Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából 25. (1996)

TANULMÁNYOK - Erdei Gyöngyi: Törvényhozás és valóság : népoktatás a fővárosban 1868-1880 155-171

GYÖNGYI ERDEI LEGISLATION AND REALITY Public Education in the Capital, 1866-1880 SUMMARY The author presents a review of the history of public education after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise in 1867. She looks over the efforts and attempts aimed at the development of general public education from 1848 en ward. The next topic is the Elementary School Bill prepared by József Eötvös, Minister of Education during the first Hungarian Ministry, and the Bill's parlamentary acception. The Bill reflected Eötvös' decidedly liberal views supporting the reduction of the Church's role in education. The author further presents the development of Hungarian public education in consequence to the Austrian absolutism and centralization that followed the fall of the Revolution of 1848. The constitutionalism in the second half of the 1860s, due to economic and political backwardness, caused regression. As a result, the interest of educated liberal public opinion turned to public education, considering it most important for economic and social progress. József Eötvös, re-nominated as Minister of Education, regarded the elaboration of an Elementary Education Act his most important task. The period of revolution however, was over. The new and much more moderate Act was passed only after allowing significant concessions to the Church. Its historical result and influence however, has gained significance beyond its original purpose. The establishment of a common integrated compulsory six grades of public elementary education and a new system of teacher training played a crucial role from the viewpoint of modernization. The process of the law's enactment in Budapest as capital, where economic possibilities were better than the rest of the country, is the of following topic examination. The Municipal Legislative Committee, in the name of the Law, declared those elementary schools which were maintained at city expense but managed by the Church as "parish schools." The City Fathers and the new school authorities took great efforts and spent vast sums to increase the number of elementary schools to benefit uneducated children. They also attempted to win the support of parents however, they often only provided perfunctory conditions. During the 1880s, half the schools were only four grades (the others less) although the basic subjects according to the syllabus were taught in the fifth and sixth grades. In spite of these obstacles the results of the first ten years were spectacular. The number of schools multiplied by two and a half, almost five-fold within the parishes. The number of enrolled students reached 90 percent. The rate of literacy increased by 11 percent between the two censuses. The achievement had a particular importance from the aspect of the development of the capital's infrastructure. Pressured by the rapid increase in the capital's population, the leading political elite was forced to establish, the elementary school network beyond the bases of urbanization, in an extraordinarily short span of time. 171