José Palma y Velásquez

 Born  June 3, 1876 (1876-06-03) Tondo, Manila, Captaincy General of the Philippines
Known for  lyricist of the Philippine National Anthem
Died  February 12, 1903, Manila, Philippines
Education  Ateneo de Manila University
Archbishop jose palma from cebu receives pallium from pope benedict


 José Palma y Velasquez (3 June 1876 – 12 February 1903) was a Filipino poet and soldier. He was on the staff of La Independencia at the time he wrote Filipinas, a patriotic poem in Spanish. It was published for the first time in the issue of the first anniversary of La Independencia on 3 September 1899. The poem fit the instrumental tune Marcha Nacional Filipina by Julián Felipe, and it has since been the basis for every translation of the Philippine National Anthem.

Early life

 Palma was born in Tondo, Manila, on 3 June 1876, the youngest child of Don  Hermogenes Palma, a clerk at the Intendencia Office, and Hilária Velasquez. His older brother was the politician, intellectual and journalist Rafael Palma.

 After finishing his primera enseñanza  (first studies) in Tondo, Palma continued his studies at the Ateneo Municipal. While there, he gradually honed his skills by composing verses. One of his earliest works was La cruz de Sampaguitas ("The Cross of Jasmines") in 1893. In the same year, he had a brief romantic relationship with a woman named Florentina Arellano, whose parents did not approve of him.

The Katipunan

 As underground revolutionary activities intensified, Palma devoted his time to composing more poems. In 1894, he joined the Katipunan but did not enter battle when the Philippine Revolution of 1896 broke out. He eventually joined the revolutionary forces of Colonel Rosendo Simón in 1899 when the Philippine-American War erupted and fought under the command of Colonel Servillano Aquino in the encounters in Ángeles and Bambang. Since he could not physically cope with the difficulties of war, he often stayed in camps and entertained the soldiers with kundiman, a traditional Filipino poetic and musical art.

La Independencia

 He eventually joined the staff of the Tagalog-language section of the revolutionary newspaper, La Independencia, to fight against the Americans as he could not on the battlefield. Palma and his colleagues in the newspaper often amused themselves with songs and poems while resting in camps or other places during their marches away from the pursuing American forces.

Writing of Filipinas

 It was during on break of the newspaper staff in Bautista, Pangasinan, when Palma’s poetic spirit produced the Spanish ode Filipinas. Palma wrote Filipinas in the house of Doña Romana G. vda de Favis at Sitio Estación in Barrio Nibaliw, Bayambang (today Barangay Población West, Bautista, Pangasinan). On 24 June 1900, Nibaliw was renamed "Bautista", in honour of Saint John the Baptist, and partitioned as a separate town from Bayambang.

 The words were fit and eventually set to composer Julian Felipe's instrumental tune, “Marcha Nacional Filipina”, which was composed as incidental music a year earlier for the Declaration of Philippine Independence in Kawit, Cavite. Filipinas was published in the first anniversary issue of La Independencia on 3 September 1899.

Filipinas

 Tierra adorada, hija del sol de Oriente, su fuego ardiente en ti latiendo está.

 Tierra de amores, del heroísmo cuna, los invasores no te hollarán jamás.

 En tu azul cielo, en tus auras, en tus montes y en tu mar esplende y late el poema de tu amada libertad.

 Tu pabellón que en las lides la victoria iluminó, no verá nunca apagados sus estrellas ni su sol.

 Tierra de dichas, de sol y amores en tu regazo dulce es vivir; es una gloria para tus hijos, cuando te ofenden, por ti morir.

Death

José Palma died of tuberculosis on 12 February 1903.

Apolinario Mabini

 Apolinario Mabini

Apolinario Mabini (1864-1903) was a Filipino political philosopher and architect of the Philippine revolution. He formulated the principles of a democratic popular government, endowing the historical struggles of the Filipino people with a coherent ideological orientation.

 Apolinario Mabini was born in Talaga, Tanauan, Batangas, on July 22, 1864. His parents belonged to the impoverished peasantry. He studied at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran in 1881 and at the University of Santo Thomas, where he received the law degree in 1894. During this time he earned his living by teaching Latin and then serving as copyist in the Court of First Instance in Manila.

 In 1896 Mabini contracted an illness, probably infantile paralysis, that deprived him of the use of his legs. When the Katipunan revolt broke out late that year, the Spanish authorities arrested him. Unknown to many, Mabini was already a member of José Rizal's reformist association, the Liga Filipina. And though as a pacifist reformist, he was at first skeptical of Andres Bonifacio's armed uprising, Mabini later became convinced of the people's almost fanatical desire for emancipation. Subsequently, he turned out subversive manifestos appealing to all Filipinos to unite against Spain.

 In May 1898 Emilio Aguinaldo summoned Mabini to act as his adviser. Mabini formulated the famous decree of June 18, which reorganized the local government under Filipino control. His policy throughout the struggle can be epitomized by a statement in that decree: "The first duty of the government is to interpret the popular will faithfully. "Mabini was also instrumental in supervising the proper administration of justice, the election of delegates to the revolutionary congress, and the establishment of the mechanism of the revolutionary government itself.

 When the revolutionary congress was convoked in Barasoain, Malolos, Bulacan, on Sept. 15, 1898, Mabini found himself opposed to the plans of the wealthy bourgeoisie to draft a constitution. He believed that, given the emergency conditions of war, the function of the congress was simply to advise the president and not to draft a constitution. Defeated by the majority, Mabini then submitted his own constitutional plan, based on the Statutes of Universal Masonry. It was rejected in favor of a composite draft submitted by Felipe G. Calderon, which became the basis of the Malolos Constitution of the first Philippine Republic.

 Mabini's conflict with the conspiracy of property owners and the landlord class in the congress led to his eclipse in 1899 as Aguinaldo's trusted adviser—the only competent thinker and theoretician in the Aguinaldo Cabinet. Mabini succeeded in exposing the vicious opportunism of the Paterno-Buencamino clique, who were trying to gain control over, and to profit from, the financial transactions of the revolutionary government. When the Aguinaldo camp fled from the advancing American forces, Mabini was captured on Dec. 10, 1899. Still refusing to swear an oath of allegiance to the U.S. government and continuing to support the insurgents in their ideological struggle, he was deported to Guam in 1901. He died on May 13, 1903.

 Mabini's chief work, La Revolution Filipina, a reasoned analysis and cogent argument concerning the ideological implications of the revolution against Spain and the resistance to the American invaders, reveals the progressive and democratic impulse behind his thinking. He always tried to mediate between the people's will and the decisions of their leaders. He was a selfless and dedicated patriot.

  Further Reading on Apolinario Mabini
The best critical study of Mabini's life and works is Cesar Adib Majul, Mabini and the Philippine Revolution (1960). See also Majul's The Political and Constitutional Ideas of the Philippine Revolution (1957) and Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Malolos: The Crisis of the Republic  (1960). For the general historical background the most reliable text to consult is Teodoro A. Agoncillo and Oscar Alfonso, A Short History of the Filipino People (1969).

 Additional Biography Sources
Majul, Cesar Adib, Apolinario Mabini revolutionary, Ermita, Manila: National Historical Institute, 1993 printing.

 Villarroel, Fidel, Apolinario Mabini, his birth date and student years, Manila: National Historical Institute, 1979.

Emilio Jacinto y Dizon

 Emilio Jacinto y Dizon (Spanish pronunciation: 15 December 1875 – 16 April 1899) was a Filipino General during the Philippine Revolution. He was one of the highest-ranking officer in the Philippine Revolution and was one of the highest-ranking officers of the revolutionary society Kataas-taasan, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan, or simply and more popularly called Katipunan, being a member of its Supreme Council.

 He was elected Secretary of State for the Haring Bayang Katagalugan, a revolutionary government established during the outbreak of hostilities. He is popularly known in Philippine history textbooks as the Brains of the Katipunan while some contend he should be rightfully recognized as the "Brains of the Revolution" (a title given to Apolinario Mabini). Jacinto was present in the so-called Cry of Pugad Lawin (or Cry of Balintawak) with Andrés Bonifacio, the Supreme President of the Katipunan, and others of its members which signaled the start of the Revolution against the Spanish colonial government in the islands.

 Born in Manila, Jacinto was proficient both in Spanish and Tagalog. He attended San Juan de Letran College, and later transferred to the University of Santo Tomas to study law. Manuel Quezon, Sergio Osmeña and Juan Sumulong were classmates. He did not finish college and, at the age of 19, joined the secret society called Katipunan. He became the advisor on fiscal matters and secretary to Andrés Bonifacio. He was later known as Utak ng Katipunan. He and Bonifacio also befriended Apolinario Mabini when they attempted to continue José Rizal's La Liga Filipina.

 Jacinto also wrote for the Katipunan newspaper called Kalayaan. He wrote in the newspaper under the pen name "Dimasilaw", and used the alias "Pingkian" in the Katipunan. Jacinto was the author of the Kartilya ng Katipunan as well.

Andress Bonifacio

Andress Bonifacio

 Born on November 30, 1863, Andrés Bonifacio is considered by many to be a national hero of the Philippines. He started the Philippine Revolution, which resulted in the independence of the Philippines from Spanish colonialism.

 Bonifacio was raised in Tondo, a district of the city of Manila in the Philippines. His family was working-class; his mother worked in a cigarette factory while his father was a tailor and municipal official of Tondo. After the death of both his parents when Bonifacio was just a teenager, he was forced to drop out of school to care for his family. He worked as a messenger, a warehouseman, and even established his own small business where he sold canes and paper fans. Though he had never finished school, Bonifacio was an avid reader, exploring the work of Victor Hugo and Jose Rizal, reading biographies of US Presidents, and reading the Philippine penal and civil codes.

 Bonifacio was a freemason, and was also a member of the Gran Oriente Espanol, or Grand Spanish Lodge. In 1892, he co-founded the secret society Katipunan. This society encouraged independence from the mother country, Spain, through armed attack. The organizarion had its own structure, law system, and system of government. From the society’s inception, Bonifacio was one of the chief officers, and in 1895, he became Presidente Supremo. Katipunan was dedicated to the development of its surrounding community- it established mutual aid societies, and forms of education for those who would not have been previouslty able to afford it.

 Katipunan quickly grew in popularity, and by 1896 had more than 30,000 members. It was in this same year that the Spanish colonial authorities became aware of the existence of the secret society, and were considering the steps that should be taken to eradicate it. In the meantime, Bonifacio and the other members of Katipunan were planning how best they would revolt against the Spanish. This was the beginning of the Phillipine revolution, which would last for approximately two years.

 On August 23, 1896, Bonifacio declared that the Phillippines was independent from Spanish powers. The Spaniards, on the other hand, were ready for the attack- they forced him to move towards the Marikina Mountains. Other groups lead by Emilio Aguinaldo, another Phillippino revolutionary,were able to resist the Spanish and to gain control over some towns.
Bonifacio attempted to recruit Bonifacio as part of his group, however, Aguinaldo had him arrested and charged with treason. Bonifacio was convicted by his enemies, and in 1897 was executed. Though Bonifacio’s cause was considered just, it was reasoned that he would have split the rebel forces through his rivalry with Aguinaldo, undermining the strength of the attack against the Spanish.

 Today, he is remembered for his contribution to Philippine independence and his role in starting the Phillippine revolution.

Mariano Ponce

 Mariano Ponce was born in Baliuag, Bulacan, on March 22, 1863, the eldest of the seven children of Mariano Ponce and Maria Collantes de los Santos. He had his early schooling in his home town and finished his secondary education in the private school of Juan Evangelista, Hugo Ilagan and Escolastico Salandanan in Manila.

Afterwards, he enrolled at the college of San Juan de Letran where he obtained his Bachiller en Artes in 1885. Then he transferred to the Sto Tomas University to study medicine. In 1887, he left for Europe and registered at the Central University of Madrid, where he finished his medical degree in 1889.

He joined Jose Rizal, Marcelo H. del Pilar, Lopez Jaena, and other patriots in the crusade for the needed Philippine reforms. He assisted Lopez Jaena in founding La Solaridad in Barcelona on February 12, 1889. He headed the Literary Section of the Asociacion Hispano-Filipina, a society of Liberal Spaniards and Filipinos, founded to help the Propaganda Movement, of which he was elected Secretary. As managing editor, he wrote regularly for La Solidaridad on history, politics, sociology and travel under various pseudonyms, some of which were Naning, Kalipulako, and Tigbalang.

When the revolution broke out in 1896, he was imprisoned in Barcelona for 48 hours on suspicion of having connections with the uprising. In 1898, Aguinaldo appointed him as diplomatic representative of the First Republic to Japan where he met his Japanese wife, Okiyo Udanwara. While enrooted to China to visit his old friend, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, whose biography he published in 1914, he died in the Civil Hospital in Hong Kong, on May 23, 1918. His remains are now in the Cementerio del Norte, Manila.

Graciano López Jaena

On December 18, 1856, saw the birth of Graciano López Jaena in Jaro, Iloilo to Placido López and Maria Jacoba Jaena. His parents were poor, as his mother was a seamstress and his father, a general repairman. His father, however, had been to school and his mother was quite religious. At the age of six, young Graciano was placed under the watch of Father Francisco Jayme who noted his intellectual promise, especially his gift of speech.

 His mother, feeling that the priesthood was the most noble of occupations and sent him to the Seminario de San Vicente Ferrer in Jaro which had been opened under the brief liberal administration of Governor General Carlos de la Torre. Here again, his talents were noted. While studying at this seminary, López Jaena served as a secretary to an uncle, Claudio López who was honorary vice consul of Portugal in Iloilo. He even took charge of some minor matters that were brought to that office.

 Despite his mother's desires, it was Graciano’s ambition to be a physician and he finally convinced his mother that this was the better course of action. He sought enrollment at the University to Santo Thomas but was denied admission because the required Bachelor of Arts degree was not offered at the seminary in Jaro. However he was directed to the San Juan de Dios Hospital as an apprentice. Unfortunately, financial backing ran out and his poor parents could not afford to keep him in Manila. He returned to Iloilo and practiced medicine in outlying communities with such knowledge as he had.

 During this time his visits with the poor and the common people began to stir deep feelings about the injustices that were common. At the age of 18 he had the audacity to write the story "Fray Botod" which depicted a fat and lecherous priest. Botod’s false piety "always [had] the Virgin and God on his lips no matter how unjust and underhanded his acts are." This naturally incurred the fury of the friars who knew that the story depicted them. Although it was not published a copy circulated in the region but the Friars could not prove that López Jaena was the author. However he got into trouble for refusing to testify that certain prisoners died of natural causes when it was obvious that they had died at the hands of the mayor of Pototan. López Jaena continued to agitate for justice and finally left for Spain when threats were made on his life.

 López Jaena sailed for Spain. There he was to become a leading literary and oratorical spokesman for the cause of Filipino freedom. Historians regard López Jaena, along with Marcelo del Pilar and José Rizal, as the triumvirate of Filipino propagandists. Of these three López Jaena was the first to arrive and may be said the Genesis of the Propaganda movement.

 He pursued his medical studies at the school of medicine at the University of Valencia but did not finish the course. Once Rizal reproached Lopéz Jaena for not finishing his medical studies. Graciano replied, "On the shoulders of slaves should not rest a doctor's cape." Rizal countermanded, "The shoulders do not honor the doctor's cape, but the doctor's cape honors the shoulders."

 He then moved to the field of journalism. It must be said that López Jaena had his faults. Often careless and, indeed, lazy, he perhaps enjoyed the café life of Barcelona and Madrid a bit too much. However, his friends would forgive him these indiscretions due to his appeal with words and oratory. Mariano Ponce who was another of the Filipino propagandists in Spain observed, "... a deafening ovation followed the close of the peroration, the ladies waved their kerchiefs wildly, and the men applauded frantically as they stood up from their seats in order to embrace the speaker."
Rizal noted, "His great love is politics and literature. I do not know for sure whether he loves politics in order to deliver speeches or he loves literature to be a politician."

 In addition he is remembered for his literary contributions to the propaganda movement. He founded the fortnightly newspaper, La Solidaridad (Solidarity). When the publication office moved from Barcelona to Madrid the editorship went to Marcelo H. del Pilar. A student will discover his talent in the publication Discursos y Artículos Varios (Speeches and Various Articles).

 Unfortunately, López Jaena died of tuberculosis on January 20, 1896. His death was followed on July 4th by Marcelo H. del Pilar and on December 30th of José Rizal by firing squad, thus ending the great triumvirate of propagandists. He died in poverty just shy of his fortieth birthday and two and a half years before the declaration of independence from Spain by Emilio Aguinaldo. Had he lived longer, his accomplishments would have doubtless been greater.

Marcelo H. Del Pilar

  Marcelo H. Del Pilar was born on August 30, 1850, to cultured parents in Kupang, Bulacan, Philippines. He was a student at the Colegio de San José and later he attended the University of Santo Tomas, where he pursued a course in law and finished in 1880.

Work and Legacy

 Del Pilar founded the newspaper Diariong Tagalog two years after finishing University, in 1882. His main goal with the newspaper was to propagate democratic liberal ideologies among the farmers and peasants. He defended José Rizal’s problematic writings in 1888 by issuing a pamphlet against a priest’s attack, exhibiting his sharp wit and scathing ridicule of clerical indiscretion. Del Pilar, from an early time, was motivated by a sense of justice against the abuses of the clergy, and attacked bigotry and hypocrisy, defending in court the impoverished victims of racial discrimination. His gospel supported work, self-respect and human dignity, and his mastery of his native language, Tagalog, enabled him to arouse the consciousness of the masses to the need for unity and sustained resistance against the Spanish tyrants.

 Del Pilar came under severe clerical persecution in 188, and fled his country to Spain, leaving his family behind. In December 1889 he became the successor of Graciano Lopez Jaena as editor of the Filipino reformist periodical La Solidaridad in Madrid. He contacted liberal Spaniards who would side with the Filipino cause, in an attempt to promote the objectives of the paper, and under his editorial guidance, the newspaper expanded to include: removal of friar and the secularisation of the parishes; active Filipino participation in the affairs of the government; freedom of speech, of the press and of assembly; wider social and political freedoms; equality before the law; assimilation; and representation in the Spanish Courts, or Parliament.

 The money to support the paper was soon exhausted, thus increasing Del Pilar’s difficulties, and there still were no signs of any immediate response from the Spanish ruling class. Before his death in Barcelona, on July 4, 1896, due to hunger and enormous privation, Del Pilar rejected the assimilationist stand and began planning an armed revolt. He affirmed this conviction, with fervour, saying: “Insurrection is the last remedy, especially when the people have acquired the belief that peaceful means to secure the remedies for evils prove futile.” These words, and the ideology therein inspired Andrés Bonifacio’s Katipunan, a secret revolutionary organisation.
Del Pilar’s militant and progressive outlook was inspired by the classic Enlightenment tradition of The French Philosophes and the scientific empiricism of the European bourgeoisie. Mush of this ideology was transmitted by the Freemasonry, to which Del Pilar subscribed.

Dr. Jose Rizal

   José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda, widely known as José Rizal (Spanish pronunciation: [xoˈse riˈsal]; June 19, 1861 – December 30, 1896), was a Filipino nationalist and polymath during the tail end of the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines. An ophthalmologist by profession, Rizal became a writer and a key member of the Filipino Propaganda Movement which advocated political reforms for the colony under Spain.
He was executed by the Spanish colonial government for the crime of rebellion after the Philippine Revolution, inspired in part by his writings, broke out. Though he was not actively involved in its planning or conduct, he ultimately approved of its goals which eventually led to Philippine independence.

 He is widely considered one of the greatest heroes of the Philippines and has been recommended to be so honored by an officially empaneled National Heroes Committee. However, no law, executive order or proclamation has been enacted or issued officially proclaiming any Filipino historical figure as a national hero.He was the author of the novels Noli Me Tángere and El filibusterismo,and a number of poems and essays.
José Rizal was born in 1861 to Francisco Mercado and Teodora Alonso in the town of Calamba in Laguna province. He had nine sisters and one brother. His parents were leaseholders of a hacienda and an accompanying rice farm by the Dominicans. Both their families had adopted the additional surnames of Rizal and Realonda in 1849, after Governor General Narciso Clavería y Zaldúa decreed the adoption of Spanish surnames among the Filipinos for census purposes (though they already had Spanish names).

 Like many families in the Philippines, the Rizals were of mixed origin. José's patrilineal lineage could be traced back to Fujian in China through his father's ancestor Lam-Co, a Chinese merchant who immigrated to the Philippines in the late 17th century.Lam-Co traveled to Manila from Amoy, China, possibly to avoid the famine or plague in his home district, and more probably to escape the Manchuinvasion. He finally decided to stay in the islands as a farmer. In 1697, to escape the bitter anti-Chinese prejudice that existed in the Philippines, he converted to Catholicism, changed his name to Domingo Mercado and married the daughter of Chinese friend Augustin Chin-co. On his mother's side, Rizal's ancestry included Chinese, Japanese and Tagalog blood. His mother's lineage can be traced to the affluent Florentina family of Chinese mestizo families originating in Baliuag, Bulacan.José Rizal also had Spanish ancestry. His grandfather was a half Spaniard engineer amed Lorenzo Alberto Alonzo.

 From an early age, José showed a precocious intellect. He learned the alphabet from his mother at 3, and could read and write at age 5.Upon enrolling at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila, he dropped the last three names that made up his full name, on the advice of his brother, Paciano and the Mercado family, thus rendering his name as "José Protasio Rizal". Of this, he later wrote: "My family never paid much attention [to our second surname Rizal], but now I had to use it, thus giving me the appearance of an illegitimate child!" This was to enable him to travel freely and disassociate him from his brother, who had gained notoriety with his earlier links to Filipino priests Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos and Jacinto Zamora(popularly known as Gomburza) who had been accused and executed for treason.

 Despite the name change, José, as "Rizal" soon distinguished himself in poetry writing contests, impressing his professors with his facility with Castilian and other foreign languages, and later, in writing essays that were critical of the Spanish historical accounts of the pre-colonial Philippine societies. Indeed, by 1891, the year he finished his El Filibusterismo, this second surname had become so well known that, as he writes to another friend, "All my family now carry the name Rizal instead of Mercado because the name Rizal means persecution! Good! I too want to join them and be worthy of this family name..."

 Rizal first studied under Justiniano Aquino Cruz in Biñan, Laguna, before he was sent to Manila.[19] As to his father's request, he took the entrance examination in Colegio de San Juan de Letran but he then enrolled at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila and graduated as one of the nine students in his class declared sobresaliente or outstanding. He continued his education at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila to obtain a land surveyor and assessor's degree, and at the same time at the University of Santo Tomas where he did take up a preparatory course in law.[20] Upon learning that his mother was going blind, he decided to switch to medicine at the medical school of Santo Tomas specializing later in ophthalmology.

 Without his parents' knowledge and consent, but secretly supported by his brother Paciano, he traveled alone to Madrid, Spain in May 1882 and studied medicine at the Universidad Central de Madrid where he earned the degree, Licentiate in Medicine. He also attended medical lectures at the University of Paris and the University of Heidelberg. In Berlin, he was inducted as a member of the Berlin Ethnological Society and the Berlin Anthropological Society under the patronage of the famous pathologist Rudolf Virchow. 

 Following custom, he delivered an address in German in April 1887 before the Anthropological Society on the orthography and structure of the Tagalog language. He left Heidelberg a poem, "A las flores del Heidelberg", which was both an evocation and a prayer for the welfare of his native land and the unification of common values between East and West.

 At Heidelberg, the 25-year-old Rizal, completed in 1887 his eye specialization under the renowned professor, Otto Becker. There he used the newly invented ophthalmoscope (invented by Hermann von Helmholtz) to later operate on his own mother's eye. From Heidelberg, Rizal wrote his parents: "I spend half of the day in the study of German and the other half, in the diseases of the eye. Twice a week, I go to the bierbrauerie, or beerhall, to speak German with my student friends." He lived in a Karlstraße boarding house then moved to Ludwigsplatz. There, he met Reverend Karl Ullmer and stayed with them in Wilhelmsfeld, where he wrote the last few chapters of Noli Me Tángere.

 Rizal was a polymath, skilled in both science and the arts. He painted, sketched, and made sculptures and woodcarving. He was a prolific poet, essayist, and novelist whose most famous works were his two novels, Noli Me Tángere and its sequel, El filibusterismo. These social commentaries during the Spanish colonization of the country formed the nucleus of literature that inspired peaceful reformists and armed revolutionaries alike. Rizal was also a polyglot, conversant in twenty-two languages.

 Rizal's multifacetedness was described by his German friend, Dr. Adolf Bernhard Meyer, as "stupendous."Documented studies show him to be a polymath with the ability to master various skills and subjects.He was an ophthalmologist, sculptor, painter, educator, farmer, historian, playwright and journalist. Besides poetry and creative writing, he dabbled, with varying degrees of expertise, in architecture, cartography, economics, ethnology, anthropology, sociology, dramatics, martial arts, fencing and pistol shooting. He was also a Freemason, joining Acacia Lodge No. 9 during his time in Spain and becoming a Master Mason in 1884.