Public Education in Hungary [antikvár]

The history of Hungárián schools follows the same development as we find in the other countries of Europe. But it is alsó true that the special character of the Hungárián situation brought about special solutions to somé problems. The church schools of medieval Hungary taught the seven liberal arts. The first universities were established in the 14th and 15th centuries in 1367 in Pécs (Southern Hungary) and in 1467 in Pozsony (today Bratislava, Czechoslovakia), but they functioned only for a few decades. The Turkish occupation of Hungary in 1526 and the consequent partition of the country into three parts were events that reduced the cultural influence of the Reformation. Large Protestant colleges were founded in Debrecen, Sárospatak (North-East Hungary), Gyulafehérvár (today Alba Iulia, Rumania), Marosvásárhely (today Tirgu Mure§, Rumania), Brassó (today Bra§ov, Rumania), Bártfa (today Bardejov, Czechoslovakia). In the second half of the 17th century the Czech Comenius (Jan Amos Komensky) was teaching in Sárospatak, and in Gyulafehérvár. Apáczai Csere János, the first outstanding Hungárián educator and authority on cultural policy, was trying to create an independent Hungárián school system with instruction in the vernacular and to expand the teaching of the natural sciences. During these centuries he and many Hungárián stüdents studied at foreign universities. To counteract the influence of the Reformation, the Catholic Church alsó established many schools: the Jesuit colleges in the 16-17th centuries, the Piarist grammar schools and primary schools in the 18th century. The Archbishop of Esztergom, Péter Pázmány, founded a university at Nagyszombat (today Trnava, Czechoslovakia) in 1635 for the teaching of theology and law. (It was moved to Buda in 1777, then on to Pest, and it is the predecessor of today's Eötvös Loránd University of Arts and Sciences.) The progressive teachers and stüdents of this university fought against the colonizing attempts of the Habsburgs and played a significant role in the 1848 revolution. Their demand that Hungárián become the language of instruction at universities met with success in 1848. The Ratio Educationis, a public education codex, created the first unified Hungárián school system in 1777. According to this plan a three or four year school taught in the vernacular was followed by a middle school of instruction for three years in Latin grammar and two years of secondary grammar The Development of Education in Hungary