Maria Theresa’s comprehensive school reform, the 1777 Ratio Educationis (devised by Gerhard von Swieten and József Ürményi) placed education under state supervision, set up districts with inspectors assigned by the queen, introduced compulsory primary school education, redevised the curriculum, and, by confiscating the properties of the Jesuit order (which had, prior to its suppression in 1773, been in control of public education), provided funds to establish new schools. At the bottom of the new system stood village and small town elementary schools (with one to three teachers depending on the size of populace) teaching in the vernacular of the locality; the secondary level consisted of a three- or five-year gymnasium, teaching in Latin. In between secondary education and the University stood the royal academies located at the seats of educational districts.
As part of Enlightenment governance, education was meant to produce loyal subjects and virtuous citizens animated by love of the fatherland. State supervision did not abolish denominational divisions: The Ratio Educationis was not approved by Protestants. Their educational system considerably broadened after Joseph II’s 1781 Patent of Tolerance, and the Diet of 1790 reaffirmed their educational autonomy. The Calvinist Colleges of Sárospatak, Pápa and Debrecen had thousands of students, but the lack of a Protestant university in Hungary necessitated a foreign peregrinatio to German or Dutch universities. Growing religious tolerance also opened education up to Jews as of 1783.
Demands to include Hungarian language courses into public education (even if not taught through Hungarian) arose from the early 18th century. The first Ratio, however, treated Hungarian as one of the seven subsidiary languages of ethnic areas subordinated to compulsory German. Elementary school text-books were bilingual, combining German and a local vernacular. Hungarian text-books in Hungarian (focused more on grammar and rhetoric than everyday conversation) were sporadically published from the 1730-40s. In 1787 M. Révai released a Hungarian primer in Hungarian (ABC könvecske a nemzeti iskoláknak, “ABC book for national schools”), but F. Verseghy’s Hungarian language book of 1816, compulsory in secondary education from the early 1820s, was still written in Latin. From the mid-18th century Piarist and Lutheran middle schools offered Hungarian language courses, but in Calvinist colleges the use of Hungarian was forbidden (as barbarism) even outside the classroom under the threat of corporal punishment up to the early 1800s. However, from the 1830s Calvinist colleges introduced education in Hungarian; the University of Pest would not follow suit until later.
As a backlash to Joseph II’s short-lived 1784 policy of making German the language of education at every level, the Hungarian Diet of 1790 put the question of Hungarian education in the forefront. Leopold II ordered to have a teacher of Hungarian in every secondary school as well as at the University. The 1806 Second Ratio Educationis sanctioned by Francis II extended teaching in the respective vernaculars of ethnic areas also to secondary schools, but it also made Hungarian language courses part of the curriculum; in bilingual elementary textbooks Hungarian replaced German as default language.
From the 1790s onwards, the proliferation of pamphlets, proposals, and public debates on the subject of “educatio nationalis” clearly shows how the increasing national centralization of educational infrastructures developed in tandem with the modern concepts of nationhood. Their parallel development reached its apogee in 1844, when, by the Diet’s decree, Hungarian replaced Latin as the language of state administration; secondary and university education also were ordered to be conducted in Hungarian. In 1848 the short-lived independent Hungarian government established a national ministry of education headed by József Eötvös. Indicating the importance of education even in days of turmoil, in the summer of 1848 a national congress of educators, representing every nationality, denomination and educational level, made preparations for a new compulsory “national curriculum”, a plan swept away by the ensuing war of independence. (After the war, the new Habsburg administration once again reorganized the educational system, cutting back its Hungarian nationalization: the 1849 Entwurf reintroduced the use of the respective vernaculars in secondary schooling.)
While young aristocrats like István Szécheni continued to rely on private tuition, the first half of the 19th century witnessed a striking expansion of the school system. In Pest the number of primary schools increased from seven in 1790 to 32 in 1848; by that time Pest had three gymnasiums (two Catholic and one Lutheran). The expansion entailed a considerable expansion of teacher’s colleges, especially from the 1840s; it also induced social mobility and led to the rise of the honoratior class, i.e. non-noble, secular intelligentsia, capable of taking public office. The school system profited from public and private munificence, e.g. count Festetich’s Georgikon in Keszthely. The first (German-language) Kindergarten playschool was established in 1828 in Buda on the initiative of Teréz Brunszvik, a follower of Pestalozzi. In the countryside, the first playschool opened in 1836, with their overall number rising to 89 by 1848; the first playschool-teachers’ training college was established as early as 1837. Middle- and upper-class girls, who previously had studied at home or in convents, from the early 1800s began to attend exclusive private schools. Female education became a central ideological issue from the 1830s. The novelist András Fáy pleaded for a “national education of women”, so they could raise their children as Magyars. Public secondary schooling for girls, however, was introduced only as late as 1895, the same year that women were allowed to enrol as university students.
Along with the increasing involvement of the student body in the respective “national awakenings” of the country (witness the proliferation of ethnically based student societies from the 1820s), the curriculum was also increasingly nationalized. Especially Hungarian literature and history were seen as means to culturally unify society. History classes, obligatory since the 1777 Ratio, were increasingly focused on Hungarian history; from the 1870s the increasing professionalization and specialization of educators also led to the creation of the profession of Hungarian literature instructor. The dilemmas of what kind of society and national community should be produced and reproduced through education also triggered pedagogical debates whether Humanist erudition or modern sciences should be prioritized. This polemic, which had been going on since the late 18th century and gained considerable publicity after the opening of the Palatine Joseph Industrial School in 1846, reached an equilibrium by the 1883 division between gimnázium (with emphasis on humanities, for the upper middle classes) and reáliskola (Realschulen, focusing on natural sciences, for the petite bourgeoisie).
The Compromise of 1867 was followed by the further expansion of a comprehensive school system encompassing every region, nationality, and denomination. Along with implanting liberal principles, however, the policies of the era increasingly used education for cultural homogenization and propagating a Hungarian national identity countrywide. The 1868 Elementary School Act made it obligatory to set up a primary school in every settlement with at least thirty children between the age of six and twelve; this triggered an enormous increase in the number of schools, certified teachers and pupils (their numbers doubled between 1875 and 1900). The Act intended to eliminate illiteracy (in 1869 only 40% of males and 15% of females were literate; that ratio rose above 70% by 1910). Devised in a liberal fashion by Eötvös (serving his second term as minister of culture), the Act also prescribed that primary education should be conducted in the respective vernaculars of ethnic communities. After Eötvös’s death, however, teaching Hungarian was made compulsory in every elementary school and even ethnic instructors were expected to speak Hungarian as of 1879. While education in minority vernaculars was not eliminated, everyone aspiring for a teaching position in public education had to take a basic exam in Hungarian literature and linguistics.
Around the turn of the century hundreds of new elementary schools were established in regions with non-Magyar population. With the hardly disguised intent of magyarization, the regulations of 1907-08 provided state subsidy for elementary schools in ethnic areas only if they proved outstanding results in teaching Hungarian. In fact, the school system was successful in enabling cultural assimilation especially in larger cities. While according to the census in 1880, nearly 120,000 people lived in Budapest whose mother tongue was German, there was not one German-language school left in the capital by 1918.
