became the reason why his parents took special care him (p. 3)
Kalaw was enrolled in the Escuela Pia in which he stated, “I learned there my first alphabets. My first teacher was my uncle-in-law, tall, very fat, but withal well built (p. 5). He was then transferred to the school of Don Sebastian Virrey to learn Latin and even said the following:
In the classroom and out of it, even in the vicinity of the schoolhouse, we were allowed to speak only Latin and Spanish. Tagalog, never. Its use was forbidden and punishable by fines. (p. 6)
In 1897, he was sent to Manila to study, a journey delayed by one year because of the political turmoil caused by the activities of the Katipunan. He returned to Lipa to continue his studies at the prestigious Instituto Rizal, where he first began writing by contributing poems, essays, and short stories to the student paper. “I finished my fourth year course with first honors, to the great joy of my parents and other relatives”, he supposed. He was then