2-volume UST history charts evolution of higher education in the Philippines

Published by the UST Publishing House, the two-volume “A History of the University of Santo Tomas: Four Centuries of Higher Education in the Philippines (1611-2011)” by the highly respected Spanish Dominican historian Fr. Fidel Villarroel, OP promise to become the most comprehensive and most definitive yet of UST, Asia’s oldest university.

Because of their scope and exhaustiveness, the history books are also a veritable history of education in the Philippines.

In the book, Father Villarroel, who systematized the UST Archives and is mentor to several historians and researchers, corrects a number of “faulty” items of history.

UST collection of ancient scripts in ‘baybayin’ syllabary shown to public

Photos of some historical treasures of the University of Santo Tomas

“DOCTRINA Christiana,” printed by the Dominicans in 1593, contains the ancient Philippine alphabet. At left, a sample of the baybayin syllabary from an ancient legal document at the UST Archives.