Thomasites book launched next month

TARLAC CITY — This province’s contemporary historian will launch next month a new book on the Thomasites as a tribute to the American teacher who was the country’s first public school principal.

Prof. Lino Dizon’s new book, titled "Thomasite History of Tarlac Province, 1901-1913 (In honor of Frank Russell White)," will be presented on Sept. 4 at the Mamerto G. Nepomuceno Hall of the Holy Angel University (HAU) in Angeles City.

Dizon, who has been extensively writing about Tarlac and Kapampangan history, also chairs the TSU-CTS.

An excerpt from the book, which Dizon allowed to be published as a feature story on TarlacNews.net during last year’s Tarlac National High School (TNHS) centennial, focused on White, one of the 600 American teachers who arrived in the country on board the USS Thomas on August 21, 1901.

White was the first principal of the TNHS, the country’s first public school, which was established in this city on Sept. 1, 1902.

The TNHS was ordered constructed by this province’s second Filipino governor, Alfonso Ramos, in compliance with the American colonial government’s directive that a school be established and managed by the Thomasites.

Dizon said it was White who initiated the project, while Ramos directed its construction.

Among its pioneer students was Jorge Bocobo, a novelist-academician who later became the seventh president of the University of the Philippines, and the late statesman Carlos P. Romulo, also a former UP president and the first Filipino to hold a ranking position in the United Nations.