Dénes Dienes: History of the Reformed Church Collég in Sárospatak (Sárospatak, 2013)
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST MARGINALIZATION- BEFORE AND AFTER WORLD WAR II. - Zemplén cut into two, the Church District in three parts and a College with one governing body
186 THE STRUGGLE AGAINST MARGINALIZATION the number of class-hours of physical education; the nationalist-irredentist indoctrination escalated; modern, civic-minded artists, art works and modern scientific knowledge was most thoroughly screened. The main function of the school in the mid-1930s, as it was declared, was to create among the students a spiritual unity based on self-sacrifice, national belonging and patriotism. After 1945, a brand new era began in the history of education. The attempts at democratic transformation set into motion tremendous quantities of energy in this field, also. The National Council for Public Education was founded by and consisted of excellent scientists and artists (Albert Szentgyörgyi, Zoltán Bay, Zoltán Kodály or Béni Ferenczy). The most prominent representatives of each profession accepted the challenge to write textbooks, even for elementary schools. Making the schools democratic became a public matter and, in this spirit, the National Council obtained a binding authority to the law, which was supposed to be have been in force - at least in theory - since 1940, to establish the eight-year elementary school program. The mandatory modifications completely changed the structure of formal secondary schools. It was required that the first four grade levels be eliminated, this reducing to half the duration of study in these types of schools. The transformation, which was markedly detrimental to the interests of the traditional supporters of the school took place rather quickly, within a few years. The College in Sárospatak was affected greatly by this rather chaotic transformation in teacher training. As a result, the teacher training program ceased functioning in the town for a while due to a short-lived and unsuccessful attempt (between 1947 and 1949) to concentrate teacher training into only four major towns. The second half of the 1940s declared and promoted a rapid change in the constitution of the elite. This period had some merits and high-quality components, such as the founding of the National Association of People’s Colleges and certain reform changes in the curriculum (such as increasing the proportion of natural sciences or teaching living foreign languages instead of Latin). But as the country generally drifted towards communist dictatorship, so did education policies become increasingly hostile. From 1947 on, the political pressure applied to churches increased manyfold. Religious education was first made optional and then all education was nationalized by the state. In September 1950, a state decree was issued which stripped the churches of all rights to maintain schools. Only eight Roman Catholic, five Reformed Church, one Lutheran and one Jewish secondary school were permitted to remain in church hands. ZEMPLÉN CUT INTO TWO, THE CHURCH DISTRICT IN THREE PARTS AND A COLLEGE WITH ONE GOVERNING BODY The decision in Trianon very seriously affected the traditional recruitment zone of the College. Not only Zemplén, but Abaúj and Gömör counties had also lost close to fifty percent of their territory. Sárospatak suddenly found itself at the edge of the country. The city of Sátoraljaújhely, a little more than ten kilometres to the east, was cut in half by the newly imposed border between
