Manuel José Pestana died on August 27, 1883, leaving the fifteen-year-old Augusto Pestana to care for his mother and his four younger sisters. The Brazilian Imperial House wanted to help the family and offered Pestana a scholarship at the Pedro II School and at a university of his choice. He politely refused the offer and explained to Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil that, as a Republican, "one could not accept any favors from the Crown". Pestana would instead teach Portuguese, History, Geography and Mathematics to fund his own studies at the "Escola Politécnica do Rio de Janeiro", Brazil's oldest Engineering school, from which he would earn a degree of civil engineer at age 20, the youngest in his class.