Dénes Dienes: History of the Reformed Church Collég in Sárospatak (Sárospatak, 2013)

SECONDARY SCHOOL AND COLLEGE-THE COLLEGE AND THE DEVELOPING, MODERN EDUCATION SYSTEM - The modernization of financial management

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proportion of outstanding amounts, the crisis in 1870 and the advent of World War I culminated in forcing the College to twice modify its economic management policy. The first modification called for the Board to invest more capital in the purchase of real estate and in the upgrading of existing and leased lands. During the last few years of peacetime and especially during the war, this strategy seemed safer given that inflation was high and a lower, but more secure income from estate management offered a greater chance of survival. After nearly a century of varying strategies, the College once more embraced the idea of self-sufficiency and as such it had sties built and launched a pig farm, producing the necessary feed on its own lands. Wood needed for construction and for firewood was provided from the forests owned by the College. During the most critical years of the war period, even the teachers received the majority of their salaries in crops and produce.

These changes made their effects felt immediately. Already in the first half of the 1850s, the annual average of loan transactions initiated by the College rose from an average of three, four or five loans to twenty-three loans. Within another fifteen years, this number increased by two-fold. Between sixty and seventy percent of the total revenue of the institution came from capital management and the leasing of lands. The remaining revenue came mostly from donations and collections and from student contributions (enrollment and certificate-issuing fees). The printing house also became a major source of income, producing popular publications at a competitive cost. When more difficult years came along, the receipts from the publishing activities could be increased by so-called “in-house manipulation”: in the spring of 1878, the church district decided that in the public schools of the district’s congregations the only textbooks to be used were the ones issued by the printing house at the College in Patak. This income represented almost one tenth of the College’s annual income.

An integral part of the College’s modernized economy was the separation of capital into different funds. The sudden expansion in the activity of youth organizations, for example, greatly increased the capital in that particular fund. A little later, the youth of Sárospatak and their incredibly colorful, vibrant student life will be presented in more detail. Dozens of self-study and self-help societies functioned side-by-side. Membership fees and voluntary contributions were collected from the new members and each organization thus had its own capital. Separated in this way, specific funds could only be used for specific purposes. The Board, however, exercised a supervisory role over the money. Altogether, the different youth organizations amassed a considerable amount of money. In certain years their collective balance exceeded twenty thousand forints.

Two of these initiatives are worth examining in more detail, given the fact that they serve no educational purpose but were established purely for economic reasons. One of these was called the College Patients Assistance Society. In Hungary, a large number of such voluntary patients assistance societies existed and it was on these that the youth in Patak modelled theirs, which they launched in 1865. The annual membership fee, initially pegged at two forints and then later three, entitled the members to free medical care and

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—fExtract of minutes from the senior’s auditing office