Dénes Dienes: History of the Reformed Church Collég in Sárospatak (Sárospatak, 2013)
SPIRIT AND MOOD - Famous Teachers
116 FROM THE ENLIGHTEMENT TO THE END OF THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE Ferenc Vályi Nagy (Bratislava) and Jena before holding various teaching positions in six different cities. He changed work places often due to his legitimate dissatisfaction with his salary, although, in some cases, personal conflicts also played a part. He worked in Patak for nearly ten years, teaching natural sciences, the basics of agriculture and Roman and German literature. He developed a close relationship with Ferenc Kazinczy during this time. The Academy chose him to be a corresponding member - a great honour he received while in Patak. In 1834, he once again bid farewell to the College due to financial reasons, finding himself to be deeply in debt by the time his house in Patak was completed. He moved to Szarvas and worked there until he retired in 1838. He died in Sárospatak in 1841. Among the humaniorum professors, the name of Ferenc Vályi Nagy is not to be overlooked. Despite teaching classes only at the middle level, he possessed notable knowledge and ambitions. He had studied in Zürich and taught in Patak for nearly twenty years before becoming a professor of exegetics (interpretation of the Bible) in Patak at the age of fifty-four and head of the newly-created department of church history and Greek literature. A few weeks after his appointment, he became ill and a few months later, in January 1820, he passed away. Despite not rising to the highest rung in the academic hierarchy, his legacy includes nationwide renown as an accomplished expert in literature. He is known perhaps foremost for his translation of Homer’s Iliad but also for his poems without rhyme and for his methods of teaching students how to compose poetry of this style. Hungary’s first plagiarism court case, that known as “the Iliad case” transpiring between Kazinczy and Kölcsey, can be included as a feature of his career, also. A sharp contrast in personalities and mode of operation is very evident between that of Vályi Nagy and his successor, Benedek Kálniczky, who studied in Göttingen and was most knowledgeable in the domain of the history of religion. Nonetheless, he is remembered as being one of the most boring professors of the College, regularly dictating his lessons and viewing examinations to be nothing more than a word-by-word regurgitation of that which he had dictated. His lengthy years of teaching (1820-1859) barely left a mark in the history of the College. The only plausible exception to this was his contribution as co-editor to the famous Greek-Hungarian and Latin-Hungarian dictionaries which were published in Sárospatak. The last memorable teacher of this period in the life of the College was András Majoros, a former student of the College. He started teaching here in 1819 and remained on staff until his death in 1854. He was absent for but one year in 1812 when went to the Szepesség to study German. In 1819, the students of the College unanimously elected him to the office of contrascriba but, later that year, he was promoted to the position of humaniorum professor. The curriculum in 1837 was reorganized and, as a result, the department of logic was shifted to the academy and, as a consequence, Majoros rose to the position of full professor. In addition to teaching logic, he also taught Hungarian literature. As a result, he increasingly turned his attention to the regularities existing in Hungarian grammar. In 1831, he published a short geography textbook and in the following decades he published large volumes on Hungarian grammar. He also found time to wrote poems in Hungarian and in Latin. In the wake of the loss of the war of independence, the College had to adjust to the requirements of the
