page_title: Librada Avelino
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Librada Avelino / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Centro Escolar de Señoritas was at the time the largest women's educational institution in the country and would become Centro Escolar University in 1932
context_page_description: Librada Avelino was a Filipina educator who co-founded the Centro Escolar University. She was the first woman to earn a teaching certificate from the Spanish authorities when she passed her examination in 1889. Continuing her education, Avelino was also certified as a secondary teacher in 1893. After establishing her own girls' school in Pandacan, she was forced to flee to Manila when in 1896, the Philippine Revolution brought troops to Pandacan. Reopening a school in the capital, she operated until the Spain ceded the country to the United States and the educational authorities changed the requirements, implementing English language curricula. To learn English, she agreed to take a post as principal of the Pandacan Girls' School, believing that teaching the language would help her learn it faster. She also took English classes and studied English briefly in Hong Kong in 1901.
  In 1907, Avelino joined her friend Carmen de Luna and lawyer/educator Fernando Salas to found the Centro Escolar de Señoritas, a school which organized courses from kindergarten through high school for girls.
context_section_description: Upon receipt of her diploma, Avelino, with the support of her father and step-mother, opened a free school in Pandacan. She modeled it on Lopez's school and trained students for the teaching examination. As the school grew rapidly, to further her own education, Avelino studied dressmaking and embroidery at the Concordia College and then took a course offered by the sisters of the Assumption Convent, which allowed her to earn a certificate to teach high school in 1893. During her courses, Avelino met Carmen de Luna, who would become her collaborator and companion for the rest of her life. Activities at Avelino's school initially continued at the onset of the Philippine Revolution in 1896, but when the United States forces arrived in Pandacan, she suspended her courses. On the advice of her father, she fled to Manila days before her hometown was reduced to ashes by the invading soldiers. By the time her family, which included three step-siblings, was able to join her, they had lost their home, as well as their business in the conflict. Assisted by brothers Vicente and Lucas Gonzalez, Avelino was loaned a property in Santa Cruz in which to reopen her school. As the school grew, it moved from Fernandez Street to San Sebastian, now R. Hidalgo Street. She was soon joined by her cousin Margarita "Garit" Oliva and Carmen de Luna.
  On the conclusion of the revolution in 1898, the United States, under its sovereign authority, established new rules in schools requiring teaching the English language. As Avelino did not speak English, she volunteered to teach at the girls' school in Pandacan, believing she would learn faster by trying to teach the language to others. She was appointed as the first Filipina principal in the United States era. Simultaneously, she studied in the mornings with an American teacher, while also taking night courses in Sampaloc with tutor Mauricio Somosa to enhance her language skills. In 1901, though hostilities continued over the terms of the Treaty of Paris and there were discussions as to whether the Philippines would gain independence or be annexed by the United States, Avelino wrote the school superintendent, David Prescott Barrows asking for a leave of absence to study English abroad and approval to be reinstated upon her return as principal of the Pandacan Girls' School. Securing his approval, she closed the school and accompanied the Gonzalez family to Hong Kong, where she studied for half the year, but had to return due to illness of one of their party. Upon her return, she resumed her duties as school principal, but conflict with the American principal of the boys' school, caused her to resign her position at the end of the 1906 term.
  The insurrection continued until 1902, and Avelino's step-mother died in 1905. Still longing to open a school, when she came out of mourning in 1907,  Avelino sought the advice of Fernando Salas, a lawyer from a family of educators, and her friend Carmen de Luna. They decided to invest in opening a school in Manila which would be called the Centro Escolar de Señoritas (Central School of Ladies), modeled after a school Salas was running the Centro Escolar de Varones. (Central School of Men). Each contributed ₱250 and used it to found the school located at 841 Iris Street, later called Azcarraga Street. Having little capital, but wanting to establish a modern, liberal school, Avelino approached educated women like Maria del Pilar Francisco, the first woman lawyer in the Philippines; Felisa and Domingo Francisco, cousins of Maria; sisters Filomena and Ildefonsa Amor; her cousin Garit Oliva; and Constancia P. Arrieta, all having graduated from Normal School. Salas proposed Josué Soncuya, a historian and lawyer; Manuel Ravago, a journalist and orator; and Alberto Campos, a former soldier of the Spanish army, and a journalist and educator. Soon after proposing his candidates, Salas withdrew his capital and ceased his involvement with the school. 
  The idea behind the school was to offer girls the same opportunities as boys in education. At a time when few opportunities for g
caption: Centro Escolar de Señoritas in 1920
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