Dénes Dienes: History of the Reformed Church Collég in Sárospatak (Sárospatak, 2013)
János Ugrai: „THE PERIOD OF NATIONAL ADVANCEMENT” 1777-1849 - Environmental conditions - The spirit of the age: from the enlightenment to the fall of the war of independence
an increasing number and prevalence of pedagogic-philosophical and practical educational questions. Needed was new knowledge for the new morals, and new methods of cognition for the new knowledge, and to all this came the need for the full redefinition of the educational program. This process, however, was not self- promulgating in the peripheral regions of Europe. In Hungary, as well as in many other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the active intervention of the sovereign was a requisite, unlike in the English, French and German territories and their process of intellectual development. Mary Theresa and later Joseph II, also, wished to integrate only certain elements of Western modernization but not others, so they planned their sweeping education reform for the Habsburg Monarchy accordingly, as well as for the separate Kingdom of Hungary which still retained its feudal autonomy. Evidently, secularization stood at the heart of state (sovereign) educational politics. The spirit of the reform program revolved around the priniciple that the highest supervisory rights of the sovereign were to prevail at all levels of schooling, and that the school strive to achieve, as best it can, the goals of the state rather than the goals of the traditional value system of the church and noble class. Thus a series of experiments of diverse intensity, which can be divided into several phases, was launched in Hungary with the dissolution of the Jesuit order (1774) and concluded with the Ratio Educationis II (1806). The first debates pertaining to the politics of education were not only of shorter duration but also significantly more superficial than those in Austria or in Bohemia. Significant changes had already been inititated around 1750 in the successor provinces of the Habsburg Monarchy and the reverberations from the first great wave of reforms only quieted down at the end of 1810. The debates in question concerned professional issues (e.g. system of discipline-specialized teachers in secondary schools, state teacher training and the academy of sciences) which had not yet been discussed on their merits in Hungary at the time. Reform efforts of a considerably narrower spectrum resulted in the streamlining of the university in Pest, the organizing of Catholic teacher training and the overall increase in the number of schools accessible to the general public. The issuing and appearance of Ratio Educationis I (1777) is generally considered to be of revolutionary significance. This codex pertaining to educational matters meticulously regulated the world of schooling, ordained the standardization of school types and their educational material and declared the sovereign as having the principal right of oversight. It furthermore endeavoured to introduce numerous progressive innovations in the curriculum which were developed in the spirit of the Enlightenment. The measures of Ratio I, however, were never realized. The standardization of the school system proved unsuccessful due, in part, to financial reasons. It would have been necessary to resolve the merging of schools with study programs of different duration into certain well-regulated school types and the mass distribution of standardized schoolbooks. Another part of the difficulty was the Protestants who resisted the notion of centralized regulations dominated by Catholics. With passive resistance, they unabashedly pointed to the Edict of Tolerance and insisted on having their own educational system. Their determined stance in this proved successful and for an entire era, right up until the middle of the 19th century, they maintained their separate status in all aspects, even to the extent that certain Reformed and Lutheran schools 77 VIND OBONHi. TYris JOAN. THOM. nob. dfTRATTNKRN, SAC. CJF.S. R H'i. MAJ. TYpO<!R. ET BiBL- ItlDCCLXXVII. RATIO EDUCATIONIS TOTIU8QUE RES LITERARY P B R REGNUM HUNGÁRIÁÉ E T PROVINCIAS EIDEM ADNEXAS. The title page of Ratio Educationis I
