The secondary school education of the examined period was generally defined by two circumstances. One was the fact that more than half of the secondary schools located within territory of historic Hungary fell outside of the new state borders. The other was the trifurcational secondary school system, established in accordance with Act XI of 1924, which entered into force at the end of the period, and which placed the grammar school of sciences between the grammar school and the secondary school of sciences. In this type
437 Details the data relating to the University’s Faculty of Arts: Asztalos 1927a: 1020–1021. The 1920s national data can be found in The 1930 census 1932: 27.
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of school, students could learn a third, modern language (French, Italian or English) in addition to Latin and German (Németh 2004: 448).
35% (27.63%)438 of admitted applicants came from institutes maintained by the Roman Catholic denomination (31% from Roman Catholic secondary schools, 4% from Roman Catholic grammar schools of sciences), with 25% (46.05%) graduating from state institutions (15% from state run grammar schools, 6% from state run secondary schools of sciences and 4% from state run grammar schools of sciences). From the Protestant denominations more applicants came from Reformed institutions, with 16% (13.81%) of the admitted applicant (15% from Reformed grammar schools, 1% from Reformed grammar schools of sciences) graduating there, while the proportion of Evangelical-Lutherans was only 10% (1.97%).439 The lower number of the latter can be explained by the fact that the territorial annexation impacted Evangelical-Lutherans more out of the two Protestant denominations, as they lost their entire secondary school network located in the Upper Hungary area, while most of the Reformed institutions were located in the Calvinist market towns of the Danube-Tisza Interfluve and the Transtisza region, which remained under Hungarian control.
Due to territorial changes, the full ranking of secondary schools also went through significant changes. The institutions of the country’s western region replaced the Upper Hungary institutions. The top position was taken by the Sopron Evangelical-Lutheran Lyceum and the Szombathely Premonstratensian Catholic Grammar School with 8 applicants each. They were followed by the Ferenc József Catholic Grammar School of Sciences of Kőszeg (7 people) and the Royal Hungarian Garay János State Grammar School of Sciences of Szekszárd (6 people). Besides the Sopron Evangelical-Lutheran grammar school, the only other Lutheran grammar school in the top ten was the Bony-hád Augsburg Evangelical-Lutheran Grammar School (5 people), but at the same time, contrary to earlier periods, several metropolitan institutions succeeded in joining the group of secondary schools providing the most successful applicants: the Budapest Saint Emeric Grammar School of the Cistercian Order (5 people), the Budapest District IV Grammar School of the Pious Pastor Order (4 people) and the Budapest Reformed Grammar School (4 people). The prestigious grammar schools listed towards the top of the list in the previous period (the Reformed Grammar School of Cluj-Napoca, the Pious Roman Catholic Grammar School of Levice, the Evangelical-Lutheran Gram-mar Schools of Bratislava and Banská Štiavnica), which provided many members to the Collegium languished between the twentieth and thirtieth positions together with the Reformed grammar schools of the Great Plain (the Debrecen Reformed Grammar School and College, the Hajdúnánás, Hajdúböszörmény and Kunszentmiklós Reformed Grammar Schools). Thus, it can be stated that students arriving from institutions across the border were replaced mainly by graduates from Protestant secondary schools in the Great Plain and those arriving from institutions with a vast history (the Hungarian Royal State Kossuth Grammar School of Sciences of Cegléd, the St. Benedictine Order Catholic
438 I indicate in brackets the reports of József Asztalos on the entities running secondary schools in 1927 (Asztalos 1927b: 206).
439 There is no data available for 14% of the admitted students regarding the type of secondary school they grad-uated from.
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Gergely Czuczor Grammar School of Győr and the Evangelical-Lutheran Grammar School of Szarvas), as well as graduates from Budapest grammar schools.
40% of the secondary schools of admitted applicants were based in county towns, while 35% were based in municipality towns (the share of Budapest within the category was 40%).
The proportion of secondary schools to villages with less than 5,000 inhabitants and that of large villages with 5–10,000 inhabitants increased significantly (to 6% each) compared to previous periods; this can be clearly explained by the institutional structure created by border changes. However, it can be clearly seen that the capital appeared more often among secondary school locations than it did among birthplaces, which can be explained, on the one hand, by the children of intellectuals over the border and civil servants turning to the Collegium, which served as a good starting point for rebuilding their destroyed lives and, on the other hand, by the internal migration processes from small settlements to the capital (Gyáni 2006: 207). 73% of the admitted applicants graduated within the Trianon borders, with only 14% graduating outside of the region.440 The number of individuals graduating in institutions beyond the border decreased by 30% compared to the previous period.
One third (33%, among those admitted 25%) of rejected applicants graduated from state run institutions (9% from state-owned grammar schools, 12% from state-owned grammar schools of sciences, 12% from state-owned secondary schools of sciences). Overall, from the applicants, the number of people coming from state institutions fell only slightly behind those who graduated from secondary schools run by the largest institution managing entity, the Roman Catholic denomination. A fourth of the unsuccessful applicants graduated from the latter institutions (20% from Roman Catholic Grammar Schools, 5% from Roman Catholic Grammar Schools of Sciences; 35% among admitted applicants). From among Protestant denominations, the number of students arriving from Reformed grammar schools (13%) and grammar schools of sciences (3%, 16% also among admitted applicants) signif-icantly exceeded the number of students studying in Evangelical-Lutheran institutions (Evangelical-Lutheran grammar schools 5%, Evangelical-Lutheran grammar schools of sciences 2%, 10% combined among admitted applicants). 1% of the rejected applicants grad-uated from trade schools. Although this type of institution had a great advantage over the others, its training time was shorter, however, its specialised trade qualification subjects could hardly account for the scientific depth required by the Collegium (cf. Kövér 2006: 179).441
The full ranking of the secondary schools of unsuccessful applicants is led by the Zalae-gerszeg Hungarian Royal State Grammar School with 9 rejected applicants. The second place was taken by the Kemény Zsigmond State Secondary School of Sciences located in District VII of Budapest with 8 rejected applicants, which is unusual, since in previous periods no secondary school of sciences was ever listed at the top of the list for admissions or rejections. The third place was assumed by the Reformed Grammar School and College of Debrecen and Pápa with 6 rejected applicants each. In the top ten, besides an additional secondary school of sciences (Hungarian Royal State István Dobó Real School of Eger, 4 people), mainly institutions of the Great Plains can be found (Hungarian Royal Catholic
440 Likewise, there is no data available for 13% of them regarding whether or not their secondary schools were located within the country borders defined prior to or following 1920.
441 There is no data available for 18% of rejected applicants in relation to their secondary school type.
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Grammar School of Gyöngyös, Roman Catholic Secondary School of Sciences of Gyula, Reformed Grammar School of Sciences of Kisújszállás), similarly to the figures of admitted applicants. The top ranking institutions of the capital among admissions rank between the thirtieth and fortieth position among rejected applicants, predominantly with one rejected candidate each.
Secondary schools were mainly in municipal towns (36%, the share of Budapest within the category is 37%, which reinforces the effectiveness of the capital’s institutions) and county towns (34%). Similarly to admissions, 6% of institutions were operating in small villages with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants and 6% were operating in large villages with 5–10,000 inhabitants.442 In the case of the full ranking it is also noticeable that there were very few secondary schools over the border in relation to rejected applicants and they were listed in last place. This is hardly a coincidence, as only 5% of the rejected applicants graduated from an institution located beyond the 1920 borders and more than three-quarters (77%) graduated in secondary schools under Hungarian jurisdiction.443
For the first time in the history of the institution, the most popular pairing of subjects became mathematics and physics (40 people), therefore it became a natural science curric-ulum. This was followed, after a significant fall in numbers, by geography and natural history (17 people) and natural history and chemistry (6 people).444 However, this did not mean that the institution’s training profile had shifted towards natural sciences, as nearly two-thirds (65%) of collegium students were still scholars and only 26% were natural science students.445 However, within the field of philosophical studies, the insti-tution’s training style changed, as, in addition to Hungarian-German (38 people), the Hungarian-French (29 people) programme became one of the most popular, with classical philology falling to third place (16 people). Thus, modern philological subjects received a greater emphasis, which was probably related to the differentiation of secondary school education and the expected increase in demand for modern linguists. There was also a strong decline in traditional pairings, which had been taken by many collegium students in earlier periods, such as Latin and history (6 people), Latin and Hungarian (5 people) and Hungarian and history (3 people). Of the historical curricula, only the professional pairing of history and geography (12 people) increased modestly compared to the previ-ous period. The management of the institution reacted very quickly to changes in market demand and therefore adapted its training profile to the secondary school market modified in accordance with Article XI of 1924.446
442 There is no data for 18% of rejected applicants in relation to the settlement type breakdown of their secondary school.
443 Likewise, 18% have no data in this respect during the examined period.
444 It can be seen from the reports of József Asztalos that in the 1925/1926 academic year, the share of mathematics and physics teachers was 17.8% and the share of geography and natural history teachers was 8% while that of natural history and chemistry teachers was 3.3% (Asztalos 1927b: 209).
445 During the examined period, there is no data for 9% of collegium students in relation to their chosen field of science.
446 In the 1925/1926 academic year, out of all secondary school teachers, 10.2% taught Hungarian and German, 1.3% taught Hungarian and French and 12.5% taught classical philology. History and Latin constituted for 8% of teachers, with Hungarian and Latin constituting 18%, history and Hungarian constituting 1.9%, while history and geography represented 7.3% thereof (Asztalos 1927b: 209).
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Among those who were rejected, the majority had the professional pairing of mathematics and physics (52 people) who were followed by those with the pairing of geography and natu-ral history (7 people) and chemistry and natunatu-ral history (4 people). The discrepancies in the field of science among unsuccessful applicants were more balanced than in the case of those admitted, as 47% of non-admitted applicants were scholars , while 33% of them were natural science students .447 Despite the vast amount of unavailable data, we can still determine that those on a natural science faculty were affected more by pre-selection, similarly to other sub-periods, due to the limited places reserved for them. Among scholars, the first position was obtained by individuals with the professional pairing of Hungarian and German (19 people), followed by those attending history and geography faculties (15 people) and French and German faculties (12 people). It is interesting to note that, compared to the previous period, there was a large number of applications for courses, the marking of which resulted in the automatic rejection of the application (veterinarian, botanist, metallurgical engineer, chemical engineer). However, it can be seen from the additional data that students who chose modern philological studies, similarly to admitted applicants, also constituted the majority of rejected applicants.