EL FILIBUSTERISMO

XIII. THE CLASS IN PHYSICS

CHAPTER XIII

THE CLASS IN PHYSICS

The classroom was a spacious rectangular hall with large grated

windows that admitted an abundance of light and air. Along the two

sides extended three wide tiers of stone covered with wood, filled

with students arranged in alphabetical order. At the end opposite the

entrance, under a print of St. Thomas Aquinas, rose the professor's

chair on an elevated platform with a little stairway on each side. With

the exception of a beautiful blackboard in a narra frame, scarcely

ever used, since there was still written on it the _viva_ that had

appeared on the opening day, no furniture, either useful or useless,

was to be seen. The walls, painted white and covered with glazed tiles

to prevent scratches, were entirely bare, having neither a drawing

nor a picture, nor even an outline of any physical apparatus. The

students had no need of any, no one missed the practical instruction

in an extremely experimental science; for years and years it has been

so taught and the country has not been upset, but continues just as

ever. Now and then some little instrument descended from heaven and

was exhibited to the class from a distance, like the monstrance to

the prostrate worshipers--look, but touch not! From time to time,

when some complacent professor appeared, one day in the year was

set aside for visiting the mysterious laboratory and gazing from

without at the puzzling apparatus arranged in glass cases. No one

could complain, for on that day there were to be seen quantities of

brass and glassware, tubes, disks, wheels, bells, and the like--the

exhibition did not get beyond that, and the country was not upset.

Besides, the students were convinced that those instruments had not

been purchased for them--the friars would be fools! The laboratory

was intended to be shown to the visitors and the high officials who

came from the Peninsula, so that upon seeing it they would nod their

heads with satisfaction, while their guide would smile, as if to say,

"Eh, you thought you were going to find some backward monks! Well,

we're right up with the times--we have a laboratory!"

The visitors and high officials, after being handsomely entertained,

would then write in their _Travels_ or _Memoirs_: "The Royal

and Pontifical University of Santo Tomas of Manila, in charge of

the enlightened Dominican Order, possesses a magnificent physical

laboratory for the instruction of youth. Some two hundred and fifty

students annually study this subject, but whether from apathy,