IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF A GREAT MIND
AND GREAT LOVE FOR COUNTRY.

The Legacy of Jose P. Laurel

The Lyceum owes its achievements to its founder, Dr. Jose P. Laurel.A man of many facets, he was a lawyer, legislator, constitutionalist,jurist, writer, scholar, statesman, philosopher and thinker- but more than anything, he was an educator.

Teaching was his great love, and concern for education, his abiding passion. Dr. Laurel wrote voluminously on education and managed to find the time to teach in several schools in Manila.

During the dark days of the nation's history, while carrying the burden of wartime leadership. He introduced educational policies that emphasized and upheld the national character. After the war, he, assenator, authored the law creating the National Education Board and, with Senator Claro M. Recto, sponsored the Rizal Law.

The idea for a school came to him in the early 1920s while he was at Yale, but circumstances prevented him from building on the dream. Finally in 1950, he gathered several close friends to discuss his plan of founding a school that he intended would become a center of learning not only in the Philippines but also in the Far East. On July 7, 1952 the school offered it first class.

Laurel's administration for the great seats of learning and his appreciation for classical thought inspired him to name the school Lyceum- from the Greek word "lykeio" referring to the grove in ancient Athens where Aristotle searched for the truth and wisdom. The schools's motto, veritas et fortitudo, means courage and unyielding resolution in the quest for truth.