Dénes Dienes: History of the Reformed Church Collég in Sárospatak (Sárospatak, 2013)
SPIRIT AND MOOD - Together, yet apart - independence for the secondary school
154 SECONDARY SCHOOL AND COLLEGE Géza Gárdonyi studied at the College in 1874-75. He was not the most diligent of students as he himself later admitted: ‘In February I dropped out of school because I had failing grades in all my subjects.’ Such girls were welcomed in Patak even though the possibility of finding jobs for well-educated women remained a daunting question. Debates arose from time to time not only on matters such as the autonomy of the main secondary school, the number of staff or the organizational structure but on content issues as well. There was much clashing over the humanities subjects in particular. In 1867, for example, the teachers complained that most parents regularly declared Latin redundant as a subject and as a language in front of their own children and thus it was not surprising that more and more students neglected their duties when it came to Latin. As a possible solution, the idea to reduce the number of humanities subjects came up again. In this matter, for example, it had been proposed to the church district in 1869 that a comprehensive secondary school reform should be made which would introduce more science subjects, the so-called exact sciences in the lower classes and more humanities subjects in the higher classes. The church district instructed them to work out the details. The plan never materialized as news came to Patak that the ministry planned to introduce a nine-grade secondary education system, something which would force them to restructure again. Thus, no major changes were initiated until the Secondary School Law (SSL) appeared but even the Law itself did not effect any significant changes in the curriculum in Patak. As a result, between 1860 and 1880, the core subjects included religion (one to two hours per week), Hungarian literature and grammar (two to four hours), Latin (six to eight hours), history (two to three hours) and geometry (two to four hours). These subjects figured in the curriculum of every secondary class. The SSL called for only smaller adjustments. Hungarian literature and grammar classes, for example, were to be increased by one hour while the Latin classes were to be reduced by one hour. In the upper classes, students would have classes in natural sciences and natural history (usually two to four hours per week) and they also had physical education, music, drawing and penmanship. At the grade seven and eight level, liberal arts subjects (psychology, anthropology, the investigative history of Hungary, political geography and history) appeared. German was to be taught three hours weekly beginning in grade three while Greek was taught for five hours weekly beginning in grade five. This meant that the number of hours (ten to eleven hours) of Greek and Latin instruction, when taken together, largely surpassed those of Hungarian and a living foreign language (four to six hours). Due to the disproportionate presence of Greek in the curriculum, the ‘humán- reál’ (liberal arts vs. sciences) debate flared up again at the end of the 1880s. The MNER wished to make Greek optional and, for schools not offering Greek, a more practical subject was to be implemented. The teachers of Patak did not welcome the suggestion, being of the opinion that it did not bode well if new regulations were already to be modified. Since the implementation of said legislation had not yet been published, the school opted to wait a year. In this matter, they had to carefully weigh the consequences, if they replaced Greek with another subject, hiring a new teacher would be inevitable; if they invoked their rights of autonomy and kept Greek, they would lose their competitiveness. The question became real the following year. According to decree number 1890/XXX, the secondary school could choose between keeping Greek (with four hours every week) and replacing it with additional Hungarian literature, Greek literature,
