Dénes Dienes: History of the Reformed Church Collég in Sárospatak (Sárospatak, 2013)
SECONDARY SCHOOL AND COLLEGE-THE COLLEGE AND THE DEVELOPING, MODERN EDUCATION SYSTEM - From Orphanage to the Top - Ferenc Finkey
related to the (re)integration of juveniles into society. His professional attitude towards punishment was that it serves as an educational and pedagogical tool in the hands of society, so when delivering a verdict, all future prospects and opportunities should be taken into consideration. He had a very restrained but not entirely negative attitude towards the death penalty. His professional opinion was greatly influenced by a number of foreign experiences. Already at an early stage in his career, he went on a long study tour in Austria and Germany and, at the turn of the century, he surveyed prison conditions - with a Ministerial commission - in Germany, France, Belgium and England. His horizons were significantly broadened by the governmental scholarship he was accorded during the summer of 1910. It allowed him to study correctional schools and juvenile prisons and their current restructuring process in ten federal states within the United States. During his stay there, he was also able to serve as a representive of Hungarian jurisprudence at the international congress for prison affairs in Washington. Finkey’s teaching activities were largely influenced by Sándor Kövy and Emődy Dániel. Identifying with their heritage, he also considered it important not to confine legal education to only detailed theoretical information. A detailed discussion of practical examples, organized debates and prison visits for the students all served as pedagogical tools which Finkey deemed impossible to omit from a thorough training. Through seminars, he helped his more ambitious students to immerse themselves in research work and introduced legal practitioners to the work of patrons. This allowed the students to work with specialists and gain insights into how the system helps offenders during their probation and how it sets them on the right path. (Finkey later was able to establish an institutional relationship between the legal system and the education program in Pozsony, also.) Besides his academic contributions, Finkey wrote several valuable and authoritative textbooks for criminal law and criminal procedural law. He also published more specialized monographs and numerous studies and articles as well as major pieces on the subject of law enforcement and criminal profiling. His name is linked to a series of analytical essays on the decisions of the Supreme Court in a periodical called Criminal Law Compendium. His academic activities were accorded unanimous recognition. In this vein, in 1895, he was accorded post-doctoral university habilitation status. The University of Kolozsvár- Szeged granted him the title of honorary professor in 1925 and then, in 1940, bequeathed him with an honorary doctorate. Upon the recommendations of the period’s two best criminal lawyers, Gyula Wlassics and Jenő Balogh, he became a full member of the Academy in 1929, and an honorary member in 1940. It can thus be obviously established that Ferenc Finkey was able to attain the highest levels of achievement and recognition in his career, as both an academic and a judicial civil servant. He never let dim from his memory his roots in Patak. Even when he served in other parts of the country, he maintained contact with those in Zemplén and he always emphasized his Patak upbringing irregardless of which national position he happened to be occupying. As far as possible, he always intervened on behalf of the institution. Religious-based legal education and the existence of functioning law schools in rural sites held particular importance to him. When this was no 147 Da FINKEY FERENC KORONAyQYESZ Í8?0 - Í949. ÉS NCJE .\1S-. . RRDMCSY ERZSEBEI ; ‘ 16?? - 1955 ÉN VAGYOK R FELYAMRDAS ÉS AZ ÉLET The gravestone of Ferenc Finkey and his wife in the Cemetery of Sárospatak
