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Synopsis:

Among the many wrongs done by Spaniards unto the Filipinos, to be charged against their undeniably large debt to Spain, one of the greatest, if not the most frequently mentioned, was taking from them their good name.

Three points should constantly be borne in mind: (1) allowance must be made for the lessening Spanish influence, surely more foreign to this seafaring people than the present modified Anglo-Saxon education, and so more artificial, i.e., less assimilable, as well as for the removal of the unfavorable environment, before attempting to form an opinion of the present-day Filipino from his prototype pictured in those pages; (2) foreign observers are apt to emphasize what is strange to them in describing other lands than their own and to leave unnoted points of resemblance which may be much more numerous; (3) Rizal’s judgment that his countrymen were more like backward Europeans than Orientals was based on scientific studies of Europe’s rural districts and Philippine provincial conditions as well as of oriental country life, so that it is entitled to more weight than the commoner opinion to the contrary which though more popular has been less carefully formed.

(Source: Preface)