As in the period between 1919 and 1927, the status of secondary schools was also influenced by changes in the legal environment in the Gombocz era, due to the entry into force of
668 The data on 1st year students of the Faculty of Arts at Royal Hungarian Péter Pázmány University of Sciences for the 1929/1930 academic year is provided in Asztalos 1930: 78, while the data relating to the Greek Catho-lic and Unitarian faculty of arts students of the 1927/1928 academic year is included in Sine nomine 1929:
350–351. The 1930s national data can be found in the 1930 census 1941: 23.
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8.2. The Breakdown of the Secondary Schools of Applicants Admitted and 8.2. The Breakdown of the Secondary Schools of Applicants Admitted and Rejected Rejected
Act XI of 1934. The educational policy represented by Bálint Hóman concluded that the differentiated secondary school system did not live up to its expectations, therefore, the schools of sciences and the grammar schools of sciences were abolished and integrated into the grammar school institution type. As a later element of the reform, the new grammar school curriculum, published in 1938, placed greater emphasis on nationally important subjects (history, Hungarian literature history), which also resulted in a change in market demand (Németh 2004: 449), although this did not significantly affect the Collegium training system during the examined period.
41% of admitted applicants graduated from the state institution system (18% from gram-mar school of sciences, 14% from schools of sciences and 9% from gramgram-mar schools). For the first time in the history of the Collegium, the majority of the students admitted came from an institutional system not maintained by a religious denomination. This was probably due to the gradual expansion of the state secondary school network. The proportion of high school graduates in Catholic secondary schools was 27% among successful applicants (18%
from Catholic grammar schools, 9% from Catholic grammar schools of sciences), which was a significant decrease compared to the previous period. 20% of collegium students graduated from Reformed secondary schools (19% from Reformed grammar schools and 1% from Reformed grammar schools of sciences), while 10% graduated from Evangelical-Lutheran institutes (6% from Evangelical-Lutheran grammar schools and 4% from Evangelical-Lu-theran grammar schools of sciences), with 1% arriving from grammar schools belonging to the Judaist denomination.669 Thus, the gap created by the loss of nearly ten percent of Roman Catholic students was filled mainly by institutions maintained by the state and by the Reformed denomination.670
The first two places in the absolute ranking of secondary schools were taken by Reformed institutes. The first place was taken by the Budapest Reformed Grammar School with 14 admitted collegium students. The dynamic expansion of the Reformists had been a process observed since 1890 (Kende–Kovács 2011a: 92), but after the Treaty of Trianon, the denomination became one of the largest maintainer of schools. As a result, several Reformed institutes appeared during the 1919–1927 period among the top twenty insti-tutes for admission. During the examined period, the second place was also occupied by an institute maintained by the denomination, the renowned Sárospatak Reformed Grammar School and Boarding School (6 persons). In joint third place was the Budapest Saint Emeric Grammar School of the Cistercian Order and the 8th District Royal Hungarian Zrínyi Miklós Grammar School of Sciences (both with 5 people). Several institutes based in the capital also formed part of the top ten list (with 4 people respectively, the Budapest 2nd
669 There is no data available for 1% of admitted students regarding the type of secondary school they graduated from.
670 Unfortunately, there is no information available on faculty of arts or graduated students in regard to who maintained the grammar school they graduated from. However, it is possible to compare institution types. 52%
of the Collegium members graduated from grammar schools, with 32% graduating from grammar schools of sciences and 14% graduating from schools of sciences. In contrast, 52% of students enrolling at Royal Hungarian Péter Pázmány University of Sciences in the 1929/1930 academic year graduated from grammar schools of sciences, with 32% graduating from grammar schools, 6% from secondary schools of sciences and 9% from upper commercial secondary schools (Asztalos 1930: 78).
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District Royal Catholic Grammar School, the Budapest Evangelical-Lutheran Grammar School and the Budapest 4th District Secondary School of the Pious Pastor Order). In addition, the only state-run institute among the top performing institutes was the Győr state secondary school of sciences (4 people), which was also not typical of earlier periods, at most among those rejected. The Reformed institutions of the Great Plain were almost completely absent from the list of secondary schools of admitted applicants, as they were replaced mostly by secondary schools based in the capital (with 1 person respectively, the Budapest 1st District Werbőczy István Grammar School of Sciences, the Budapest 2nd District State King Matthias Grammar School of Sciences and the Budapest 7th District State Madách Imre Grammar School).
58% of the secondary schools of admitted applicants were located in municipality towns, with a 70% share of the capital within the category. This data is due to two factors: on the one hand, as a result of the settling of families from across the border and the settlement of migrants from rural areas sending their children to institutions of the capital in the hope of obtaining a higher quality education (cf. Gyáni 2006: 208). On the other hand, it is also related to the Collegium referral system, as most of the graduates settled in the capital or in its immediate vicinity, and their teachers’ careers from their secondary schools in Budapest helped their students with admissions. 23% of secondary schools were located in county towns, with 15% located in large villages with 5–10,000 inhabitants and only 3% in small villages with less than 5,000 inhabitants.671 The drastic (17%) drop in the number of grad-uates from county towns and the doubling of gradgrad-uates from large villages compared to the previous period were also likely due to the migration flow and the referral system. Among the latter, Aszód, Gödöllő, Újpest, and Sárospatak, i.e. mostly settlements close to the capital, gave more collegium students to the institute. It is a telling statistic that, although nearly one third of admitted applicants were born in the annexed parts of the country, only 3% of secondary schools belonged to the jurisdiction of successor states, while 96% operated within the Hungarian Empire.672 Thus, the majority of refugees enrolled their children mainly in grammar schools located in Budapest and very few of those who were trapped outside the border had the opportunity to apply for admission to the Collegium partly because of the minority policy of the successor states and partly for financial reasons.
Similarly to those admitted (their proportion being 41%), the relative majority of rejected applicants, 49%, graduated from state secondary schools (29% from state grammar schools of sciences, 11% from secondary schools of sciences, 9% from state grammar schools). From among the denominations, most students graduated from Roman Catholic institutions, with 29% of unsuccessful applicants (27% among admitted applicants) completing their studies at Catholic grammar schools (23%), grammar schools of sciences (5%) or at schools of sciences (1%). Among Protestant denominations, once again the number of students from Reformed institutions (10% from reformed grammar schools, 6% from Reformed grammar schools of sciences; 20% among admitted applicants) outnumbered those from Evangeli-cal-Lutheran secondary schools (6% from EvangeliEvangeli-cal-Lutheran grammar schools, 4% from
671 There is no data available for 1% of admitted students regarding the location of their secondary schools.
672 Also, for 1% of them there is no data available in relation to whether their secondary school was located within the new country border or belonged to the territory of a successor state.
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8.2. The Breakdown of the Secondary Schools of Applicants Admitted and 8.2. The Breakdown of the Secondary Schools of Applicants Admitted and Rejected Rejected
Evangelical-Lutheran grammar schools of sciences; 10% among admitted applicants).673 In addition to the expansion of the state institutional network, the dynamic expansion of state-run secondary schools is explained by the fact that the graduates of the Collegium started their careers not only in secondary schools of the capital, but also in state-run institutions as substitute teachers, since they themselves were educated by the state.674 Thus, the most talented of their high school students were usually recommended for admission to the management of the institute. The absolute ranking of secondary schools of rejected appli-cants was also led by a state-run institution, the Budapest 6th District Kemény Zsigmond State Secondary School of Sciences, with 9 rejected applicants. The second and third places of the ranking were occupied by the Miskolc Royal Catholic Fráter György Grammar School of Sciences and the Pápa Reformed Grammar School and Boarding School (7 people respectively), followed by the Budapest 7th District Madách Imre State Grammar School of Sciences (6 people), placing among the last institutions in the ranking of admitted appli-cants. In the first ten, there was only one Evangelical-Lutheran institution, the Nyíregy-háza Evangelical-Lutheran Kossuth Lajos Grammar School of Sciences (5 people), unlike Reformed institutions, which were represented by a number of institutions (additionally to the one located in Pápa, the Miskolc Reformed Lévay József Grammar School of Sciences and the Kecskemét Reformed Grammar School of Sciences with 5 people respectively).
Between the tenth and twentieth places in the rankings, there were two renowned Evangel-ical-Lutheran institutes, which previously provided many collegium students, the Szarvas Evangelical-Lutheran Grammar School (5 people) and the Budapest Evangelical-Lutheran Grammar School (4 people). The Reformed institutes of the Great Plain linger modestly at the bottom of the list: the Mezőtúr Reformed Grammar School (3 people), the Hajdúnánás Reformed Grammar School of Sciences (2 people), the Hajdúböszörmény and Kisújszállás Reformed Grammar Schools of Sciences (1 person respectively). Thus, it can be concluded that the expansion of the Budapest-based state-owned and Reformed institutions in the examined period was the most common among the applicants.
39% of secondary schools of rejected applicants were located in municipality towns, with the share of the capital being 44% in this sub-category, which was well below the figures of admitted applicants. 37% of unsuccessful applicants graduated from secondary schools operating in county towns. In contrast to the above, these were not primarily cities belonging to the agglomeration of Budapest, but the administrative centres in the western and eastern parts of the country (Szombathely, Pápa, Eger, Nyíregyháza and Békéscsaba).
12% of rejected applicants graduated from small villages and 6% of them graduated from large villages.675 It can therefore be concluded that a smaller number of rejected applicants completed their secondary education in urbanised settlements and that these institutions were located far from the industrial centres of the country, so it could be assumed that
673 There is no data available for 6% of rejected applicants in relation to their secondary school type.
674 In 1905, Géza Bartoniek already argued the following in his submission containing reports on graduated members: “The majority of the indicated individuals took part in the applications announced in the current academic year, and I request your Excellency to consider them, as they are individuals educated by the state.” 76/1905 Géza Bartoniek’s report to the MRPE Minister regarding graduated members. Budapest, 25 June 1905 MDKL box 51 file 97/1.
675 There is no data available for 6% of rejected applicants in relation to where they were located.
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8. The History of the Eötvös Collegium Between 1928 and 1935 8. The History of the Eötvös Collegium Between 1928 and 1935
they were trying to use the Collegium as a mobilisation channel due to their lower social classes. Just like in the case of admitted applicants, it can also be observed with rejected applicants that their secondary schools were based almost exclusively within the Trianon borders (96%). There was only one candidate who graduated in a successor state, but was still not admitted to the boarding school.676
During the Gombocz era the a two-thirds to one-third ratio of scholars and natural science students changed drastically, with 84% of the collegium students studying human-ities and only 15% studying at natural science faculties.677 In addition to classical philol-ogy, the most popular faculty pairing was history and Latin, with 17 admitted applicants respectively. However, this did not mean that the Collegium training profile had returned to its pre-1919 state. Latin was mostly paired with modern languages, but they were located towards the bottom of the ranking list (Latin-Hungarian with 5 people, Latin-German with 3 people, Latin-Italian with 2 people). In second and third places were the French-Hun-garian (15 people) and the German-HunFrench-Hun-garian (12 people) courses. For the first time in the history of the Collegium, there were a large number of students who chose English as one of their courses. A total of 18 students studied at German (9 people), English-French (5 people), English-Latin and English-Hungarian (2 people respectively) courses.
The most popular pairing among natural science students was still mathematics-physics (9 people), followed by geography-natural history (4 people) and chemistry-natural history (4 people), while some collegium students chose to study mathematics-descriptive geometries and chemistry-physics (2 people respectively).
The majority of rejected applicants held an education in philosophical sciences, as 75%
of applicants were scholars and only 21% of them were natural science students .678 Most of the unsuccessful applicants (48 people) wanted to become a member of the institute by applying to the mathematics-physics course pairing. In addition to them, 5 applicants indicated a natural science pairing; 3 of them studied geography-natural history, with 1 person studying physics-chemistry and 1 studying natural history-chemistry. From among the scholar courses the most popular were Hungarian-German (29 people) and French-Ger-man (28 people), but the Hungarian-French (25 people) pairing was also among the most popular. Historical studies ranked towards the bottom of the list (Latin-history 13 people, history-geography 10 people). It is interesting to note that the classical philology pairing popular with the admitted applicants was ranked among bottom pairings with rejected applicants, with only 5 rejected applicants applying thereto, which suggests that there wasn’t any significant pre-selection among them in this period. The fact that Miklós Szabó was the head of the institute who, in his teacher’s reports, referred to the importance of the Collegium in the training of the ancient sciences, also undoubtedly aided the privileged position of classical philology.679
676 For 6% of them there is no data on whether their secondary school was based within the 1920s border or outside thereof. The only cross-border graduate to be refused was Rezső Limbacher who attempted admission to the Collegium in 1928 by applying to the Hungarian-German course (MDKL box 28, file 38, lot 30).
677 There is no data available for 1% of admitted applicants in relation to which field of study they chose.
678 There is no data available for 6% of rejected applicants in relation to their chosen field of science.
679 Report by Miklós Szabó on the classical philology classes in the 1927/1928 academic year. Budapest, 31 May 1928. MDKL box 52, file 101/4/a.
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8.3. Study of the Social Status of Applicants Admitted and Rejected 8.3. Study of the Social Status of Applicants Admitted and Rejected