Dénes Dienes: History of the Reformed Church Collég in Sárospatak (Sárospatak, 2013)
SPIRIT AND MOOD - Back in the hands of the Church again - the Golden Age of the Teacher Training School
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST MARGINALIZATION 212 Dezső Kovács the practice school, but, during the war years, religious instruction teachers and guest teachers helped round out the numbers. This small staff could work well together and created a veritable intellectual workshop. Various professional meetings, regular duty tours in the practice school, visits to the dormitories, continuing education courses and broadening of teacher-student contacts were all activities which reinforced both the teachers and the educational community. The teachers from the Teacher Training School often received other recurring cultural assignments outside of school. They gave lectures on methodology at educational seminars and teacher meetings and taught in the village seminars within the framework of the ‘people’s college’ program organized by the College. They were present at almost all major educational organizations in town and in the county (e.g. scouts, cadet organization military training movements or county public education committees). The increased prestige of the school is evidenced by the fact that, from the end of the 1930s on, more and more teachers were given academic supervisory duties in Miskolc, Debrecen and Kassa by the school district’s chief executive officer. During the two decades extending from the time the school was returned to the church and its nationalization in 1950, there were ninety-one teachers who worked for the school. Twenty-six of them were full-time teachers for longer or shorter periods of time. The school’s prestige is perhaps best measured by the fact that three members of the teaching staff had very significant careers later on: Zoltán Hargitai became a teacher at the University of Kolozsvár, István Varga taught at the University of Szeged and Kálmán Újszászy moved to the Theological Academy and became a much appreciated and widely respected professor. Among the teachers who served for longer periods, Dezső Kovács (1881- 1964) stands out. He was director of the institution for almost the entire period between the two World Wars. After his studies in Csurgó and Budapest, he went to his first teaching position in Baja. He left Baja for Patak in 1905. Aside from his military service in 1915 and 1916, he worked in Patak until he retired in 1937. He was temporary director of the training institute from 1919 and then became full-time director in 1923, continuing in this position until his retirement. He was an energetic and well-respected teacher; he first raised the standards in his own subject which was music and song and was the first one to use the system of ‘movable-do’ when teaching singing in Patak. He worked mostly with groups of students but he always made sure that individual students received sufficient attention and were challenged at their levels. Thus his method quickly became popular throughout the country. As a director, he was highly successful in nurturing students’ patriotism and promoting folk culture within the school walls. He devised unique opportunities to encourage physical education activities and healthy living. He promoted self-education and continuous education among his staff, and it was important to him that the staff took their social responsibilities seriously in order to strengthen the regional influence of the institution. He primarily published works for choirs. His most popular book was Organ School but his other book Song Collection of the People’s School was of great assistance for others. In addition to Kovács, we must mention Antal Egey (1903-1994) and Mihály Tóth (1889-1964). Egey attended the University of Budapest, belonged to the Eötvös fraternity and received a teaching degree in natural history and
