Technikatörténeti szemle 23. (1997-98)
TANULMÁNYOK - Efmertová, Marcela: Major Anniversaries of Prague’s Czech Technical University and its Support from the Secondary School System in the Past
But the industrializing societies made it imperative to provide secondary professional education to prepare students for technical branches, a type of training offered by the Realschule and industrial schools. The first Realschule in Austria was established as early as 1770 in Vienna. In the Czech lands the first Realschule opened in Rakovnfk in 1832, followed, in the next year, by a Realschule at Prague's Gerstner Polytechnic and then by a Realschule in Liberec in 1837. These schools had a high student dropout rate 28 , caused not only by the considerable intellectual demands placed on students themselves but also by social factors, since students, after studying for two out of the total four (or even six) years, usually left to find jobs to earn their livelihood. Furthermore, the process of establishing Realschule in the Czech lands was slow which prevented secondary technical schools and Realschule from gaining the necessary headstart before technical universities. The last key school reform was Hasner's School Act' 9 of May 14,1869 on compulsory school attendance, which succeeded in freeing the school system from its dependence on the Catholic church, facilitating a much better quality teacher training and, in the Czech lands, offering the choice of the language of instruction from two alternatives (Czech and German). Thanks to this legislation the range of individual types of schools was substantially extended. Originally follow-up refresher courses, Sunday schools or evening classes for young artisans and factory workers, set up in the early 1830s thanks to the Union for the Promotion of Industry in Bohemia (1833), were transformed in the latter half of the century into new industrial schools and Realschule. The former were mostly vocational (specializing primarly in mechanical and building engineering), arts and crafts (drawing, model-making, wood-carving decorative architecture etc.), artisan (lace-making, textile, glass-making, metal working) and follow-up courses (mechanical engineering and building branches) or specialized institutions (girls', conservatoires of music or cadet schools). In 1849 these were supplemented with business schools, institutes of higher economic learning and academies, institutions that boasted of quite long traditions in the Czech lands. Between 1763 and 1772, a well-functioning department for four-year studies of mining sciences was attached to Prague University's Law Faculty. This was transferred from the mining town of Jachymov in the Ore Mountains. In 1772, Jan TadeasPeithner, a professor of mining, left the Prague University for Hungary 30 . In 1763, Empress Maria Theresa set up a Mining Academy in Schemnitz whither JT. Peithner transferred his courses. During the last decades of the 18th century the Academy belonged among very popular schools but in the early 19th century students preferred the Mining Academy in the Saxon town of Freiberg opened since 1765. That was why in 1829 the Commission for Higher Educat-
