Dénes Dienes: History of the Reformed Church Collég in Sárospatak (Sárospatak, 2013)
SECONDARY SCHOOL AND COLLEGE-THE COLLEGE AND THE DEVELOPING, MODERN EDUCATION SYSTEM - Odd judgments - Benő Zsoldos
of his Greek or Latin translations appeared in print. His explanatory notes to Crispus Sallustius Catalane and Jugurtha were published with the help of the Literary Circle in Sárospatak. He wrote a textbook for his students on the history of Latin literature which was also published in Patak in 1898. He wrote short articles in magazines and newspapers circulated in Patak. He was able to take a certain satisfaction in having the editors of the Encyclopedia of the Ancient World and of the Pallas Dictionary ask him to provide them with a significant number of articles and entries which focused on different themes of the ancient world. Although he was not able to break into the upper ranks of the Academy, he certainly was unavoidably among those national classic scholars who were in the second line. Benő Zsoldos could also be of interest to historians of pedagogy given his extensive publications on the subject. Together with Gyula Mitrovics and Radácsi György, Zsoldos started, in 1882, a weekly paper called Sárospataki Lapok in which he regularly commented on educational issues and school organization. Based specifically on his experiences in Patak, he spoke against the right to appeal for those students who were excluded for disciplinary reasons from the food- scholarship program. He defended his strict position while arguing that the procedures are always carried out in a loving environment and, therefore, it is impossible that anyone receive any undeserved punishment. He furthermore advanced the argument that the unnecessary right to appeal can be used to build up mistrust against the teachers. He expressed his views in two articles during a nationwide, pedagogical debate about over-burdening the students. He communicated his belief that the objective should always be to teach students how to think critically and how to learn, instead of memorizing the curriculums of fifteen subjects. He stood by the Comenius principle (concentric expansion, taking into account the characteristics associated with the student’s age, gradual input of information) and emphasized that beauty and harmony are absolutely essential to ensure that the student learns to appreciate the achievements of science. In contrast, the school curriculum deters youth from the very beginning with its congestion. It is true that it filters out the untalented as well, but the system causes great harm. “The aim of secondary school education is not the teaching of many subjects, but the training and developing of spiritual forces, enabling students to do intellectual work, self-development and to get them accustomed to working.” - said Zsoldos. Benő Zsoldos spent twenty years on organizing the vast amount of historic records of the College and the church district. Already from the beginning of his mandate in 1889, the critics appraising his workplans applauded him for his special expertise and gift for details. For the next two decades, the remarkable diligence, perseverance, rigor and self-denial which he demonstrated were also worthy qualities which he could rightly claim. Hardly a day went by without him spending at least an hour or two with reading, working on translation and organizing those old letters and documents in order. His daily diary shows that he handled and sorted more than eighty-five thousand documents, doing so with an uncommon determination. His work was difficult not only due to the quantity of documents but also because they were completely unorganized and just stashed in a crowded warehouse. At 149 Documents from the Archives with the cataloguing reference appended by Benő Zsoldos
