T. Bereczki Ibolya (szerk.): GYERMEKVILÁG MAGYARORSZÁGON (Kiállítási katalógusok - Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 2003)
separate activities. The ready toy was less important then the fact of creating it on their own. Parents and grandparents played with the children in the sense that they made for them husk dolls, small wagons, cradles, wooden swords, violins. These toys were miniature tools and utensils, used for educating the child for work. Traditional village life didn't know toyshops. If a present was bought for a child, it was normally some delicacy purchased at the fair. We find among the memories from pilgrimages small jugs, gingerbread rosaries for girls, which can be considered as toys. Beside toys, there is a rich collection of child's folklore, consisting of nursery rhymes and lullabies. CHILD AND SCHOOL In Hungary basic school education has a history of thousand years. At the beginning monasteries engaged themselves in teaching. Village children learned from the parson to read and to sing so that they could participate in church ceremonies. From the 16 t h century on, Catholic and Protestant, poor and well-to-do children alike visited village schools. The main subjects were religion, reading and singing. Education followed different goals from the 18 t n century onwards, identifying the acquirement of useful knowledge as the main objective. Towns introduced the teaching of mathematics, being useful for both, trade and crafts. Books were written to provide agricultural knowledge for village boys. Besides the mothers, the teachers' wives used to teach girls about household matters. Girls were learning how to stitch, to knit, to embroider, to make soap, candle, vinegar, to press oil, etc. The education law of the year 1868 made school education obligatory, preceding many Western European countries in this field. Children between 6 and 12 years had to visit a public primary school followed either by higher education or 3 years of "repeating" school. Traditionally, the Church kept up educational institutions, from the end of the 19 t n century, however, the communities were obliged to maintain the primary schools. Schools used to stand in the middle of the village, next to the church. Till the beginning of the 20 t h century their appearance didn't differ from a farmer house. These buildings used to be also the teacher's quarters. The law, however, couldn't be implemented everywhere: there were not enough schoolhouses, and sometimes they were far away from other villages. Up to 80 children might have been squeezed in an undivided classroom. Poor families were not able to pay for the school and children didn't have appropriate clothing. The main reason of their absence was however the fact that children had to work in the family. All the six classes had their lessons in the same room, which was modestly furnished. The teacher's desk stood on an elevation, the pupils desks faced him. Bible, schoolbooks and songbooks, inkpot, feathers, chalk and the tool of disciplining, the stick were displayed on the table. A Crucifix, the picture of the king, maps and visual aids hang on the walls. Children learned to count in front of the abacus, they wrote on the blackboard and on their slates. Due to agricultural work, school was visited from October till end of April. Children went every day to school, from Monday till Saturday, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The obligatory education's results appeared in the twenties of the 20 t h century: whereas in 1910 only 69 % of the population could read and write, this percentage rose to 87 % in 1920 and to 94 % in 1941. From 1945/46 schooling was obligatory for all children between 6 and 14 years. In 1949 all schools were nationalised and secularised. After 1989 the educational system became again diversified in its structure and its contents. Schools are again maintained by Churches, foundations, social organisations and private persons. Seeing the opportunities provided in today's schools, it is hard to imagine children of the past walking for hours to distant schools in cold and dark winter mornings, carrying their simple linen sack slung over their shoulders. IN THE DRIFT OF HISTORY Adults like to refer to happy childhood. Indeed, if we watch playing children, we see the numerous toys, the dancing and singing boys and girls in their national costumes, we might believe that no wars, no revolutions, no evil history can touch them. We know however, how often history disturbed, destroyed and changed the life of whole communities and with them, those of the children. The fact that children survived cataclysms and remained alive, is due to the strength of the invisible ties of family and community cohesion, which determined the way of life of village and town communities during centuries. They lived their lives free from care within this strictly ordered community, but here they met also the dark sides of life: sickness and dead. Tales told them about good and bad kings, about soldiers, who kill and soldiers, who save lives. Church ceremonies taught them discipline, stories of the Bible offered them role models of heroes, saints and martyrs. Examples of heroism, self-sacrifice, sacred lives shaped their characters, gave them moral power to overcome difficult times when history entered their destiny. They suffered, tolerated, and sometimes formed historic events. The girl on the picture was six year old in 1914, at the beginning of the First World War, when her father joined the army. Her parents wrote letters to each other every week. One told about the village, the other about the war. The father died in 1915. She grew up, got married and had two sons. Her husband died in the Second World War. Her children became war orphans too. The First World War terminated for Hungary with the injustice of the so-called Treaty of Trianon. As a consequence, Hungary lost two thirds of its thousand years old territory. Big areas with ethnic Hungarian population came under the rule of Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, Austria. Up to now, this situation affects children's life in every possible respect. In the schools, they could not be educated in their mother tongue. Schoolbooks distort our history, if don't ignore it at all. The assimilation process was forced in the schools. Adults and children were humiliated for the only reason of being Hungarians. More and more atrocities happened against them. After the Second World War many ten thousands Hungarians were deported to Hungary. From Hungarian territories belonging to Ukraine, many thousand men and women were carried off to Siberia for forced labour. The only reason: they were Hungarians. Hungarians living on the native land of their ancestors in Yugoslavia were killed by
