silliman feature

Rumors actually circulated that Silliman, the Dr. Horace Brinsmade Silliman who gave $10,000 for the building of a school for boys, found out about the Philippines in a world expo in the 1800s. There, they said, Silliman saw Ifugaos, who were “unfortunately” chosen to represent the country, eating dog meat they cooked with primitive fires outside huts, shivering in the cold of winter. The women were braless. How the expo-goers laughed.

“That’s not true,” said Moses Joshua Atega, alumni public relations officer. “At that time, they were signing the Treaty of Paris (when Spain sold the Philippines) so Americans found out about the Philippines through that.”

“He was a successful businessman with gun factories and pharmaceutical companies, and he had no one to share it with,” Atega added.

Dr. Silliman married twice and had one daughter from each marriage, but both of whom died. In essence, he had no real heirs, and even noted later in life that the only children left to him and his wife were institutions like the school in Dumaguete, the church in Connecticut, and the hospital in California. His donations to the Dumaguete school totaled $70,000 until he died in 1910.

But he never even saw the then-Silliman Institute. The name was already chosen, but everything was through its founder, Dr. David Sutherland Hibbard.

Getting started

After Negros was liberated from Spanish rule, then Governor Demetrio Larena made a unilateral decision to accept American rule.

When the first batch of American soldiers arrived in Dumaguete, one could just imagine him welcoming them with open arms. Indeed, Larena played an important role in Silliman’s history and its existence.

As Dr. David Sutherland Hibbard and his wife, Mrs. Laura Crooks-Hibbard, with the money from Dr. Silliman through the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, arrived in the shores of Dumaguete, they met up with a certain Captain Randolph. It was he who convinced them that Dumaguete was the place for a school because the people “supported” Americans there.

The people of Negros Oriental saw new opportunities during this time that never opened up to them during the Spanish regime. They discovered public education.

National Artist for Literature Edith Tiempo wrote in her article “Tell me of the life of the other half”, said, “We cannot speak of Negros Oriental without a long recollection of particular individuals, of institutions, of the lifestyle of the population as a whole… Foremost in our memory roster, for certain understandable reasons, is Silliman Unversity, founded a scant dozen years after the founding of the province itself in 1890.”

Baby steps

On August 28, 1901, Silliman Institute started with 15 boys, a few textbooks on geography, arithmetic and grammar, four desks, two tables, and two chairs. They rented a two-storey house; the first building occupied by the Silliman Institute and the same house where Jose Rizal stayed on his stopover from Dapitan to Manila.

Mrs. Crooks-Hibbard was the first and only Silliman Institute teacher at that time. Her husband, Dr. Hibbard was the first Silliman President. He copied the motto “Via, Veritas, Vita” from his alma mater, the College of Emporia in Kansas (the Province of Negros Oriental also has the same motto).

Published in a book for the university’s centennial celebrations, one of Silliman’s oldest surviving students, Mr. Carlos Bell Raymond, remembered student life at Silliman Institute.

Raymond recounted that in the early campus days, Dr. Hibbard led the calisthenics as students woke up for it, military-style, while the sun rose at 5:30 in the morning. If a student was sent to Hibbard with a misdemeanor, he rubbed his moustache as a sign the student was not excused.

The campus paper started as The Silliman Truth in 1903, a multi-lingual publication with articles on campus, Dumaguete, and neighboring towns.

The first president also did not allow couples holding hands nor speaking in any language other than English. And in those early days, Hibbard carried Silliman students on his back for free from their ship to the shore as a “kargador.” This was before the Dumaguete pier was built in 1920.

Raymond talked about how the first troop in the Visayas under Boy Scouts of America was Troop No. 8 of which he became the first Eagle Scout on Negros Island. He talked about how goats roamed the unfenced campus before, feasting on the plants and hedges. Because of this, acacia trees were planted in the 20s.

Growing up

During World War II, the campus by the sea became campus by the mountains as Japanese quartered in Silliman buildings. Ironically enough, Katipunan Hall, the Mission Hospital before, became an enemy garrison. Guy Hall, a boy’s dormitory, and Channon Hall, the Divinity School building and dormitory, became torture chambers and garrisons as well.

After the war, as the city recuperated, the Sillimanian writers came up with the idea of a beauty pageant, making it the first university pageant in the Philippines. Later, after eight long years, the Church finished construction with its stained glass windows, serving as the central hub of the university’s spiritual life.

In Cesar Ruiz Aquino’s article, “Here’s writing about you, Dumaguete”, he wrote about his experiences as a 1962 Silliman Writer’s Workshop fellow, as a member of Dr. Edith and Dr. Edilberto Tiempo’s literary brainchild.

“What a Silliman it was! That was the Silliman that wouldn’t let its students hear Jack Jones’ 1963 hit “Call me irresponsible”. Frats were not allowed. The library at this time was on the second floor of Hibbard Hall where, when it rained, the sound of raindrops merged mysteriously with what we were reading,” he wrote.

Five years later, when he went back for another fellowship to the same workshop, he added, “Come back we did—to a droning Dumaguete, and a swinging, romping Silliman. Silliman itself had changed greatly. There were frats. Amid the swollen student population moved a strong lively circle at Hibbard Hall. We were a veritable era—say the Era that read.”

Silliman now

Over a century after the Hibbards first stepped on the shores of Dumaguete, we arrive at the continuing colorful history of Silliman University. At 105 years, Silliman has not reached the end of its story. It is perhaps simply along the middle of the line, edging forward and changing with the people who become part of its every day.

Meanwhile, it discovered Junix Enocian in the Silliman University church basement, christened the Catacombs, singing amidst paint-a-bloc walls. It has fences now. The student paper even has an on-line version. The Luce Auditorium, with its dancing off-white statues by Paul Feel, richly ages considering the outstanding dances, concerts, poetry readings, art exhibits, plays and contests it has hosted throughout the years.

Dumaguete bustles with pedicabs and motorcycles, with foreigners and students from all over the country, and with 24-hour fastfood chains and reggae nights.

And as people look through the Gate of Service, they see Sillimaan’s acacia trees, fully (and some would say, perfectly) grown forming the perfect backdrop for the church, and the Cuernos de Negros mountains way beyond it.


Sources:

Alunan, Merlie A. and Villasis, Bobbly F. Kabilin: Legacies of a Hundred Years of Negros Oriental. Aria Edition (1993).


Raymond, Joseph T. and Fortunato, Javier Jr. R. 101 Things You Should Know About Silliman. Dumaguete Asian Printers, Dumaguete City (2001).