said. "But don't look upon me as your professor. I'm
a friar and you are a Filipino student, nothing more nor less! Now
I ask you--what do the Filipino students want of us?"

The question came as a surprise; Isagani was not prepared for it. It
was a thrust made suddenly while they were preparing their defense,
as they say in fencing. Thus startled, Isagani responded with a
violent stand, like a beginner defending himself.

"That you do your duty!" he exclaimed.

Fray Fernandez straightened up--that reply sounded to him like a
cannon-shot. "That we do our duty!" he repeated, holding himself
erect. "Don't we, then, do our duty? What duties do you ascribe to us?"

"Those which you voluntarily placed upon yourselves on joining
the order, and those which afterwards, once in it, you have been
willing to assume. But, as a Filipino student, I don't think myself
called upon to examine your conduct with reference to your statutes,
to Catholicism, to the government, to the Filipino people, and to
humanity in general--those are questions that you have to settle
with your founders, with the Pope, with the government, with the
whole people, and with God. As a Filipino student, I will confine
myself to your duties toward us. The friars in general, being the
local supervisors of education in the provinces, and the Dominicans
in particular, by monopolizing in their hands all the studies of the
Filipino youth, have assumed the obligation to its eight millions
of inhabitants, to Spain, and to humanity, of which we form a part,
of steadily bettering the young plant, morally and physically,
of training it toward its happiness, of creating a people honest,
prosperous, intelligent, virtuous, noble, and loyal. Now I ask you
in my turn--have the friars fulfilled that obligation of theirs?"

"We're fulfilling--"

"Ah, Padre Fernandez," interrupted Isagani, "you with your hand on
_your_ heart can say that you are fulfilling it, but with your hand
on the heart of your order, on the heart of all the orders, you cannot
say that without deceiving yourself. Ah, Padre Fernandez, when I find
myself in the presence of a person whom I esteem and respect, I prefer
to be the accused rather than the accuser, I prefer to defend myself
rather than take the offensive. But now that we have entered upon
the discussion, let us carry it to the end! How do they fulfill their
obligation, those who look after education in the towns? By hindering
it! And those