Editors’ Note: Last April 3, 2024, we featured “The Daughters of Charity: Their Arrival in Bicol” based on the book “Recuerdos de mi Colegio” authored by noted Bicol historian, Danilo Madrid Gerona. Published by the Universidad de Sta. Isabel, the excerpts from book chronicle the momentous arrival of the Sisters in Manila on April 2, 1868, and in Pasacao in April 4, 1868. Thereafter, the Escuela-Colegio de Sta. Isabel was opened on April 12, 1868. For this article, we feature excerpts from the treatise by Bicol historian, Javier Leonardo V. Rugeria, which examine the role of Bishop Francisco Gainza played in the establishment of Escuela-Colegio de Sta. Isabel, now Universidad de Sta. Isabel, and its cultural significance to the Bicol Region. The article previously appeared in the 1st issue of Saysay: The Journal of Bikol History, 2021.
Abstract
The few existing historiography generally regard the establishment of the Escuela Colegio de Santa Isabel as one Francisco Gaínza’s greatest initiatives and accomplishments during his seventeen-year episcopacy in the Diocese of Cáceres. They argue that Santa Isabel forms part of the bishop’s ecclesiastical and educational legacies for Bikol. While these accounts underscore Gaínza’s role in the school’s foundation, they obscure his rationale and the wider backdrop of the Spanish Empire that conditioned its possibility. This article locates Gaínza and the establishment of Santa Isabel within Spain’s wider efforts to reorganize primary education in the Philippines in the 1860s. It argues that Santa Isabel was established to serve the purposes of Spain’s civilizing mission of Hispanizing the native population, and that Gaínza, an agent of the Spanish Empire by virtue of the Patronato Real (Royal Patronage) operated within this colonial discourse.
Introduction
In April 2018, the Universidad de Santa Isabel, the sole Vincentian university in the Bikol region and the first normal school for women in Southeast Asia, commemorated the sesquicentennial year of its foundation. In recognition of this milestone and the university’s significance in the history of Philippine education, the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) declared it a national historical landmark two months earlier on 26 February. Then known as the Escuela-Colegio de Santa Isabel and now regarded Bikol’s historical and heritage university, it was founded through the vision and initiative of the zealous Dominican missionary, Francisco Gaínza, bishop of the erstwhile Diocese of Cáceres from 1862 to 1879.
His vision for the Diocese of Cáceres preceded his arrival to its shores. On 5 March 1862, Isabella II named a 44-year-old Dominican missionary and professor of Canon Law at the Universidad de Santo Tomas in Francisco Caracciolo Ureta Vizcaya de Gaínza y Escobes to succeed Manuel Grijalvo, O.S.A. as bishop of Cáceres, which had been vacant since the latter’s demise on 13 November 1861. He was preconized by Pius IX on 25 September 1862 (Alarcon 2005, 626).
Francisco Gaínza and the Escuela-Colegio De Santa Isabel
A man of zeal and of many projects, Gaínza set into motion two significant educational reforms for the diocese even before he arrived: the redirection of its Seminario Conciliar and the establishment of a colegio–beaterio. While he awaited his consecration in Manila, he met with Fr. Gregorio Velasco, C.M., the Superior of the Congregatio Missionis (Congregation of the Mission) in the Philippines and briefed the latter of his plans for the diocese. He offered to the Vincentian fathers the administration of the instruction, the priestly formation, and day-to-day operations of the Seminario Conciliar and its “religious, scientific and temporal redirection” (Dela Goza and Cavanna 1985, 83). Gaínza also related to Velasco the thought of building a colegio–beaterio whose direction was to be placed under the care of the Sisters of Charity, who will provide a profoundly Christian education and will form teachers among the young women of the city and its environs. A “daring pursuit” (era una empreza atrevida) as the bishop later described it, the plan to establish a colegio-beaterio took several years more before it finally came to fruition (ibid.).
On 22 February 1863, Gaínza was consecrated to the episcopate by Manila Archbishop Gregorio Meliton Martinez, assisted by two Dominican priests in Fr. Justo Aguilar, the Apostolic Vicariate of Fujian, China, and Fr. Romualdo Jimeno, who was then bishop of Cebu (Alarcon 2005, 626). Before leaving for Nueva Cáceres, Gaínza and Jimeno wrote the Vincentian Visitor in Madrid, Fr. Ramon Sanz, C.M., a joint letter, requesting for priests to take over the direction and instruction of their respective diocesan seminaries. In a letter dated 2 March 1863, Gaínza and Jimeno wrote:
The undersigned Bishops of Cebu and Nueva [sic] Cáceres mail are desirous of organizing the Seminaries of their respective dioceses. They see the futility of the efforts done up to now, because of the lack of personnel, to whom the direction and education of the youth, who aspire to the dignity of the priesthood may be confided. They are firmly persuaded that zealous and illustrious corporation could attain great success in priestly training among the natives of these islands. These circumstances concur in favor of the corporation of St. Vincent de Paul, of which you are worthy superior. We have agreed in consultation with Fathers Velasco and Moral, to put before you the great service which you would give to our Religion, the State, and the country, by sending as soon as possible a Director, three or four professors and a couple of lay Brothers, so that we may hand over to them the religious, scientific, and temporal directions of these seedbeds of ministers of the Church (cited in Dela Goza and Cavanna 1985, 74).
The two Vincentians priests in Manila – Frs. Gregorio Velasco and Ildefonso Moral, who recently took over San Carlos Seminary – supported Bishop Gaínza and Jimeno’s request. They petitioned to Sanz to send more priests from Madrid so that the Vincentians can take over the seminaries in Cebu and Nueva Cáceres. Sanz, who was rather receptive of the proposal, replied: “As far as in me lies, you don’t have to doubt that I will help you by sending all the personnel I can dispose of, and I will see to it that they are the best in the Province” (ibid.). However, the reinforcements Velasco and Moral requested did not arrive immediately. Although aware that the Vincentians in Manila were undermanned, Gaínza, who was nevertheless resolute, kept requesting for missionaries for the seminary in the following months. His persistent efforts impelled Velasco and Moral, and two brothers, Gregorio Perez and Romualdo Lopez, to convene in January 1864. In the said meeting, they drafted a response to Gaínza’s request, which read:
The Council has determined to answer the Bishop of Camarines [sic] about his request for a priest and a Brother for the direction of the Seminary, there is no available personnel to take care of it. Sending one would be inadequate to achieve the desired end; it is impossible to even send priests there (ibid., 82).
Sanz approved the resolution and wrote Velasco and Moral that “it does not seem suitable for now that you take charge of the Seminario Concilia by dismembering the personnel in Manila” (ibid.). Since the congregation was undermanned, the realization of the plan had to wait. Gaínza had no other choice but to defer to Sanz and the Vincentian fathers in Manila.
Gaínza arrived at Nueva Cáceres on 19 March 1863, the feast of Joseph. Upon formally taking over the diocese, he had to postpone the idea of building the colegio-beaterio in favor of the turning over of the seminary to the Vincentian fathers. Writing in hindsight in 1877, he recalled that he had to prioritize the re-edification of the seminary and the Naga Cathedral, which both burned down months before the demise of his predecessor, Grijalvo (Gainza 1877, 6). He also directed his efforts to the shrine of Peñafrancia and later to the episcopal palace, which were both in a deplorable state (Alarcon 2006, 627-628). Gaínza (1877, 6) mused that “it was necessary to let the idea mature: give time to time and commence my episcopacy with the most urgent and most indispensable.” He knew that his vision for an all-girls school needed time and labor as it required “uniting the wills, obtaining the necessary permission from the government, to raise funds for the construction of the building, and to give the school a lasting life” (ibid., 3).
On 9 May 1865, Gaínza inaugurated the newly renovated seminary and formally handed over its temporal, scientific, and religious direction to the Vincentian fathers. He appointed Fr. Ildefonso Moral, C.M., the seminary’s Rector-Superior and concurrently as Chancellor of the Diocese. Two other priests and one brother from Madrid were also sent to Nueva Cáceres that year. They were Frs. Santiago Serrallonga, C.M. and Antonio Santonja, C.M., who became rector of the seminary in 1872, and Bro. Antonio del Rio, C.M. It was in the same occasion that the bishop “promulgated the Statutes of the seminary, which Gaínza himself authored” (Alarcon 2006, 628).
As soon as the seminary began its operations under the Vincentians and the restoration of the Cathedral was almost completed, Gaínza began working on the girls’ school he envisioned for his diocese. He directed his efforts to fixing a simple yet elegant building next to the Cathedral and near the episcopal palace (Gaínza 1877, 8). On 8 October 1866, he elevated the proposal to establish a colegio-beaterio to the Ministry of Overseas Colonies. He briefed the minister, Alejandro de Castro, on the absence of a diocesan, primary school for girls in Nueva Cáceres to wit:
Another diocesan establishment is missing, to whose classes all the girls of this city and immediate suburbs go to receive an education in harmony with the conditions of their sex, and with the high mission of women in the Islands, so that returning to their homes, they can carry the seeds of Christianly advanced civilization, for the improvement of their towns and for the good of their families. Today, this diocese is completely abandoned in this regard; the towns do not have gifted teachers, as there are in other provinces.
In the same letter, Gaínza requested de Castro to lobby to Isabella II the authorization and the funding of the travel expenses of five Sisters of Charity (Hermanas de Caridad), who, under the direction of the Vincentian fathers, will be administering Santa Isabel. At that time, Gaínza notes that the Provincial Visitor of the Sisters of Charity in Spain offered him some personnel who will administer the school. He requested de Castro to appropriate funds for the monthly budget of the Sisters, amounting to a hundred fifty pesos at most, and to subsidize the salaries of teachers and the purchase of supplies for the school. The bishop estimates that the latter to cost a thousand pesos at most. He assured the minister that the other costs of the school will be paid by the money saved from the students’ modest fees, so that the school will not be burdensome to the State (ibid., 8).
Finally, Gaínza (ibid.) forwarded to de Castro his proposed name for the school:
I dare to propose to your excellency (V.E.) that the diocesan Colegio of Nueva Cáceres be named Santa Isabel, so that it will remember in the future generations the name of a Queen, who is gladly obeyed by these loyal provinces, and at the same time another Isabel, who discarded her own jewelry to bring to the new world true civilization, founded on Christianity.
Gaínza proposed to name the colegio-beaterio after and in honor of two Isabels. The first is obviously Isabella II, who ruled Spain from 1833 until she was deposed by the Glorious Revolution in 1868. The other Isabel whom the bishop was referring to was Santa Isabel de Hungría, who was a queen herself but decided to leave her life of royalty to serve the poor. She is widely venerated in the Catholic Church as the patron of hospitals, children, widows, as well as the sick, homeless, and dying.
On 29 June 1867, on the eighteenth centenary of Saint Peter, Gaínza left for Rome for his ad limina visit, where he was admitted to the kind presence of Pope Pius IX (ibid., 10). In a pastoral letter, Gaínza (1868a, 5) related to the Cáceres clergy and their respective parishioners that he discussed with His Holiness the immediate needs of the diocese. The other purpose for his trip was to meet with Isabella II to discuss with her his plans for the proposed colegio-beaterio in his diocese. When they arrived at Madrid, the bishop was surprised with:
The warm welcome that her majesty and her august husband gave us during our stay; of the sweet satisfaction with which they heard the news of these Islands; the eager interest with which they asked interesting details, of the kind deference with which they promised us at first to accept our wishes, and the hasty kindness with which they later fulfilled it.
Gaínza’s proposed colegio-beaterio was well-received by the Queen. In a speech he delivered on 12 April 1868 on the occasion of the school’s inauguration, the bishop noted how the Queen “accepted the idea with marked complacency and without taking into account the distressing situation of the Treasury due to the calamities that struck the country, only giving rein to the generous sentiments of her kind heart” (Gaínza 1877, 19). Having considered the needs of the diocese, she granted “the erection of a Colegio, not so much for the education of the girls of the city and its neighboring towns, but for the formation of disciples among the boarding students (discípulas internas) and zealous teachers, who can spread the principles of a Christian education and of a sound and judicious enlightenment” (Gaínza 1868a, 7).
On 5 November 1867, Isabella II issued a decree creating the Escuela- Colegio de Santa Isabel (Gaínza 1868b, 9). It had four concise provisions; the first three read:
First. A primary school is created in the city of Nueva Cáceres, capital of the Diocese, and under the dedication of Santa Isabel, to which poor girls from the Diocese can attend to receive free education;
Second. Said school will be under the immediate inspection of the Reverend Bishop and the provisions of the Royal Decree of December 20, 1863;
Third. The staff of said school will be made up of six Sisters of Charity,19 with the annual salary of six hundred escudos each, assigning one thousand escudos for the maintenance of the building where the school is located, and for the replenishment of the necessary teaching materials.
By early January of the following year, Gaínza and the six founding sisters, Francisca Sales Montoya, the first superior of the Sisters of Charity in Nueva Cáceres, Rita Delome, Juana Morga, Crisologa Navarro, Antonia Novoa, and Ignacia Ostolazas, left for Manila, arriving there on 15 March 1868. They were joined by Vincentian and Dominican priests, most notably Mariano Cuartero, O.P. 21 who was recently consecrated bishop of the then nascent Diocese of Jaro (Uy 1984, 173). It took another month before Gainza and the sisters reached Nueva Cáceres, having arrived only on 4 April.
On 12 April 1868, the Escuela-Colegio de Santa Isabel finally opened its doors to students. There were 220 enrollees during the inaugural year 70 of them were boarding students (internas), who were from the affluent principalia families of Nueva Cáceres and Albay (Gaínza 1877, 26) and 150 day students (externas) (Bautista 1952, 17). A diocesan school, it maintained a dual character-a school of primary instruction for young girls (ñinas externas) and a college made up of boarding students training to become teachers (educandas internas) who will teach the students of the towns of the diocese (Gaínza 1868b, 9). Students admitted into Santa Isabel were further classified in three ways. The first classification was according to courses taken by students. There were the pupils of the primary school (colegialas), students pursuing general culture, and students training to become teachers (normalistas). The second is according to residence: the internas and externas. Finally, they were classified according to fees paid. There were the paying students or those supported by their families, students whose education is funded by their respective municipal governments, and those granted free education by Santa Isabel (Payo 1886, 39; Bazaco 1953, 270).
The Escuela-Colegio de Santa Isabel’s primary school for girls and normal school for teachers were two distinct and independent units governed by a different set of statutes and regulations on its programs of study, curriculum, academic policies, etc. Gaínza laid out the statutes of the primary school in the Estatutos in 1868 and of the normal school in the Reglamento Interino para la Escuela Normal de Maestras in 1875. The provisions herein were adopted from and therefore in accordance with the 20 December 1863 Decree and the Regulations of the Escuela Normal de Manila.
Santa Isabel’s primary school, as in the school annexed to the Escuela Normal de Manila, was composed of three levels: entrada (entrance), ascenso (promotion or intermediary), and termino (final). Its curriculum privileged the study of Castilian and basic Catholic doctrines. Students were required to study Spanish grammar and orthography, reading and writing, the Doctrina Cristiana, Principles of Morality, and Sacred History. They were also required to study Arithmetic, which covers a wide range of topics such as integers, fractions, decimals, weights, and measures; Rules of Courtesy (Reglas de Urbanidad); Music, which was essentially a voice lesson; and all kinds of work deemed suitable for women such as sewing, embroidery, and the like (Gaínza 1868b, 11). Morning classes typically began at seven in the morning and ended at ten, while afternoon classes began at half past two and ended at five. The schedule of the activities of boarding students during workdays (dias de labor) and holidays (dias de festivos) are detailed in table 1 (Gaínza 1868b, 24; 1877).
In Santa Isabel’s normal school, candidates to the teaching profession studied nine courses through three years. The academic year typically began on 1 July and ended on the feast of San Isidro Labrador on 15 May. Most of the prescribed courses in their curriculum were adopted, albeit not in toto, from their counterpart in Manila. Gaínza slightly modified some courses to suit the needs and the context of an exclusive school for women. The normalistas, i.e., students training to become teachers, of both Nueva Cáceres and Manila studied Religion, Morals, Sacred History, Spanish language, reading, writing, Arithmetic, Spanish Geography and History, Rules of Courtesy, and Elements of Pedagogy. The courses Geometry, Natural Sciences, and Music classes were not compulsory at Santa Isabel. The more noteworthy difference, however, were the sex- specific courses. In lieu of Practical Agriculture, domestic work was instead required for the students of Santa Isabel. The 1875 interim regulations of Santa Isabel’s normal school stipulated that students were taught in this course “all kinds of work suitable for women, especially those of common utility and application to domestic life, such as sewing, knitting, embroidering, cutting garments, ironing, and the like” (Malcampo 1875, 1218; Grifol 1894, 42).
Initially, Santa Isabel was only able to admit paying students, thereby keeping the number of internas (boarding students) relatively small. Gaínza (1877, 32) notes that in 1869, there were only 80 internas enrolled and that about 50 or 60 of them came from affluent families in the diocese. He believed that it was reasonable to assume that after they have completed their education, these students would “return to the bosom of their families and that few or none will dedicate themselves to the teaching profession because they simply do not need it” (ibid., 32-33). Aware of the growing need for competent teachers in his diocese, the bishop sought to formally elevate Santa Isabel into a normal school in order to request financial support from the Spanish government.
On 14 December 1869, Gaínza lobbied the idea to the liberal governor-general, Carlos María de la Torre y Navacerrada. He proposed a new scheme “to provide teachers to the towns of the Diocese and to apply on a large scale to Santa Isabel the measures adopted to train teachers at the Escuela Normal de Manila” (ibid., 33). First, Gaínza proposed that each of the 100 towns under his jurisdiction was to send to Santa Isabel a young woman, 16 to 20 years of age and of “impeccable conduct and aptitude;” they were to be chosen by the principalia and the parish priests of their respective towns (ibid.). They were to attend classes as an interna and train to become a teacher for two to four years. Upon completing their studies, they were to return to their towns to take charge of and teach at the town’s primary schools. Second, the bishop requested that the fees of these pensionadas (scholars) be shouldered by the town or province’s surplus fund. Gaínza specifically requested that the towns pay a small fee of six pesos every month or 72 pesos a year. He offered another option: if local governments could pay 100 pesos for their pensionada, the school would shoulder their expenses in school, particularly the materials needed for their classes. “If the education of the first batch is completed,” the bishop writes, “the operation is repeated, after a few years, each town will have a teacher and an assistant, who will ensure the education of girls for many years” (ibid.).24 Finally, Gaínza requested to increase the school’s personnel by adding two more to the six sisters Santa Isabel had at that time.
Gaínza did not receive a response from de la Torre until early January 1870, right before he left Manila for Cebu. In a letter dated 3 January 1870, the governor-general assured the bishop of the superior civil government’s full support and cooperation but did not necessarily address or approve the latter’s requests. Instead, he asked Gainza to present a draft regulation for the proposed normal school. Gaínza’s health, however, was in decline that year, so he sailed to Spain for treatment and was unable to work on the proposal. Exacerbating the situation was de la Torre’s departure on 4 April 1871 as he was replaced by the conservative Rafael de Izquierdo, who repealed most of the liberal policies the former had put in place. Gaínza’s proposal had been stalled.
With the political turmoil in Spain marked by volatile and vacillating governments, Gaínza’s petitions except one were approved by installments. On 11 January 1872, Amadeo I issued a royal decree elevating Santa Isabel to the status of a normal school for women (Bazaco 1953, 269). On 26 May 1873, three months after Amadeo’s abdication and the consequent establishment of the Primera Republica Española (First Spanish Republic), Juan Cristobal Sorni, who briefly served as Minister of Overseas Colonies from February to June 1873, issued “Orden del Poder Ejecutivo Autorizando a los Cien Pueblos de la Diocesis de Nueva Cáceres Para Mandar una Joven a la Escuela de Niñas de Dicha Ciudad para que Despues Pudiera Dirigir La Escuela De Su Respectivo Pueblo,” which authorized 100 towns under the Diocese of Cáceres to send a qualified young woman to Santa Isabel (Berriz 1887, 301; Grifol 1894, 34-35).
Sorni also granted Gaínza’s second request, directing municipal governments to appropriate funds for the fees and expenses of their rospective pensionadas. The bishop’s requested additional personnel, however, “will be resolved in due course…if there were no insurmountable difficulties in sending them from the Peninsula” (Bautista 1952, 35). Finally, on 19 June 1875, Governor-General José Malcampo issued a decree approving the interim regulations of the Escuela Normal de Maestras de Nueva Cáceres (see Berriz 1887, 304-318). This was published a few days later in Gaceta de Manila on 23 June 1875 (Malcampo 1875, 1218-1221).
Transcending Legacy Narratives: Gaínza and Spain’s Civilizing Mission
The few existing historiography on Francisco Gaínza and his seventeen- year episcopacy in Nueva Cáceres are in consensus that the establishment of the Escuela-Colegio de Santa Isabel is one of the bishop’s notable initiatives and accomplishments for the Diocese of Cáceres. To interpret Santa Isabel’s establishment in particular and Gaínza’s initiatives and accomplishments for the diocese in general as his ‘legacies’ is to treat Gaínza in isolation and to overlook the complexities of the motivations behind his initiatives. These accounts fail to situate the bishop and his initiatives against the backdrop of Spain’s colonial agenda in the Philippines in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Bereft of historical context, they obscure more than explain what impelled the bishop to establish Santa Isabel. Thus, a more nuanced take transcending these ‘legacy’ narratives is in order. When seen against the wider purview of Spain’s efforts to reorganize education in the Philippines and their civilizing mission to Hispanize the native population, evidence suggests that the establishment of Santa Isabel was less of an end in itself than a means towards Spain’s colonial end.
The establishment of the Escuela-Colegio de Santa Isabel constituted Spain’s efforts to reorganize primary instruction and establish normal schools in the Philippines. The 5 November 1867 decree specifically states that the school’s establishment was in view of Isabella II’s Educational Decree of 1863, which mandated the creation of schools of primary instruction in every town and province in the Philippines and whose provisions governed Santa Isabel (Gaínza 1877, 13-14). The decree allowed Gaínza and the Sisters of Charity to detail its special regulations (Grifol 1894, 7) and to define its objectives, regulations, and curricula for both the primary and normal schools of Santa Isabel. Gaínza (1868b, 7) outlined these regulations in the Estatutos para la Escuela-Colegio de Santa Isabel, promulgated on 4 August 1868, about four months after the school’s inauguration. In framing the statutes of the Escuela-Colegio de Santa Isabel and the 1875 regulations for its normal school, Gaínza adopted the regulations of the Escuela Normal de Manila.
As de la Concha’s exposition to Isabella II illustrates, the end to which Spain reorganized primary instruction and created normal schools in the Philippines was the Hispanization of the indigenous population. By Hispanization, I follow John Leddy Phelan’s (1959) definition as Spain’s colonial program or civilizing mission that aims to transform Philippine society by inculcating elements of Spanish civilization among the natives such as the language of the fatherland, Castilian, and the basic tenets of the Catholic faith. This so-called mission presupposed that the natives were ‘savages’ or ‘uncivilized’ and therefore needed ‘civilizing’ Gaínza, an agent of the Spanish Crown by virtue of the Patronato Real, operated well within this colonial discourse. However, the claim that Gaínza proved discursively complicit to such a colonial discourse requires more than mere deductions; it also requires historical evidence. It is necessary at this point to examine Gaínza in his own words, particularly his public ideas as may be gleaned from his speeches and pastoral letters.
The question of Gaínza’s rationale for the establishment of Santa Isabel is inextricably linked to two important questions: how did the bishop view the natives? Conversely, how did he view Spain and the Church in relation to the indigenous population, their colonized other?
In a pastoral letter addressed to the natives of his Diocese, Gaínza (1863) praises them on the one hand for their honesty, obedience, and simplicity, but opines on the other that they owe their civilization and culture to Spain and the Catholic Church:
We have known with truly paternal satisfaction that the inhabitants of the Vicol provinces have a reputation…for being peaceful and honest, obedient and simple; you live without fear, because you are under the protection of a tutelary government…
But do you know, my beloved children, to whom you owe that civilization and culture that you have, the same sweetness and simplicity of customs, those peaceful habits that everyone recognizes in you, that peace and those material improvements that you currently enjoy? To the holy religion, in whose bosom you have had the fortune to be born; the generous nation, which at the cost of countless sacrifices it brought to your beaches to the zealous superior and local authorities, who have looked after your safety and well-being…
Jesuit historian John Schumacher (1997, 213) refers to this tendency among the religious in the Philippines as a “quasi-religious patriotism,” in which they excessively idealize Spain on the one hand and denigrate the natives on the other. They impress on the natives “the debt of gratitude and loyalty owed to the Mother Country for the great benefits Spain had bestowed on the Filipinos” (ibid.) and their savagery and barbarity before the light of Christianity and Spanish education. We see this tendency in Gaínza (1868, 13). In the same pastoral letter, the bishop impressed upon his native faithful that the civilization they owe to the “virtuous doctrineros, whose words, example, perseverance, and disinterest” have banished the “barbaric customs” their parents had. He then proceeded by imploring his faithful to allow him to do the same for them so as not to go back to when they “lived in the midst of eternal hatred and vengeance, hunting one another down in the thick forests without other law than that of oppression, without other right than force, ignorant or contemptuous of the eternal principles of justice, and bowing their heads…before ridiculous figures” (ibid., 14; trans. from Schumacher 1997, 214). In these passages, we see not only how Gaínza operated within the colonial discourse of Spain’s civilizing mission and his quasi-religious patriotism, but also how he viewed the natives as souls that needed civilizing and therefore Hispanizing.
His view of the natives and of Spain’s civilizing mission of Hispanizing their colonized other was precisely the framework through which Gaínza saw the need for a primary school for girls and a normal school for teachers in Nueva Cáceres. He envisioned the Escuela-Colegio de Santa Isabel to be an instrument of Hispanization through its program of study that emphasized basic Catholic doctrines, the Castilian language, and other intellectual aspects of Spanish civilization such as geography, history, mathematics, and the natural sciences. Santa Isabel, he believed, was the simplest yet most effective apparatus through which he can carry out his plan: “the moral reform and the enlightenment of women in the Diocese” (Gaínza 1877, 32). On the school’s inauguration in April 1868, Gaínza related to the clergy that schools were the most potent means of the Spanish Empire in making enlightenment accessible to all the natives in order to get them out of ignorance and error and to endow them with “a civilization based on the mystery of the Cross” (ibid., 18). He believed that bishops and clergy, being supporters of true progress, were entrusted by Spain to this civilizing mission with the aim of bringing out the natives from “degrading savagery, to radiate them with the doctrine of the Gospel, and to elevate them to the status of a civilized people” (ibid., 17).
Gaínza envisioned the normal school graduates of Santa Isabel to be agents of Hispanization—i.e., to be “zealous propagators of judicious enlightenment” (ibid., 20) when they return to their respective provinces and teach at the primary school. His ambition was for the school’s graduates to return to their homes and “carry the seeds of a Christianly advanced civilization, for the benefit of their towns and for the good of their families” (ibid., 7).26 In a letter to de la Torre in 1869, the bishop related that the main reason for which the normal school of Santa Isabel was established was “not so much to give free and careful education to the girls of the city and its immediate towns, as to create a group of young people, who are Christianly educated, that they could direct the schools of their respective towns” (ibid., 31).
At least in principle, normal school graduates of Santa Isabel were to disseminate the Castilian language when they teach in the primary schools of their respective provinces so that the religious and intellectual aspects of Spanish culture and civilization were assimilated among the native population. But reality did not always correspond to the ideal. While the 1863 decree set high standards and expectations for native teachers, the ambition of “a widespread assimilation of Spanish language and culture, religious and moral values were not completely attained” (Concepcion 2014, 8). A myriad of problems such as disciplinary cases among teachers as well as students, absenteeism, and funding to name a few marred the execution of Gainza’s vision. Whether the Hispanization of the natives in the Diocese of Cáceres through the Escuela-Colegio de Santa Isabel succeeded or not is a topic that future researchers may wish to examine.
Conclusion
Why did Gaínza establish the Escuela-Colegio de Santa Isabel? Abella (1954) attributed it to the bishop’s magnanimity and brilliance as an administrator, planner, and builder, while Alarcon (1999, 212) suggested that Gaínza, whom he likened to a pastor and a builder, worked towards educating his faithful. By locating Gaínza and the establishment of Santa Isabel within the Spanish Empire’s efforts to reorganize primary instruction in their remaining overseas possession in the 1860s, the foregoing article offered an argument that transcended the oftentimes hagiographic views on Gaínza and the celebratory accounts on Santa Isabel’s foundation. The Escuela-Colegio de Santa Isabel was established in view of Isabella II’s Educational Decree of 1863 to serve the purpose of the Spanish Empire’s civilizing mission of Hispanizing the native population. It was to serve as instrument to inculcate to the natives elements of Spanish civilization such as the basic tenets and doctrines of the Catholic faith and the Castilian language. As Gaínza (1877, 31-32;7) himself put it, it was established “not so much to give free and careful education to the girls of the city,” but for “the moral reformation and enlightenment of the women of the Diocese,” so that when they return to teach in their respective towns, they could “carry the seeds of a Christianly advanced civilization.” Santa Isabel, hence, was a means toward an imperial end: the education it provided was in the service of the Spanish Empire. Not only did Gaínza establish Santa Isabel to educate his faithful, especially the young women of the diocese; as an agent of the Spanish Empire by virtue of the Royal Patronage, he established it towards the end of Hispanizing them as well.
Abbreviations Used: C.M. – Congregatio Misionis (Vincentians), OP – Ordo Praedicatorum (Dominicans), O.S.A. – Ordo Fratrum Sancti Augustini (Augustinians), S.M. – Su Majestad (Her Majesty), V.E. – Vuestra Excelencia (Your Excellency)
Author’s Notes: This article was originally submitted as a final requirement in Dr. Francis Navarro’s History of Spain class at the Ateneo de Manila University in May 2016. An early version of this article was presented to the Bishop Francisco Gainza Regional Conference organized by the Nueva Cáceres Heritage Movement, Inc., Universidad de Santa Isabel, Partido State University, and the National Historical Commission of the Philippines held at the Universidad de Santa Isabel, Naga City on 7 December 2018. I would like to thank Edna San Buenaventura, Erica Corpuz, and Aida Hontiveros of the James O’Brien, S.J. Library, Ateneo de Naga University for granting me unconditional access to the O’Bikoliana collection. I also would like to acknowledge the Universidad de Santa Isabel Archives and Museum and Victor Dennis T. Nierva for the photograph of the school’s main building. Many thanks are also due to Fr. Francis A. Tordilla and Luis Ruben General III, whose constant engagement clarified many important points in this article. Finally, I thank our manuscript editors, Anna Mae Rodriguez and Marian U. Encinas, and two anonymous reviewers, whose comments and suggestions gave this article its best possible shape. Any errors in fact or interpretation herein are my own.
Featured header image: The Normal School and Colegio de Santa Isabel of Naga SOURCE: Museo Historico de la Universidad de Santa Isabel, courtesy of Victor Dennis T. Nierva
About the author:
JAVIER LEONARDO V. RUGERIA is an Assistant professor at the Department of History, University of the Philippines Diliman. He specializes in Philippine intellectual history, and the history of the Bicol Region in the Philippines. He completed his bachelor’s degree in Philosophy cum laude from Ateneo de Naga University and his master’s degree in history from Ateneo de Manila University. He is a co-founder of Saysay Bikol and serves as its research director.