Site designed and created by Razvan Paraianu.

© Created in January 2001, Last revised: January 3, 2004

CHAPTER XI

The Education Laws of Hungary and the Nationalities

 

"Un peuple parle toujours la langue qu'il veut parier."

Sayous.

I

STATE education in Hungary may be said to date from the year 1867, and even at the present day the majority of schools, both primary and secondary, are controlled by the various Churches. Nowhere on the Continent do sectarian divisions exercise so great an influence upon educational prob­lems as in Hungary. While in Austria the entire population is Catholic, with the exception of half a million Protestants: in Hungary great diversity of religious belief prevails. This can best be shown in tabular form: —

Note. — For this chapter the following principal works have been con suited: Ungarische Landesgesetzsammlung (Amtliche Ausgabe) for 1868, 1879, 1883, 1884, 1891, 1893, 1907; Das Ungarische Unterrichtswesen (Reports of Minister of Education to Parliament), 1877 onwards; L'Enseignement en Hongrie (published by Minister of Education), 1900; Education in Hungary (issued gratis at the Hungarian Exhibition in London, 1908, on behalf of the Ministry of Education; and Ungarisches Statistisches Jahrbuch (an annual official publication, from which all my statistical Appendices are compiled).

Under such circumstances any wholesale scheme of national education is well-nigh impossible, even if the financial situation of Hungary would permit it.

Till the beginning of the eighteenth century, all schools re­mained exclusively in the hands of the clergy of the various denominations. In 1715 the King was entrusted with the supreme supervision of education, and a special department for religion and education was created in the newly formed Palatinal Council. To Maria Theresa is due the first genuine attempt at educational reform; all schools were grouped under three classes,[3] and nine school districts were formed, under the general control of the Palatinal Council. But attendance was not made obligatory, and the scheme was only partially enforced. Joseph II, whose lofty idealism sought to achieve by a single arbitrary decree results which could only be attained by a century of evolution, ordered the compulsory attendance of all children between the ages of six and twelve under needlessly severe penalties, and ventured upon the dan­gerous experiment of mixed (or interdenominational) schools. Not content with this, he insisted upon German as the universal language of instruction, and thus kindled into flame the dormant national sentiment of the other races of his Empire. His successor Leopold II at the eventful Diet of 1790-1, re­stored to the Churches their former control of education, made the Magyar language an obligatory subject of instruction, and appointed a commission to draw up a new educational law. But the Napoleonic wars supervened, and all soon fell back into the old grooves. A further scheme of education (Ratio Educationis) was published in 1806, but, except that German was no longer made an obligatory subject, no change of any importance was introduced. Though the various sects dis­played praiseworthy activity in improving secondary educa­tion, and a less admirable zeal for Magyarization, the state took no further steps till the year 1845, when a royal decree known as the " Systema Scolarum " was published in the name of Ferdinand V. By it, primary schools were divided into two classes, roughly corresponding to board schools and grammar schools: the obligation on the part of communes and land­lords to found schools was more closely defined; and special institutions were erected for the instruction of teachers. In 1848, Baron Joseph Eötvös was entrusted with the portfolio of education in the Batthyány Cabinet, but the outbreak of hostilities prevented even the discussion of his educational reforms. The system introduced during the fifties by Count Leo Thun has already been referred to elsewhere, and it would be unprofitable to discuss it further, since it was entirely abro­gated in 1860. Unfortunately nothing definite was put in its place, and thus it is not too much to say that by the year 1867, when the constitution was at length restored, Hungarian education was in a state of chaos bordering upon anarchy.

A very brief statistical summary will make this clear to the reader. In 1869[4] while Hungary had a population of 13,579,129,[5] there were only 13,646 primary schools in exist­ence or i to every 995 inhabitants; and of these hardly any were fully equipped with the necessary teaching appliances. Many of the buildings were overcrowded, insanitary or even too dilapidated for use: 1,598 communes were without a school of any kind, and of the total number of children liable to attend under the new act, barely 48 per cent, actually at­tended.[6] What was perhaps worst of all, there were only 17,792 teachers, of whom as many as 4,308 or 24 per cent., were without diplomas. In other words, there was only one qualified teacher to every 170 children liable to attend school, and to every 81 actually attending. Considering that large numbers of teachers received a salary less than the wages of a common labourer, it is hardly to be wondered at that many of them followed other callings as well as that of school­master; but it is obvious that this cannot have increased their efficiency. The natural result of all this was that at the census of 1869, 63 per cent, of the population was entirely illiterate, and that another 97 per cent, could read but could not write. Under such circumstances it was obvious to any person of average intelligence that the crying needs of Hun­garian education were reorganization, efficient teaching and an increased staff, and that among a population so backward and illiterate normal conditions could only be attained through the medium of the mother tongue. As an official Hungarian publication justly observes,[7] this is the dominant idea of the Primary Education Act introduced in 1868 by Baron Eötvös, who now resumed the portfolio of education after an interreg­num of nineteen years.

Any attempt to nationalize the schools was clearly quite outside the realm of practical politics, since the necessary funds were not at the disposal of the state, and since in any case public opinion was in no sense prepared for such a step. The reformer was met at every turn by the jealously-guarded claims of Church autonomy; and an educational system had to be devised which contains the maximum of uniformity and effi­ciency compatible with respect for this autonomy. The two main principles of the Act were (a) compulsory education between the ages of six and twelve (with continuation classes up to the age of fifteen) and (b) obligatory erection of schools by all communes where no denominational school already existed, and where at least thirty children were without any accommo­dation. Neither of these points has been properly enforced. In the first ten years of the new régime the number of illiter­ates was reduced by nearly 900,000, and the number of children attending no school fell from 52 to 21 per cent, of the total number of those liable. But as Magyaromania strengthened its hold upon educational policy, all efforts were concentrated on the Magyarization of secondary schools, and primary educa­tion was allowed to lag far behind. Since 1880 the number of children not attending school has steadily increased,[8] and between 1900 and 1906 their proportion to the total number of children liable has actually risen from 18 to 24 per cent., even despite the ever-growing emigration of the last decade. In the same way there were in 1903 still about fifty communes which had no school at all, and the inadequate manner in which even the existing schools are supplied with teachers may be gathered from the fact that in 1906 there was only one properly qualified teacher to every 89 children in attendance,[9] and that in the same year 247 schools (including ten State schools) remained partially closed owing to lack of teachers.[10] The backward state of primary education which is revealed by these figures (and which is wholly eclipsed by the grim reality) must be directly ascribed to the policy of Magyarization. It is useless to erect schools unless there are teachers to fill them, and since the Magyars only form half the population of Hungary, it is clear that the supply of Magyar-speaking teachers (and only such are now appointed) cannot be adequate for the needs of the population as a whole. The non-Magyar Churches are too poor to erect fresh schools in any numbers, and Church autonomy restricts each sect to the erection of schools among its own adherents. Hence the gaps can only be filled by State and communal schools, and as the former appoint exclusively Magyar, the latter mainly Magyar teachers, the increase of the teaching staff is necessarily slow, and only forty or fifty new schools can be erected every year. As at present there is only one school to every 190 children and one class-teacher (with or without diploma) to every 107 children liable, and as the proportion of schools and teachers to the land-population as distinct from the towns is even more alarming,[11] it is no exaggeration to maintain that primary education in Hungary is still chaotic, and in no way corresponds to western standards. Indeed the primary schools of Hungary must be compared not with those of Scandinavia, Scotland or Bohemia, but with those of Calabria and Portugal.

So far as the nationalities are concerned, the most import­ant provision of the Act is contained in section 58, which lays down the broad principle of instruction in the mother tongue. In mixed communities, the post of schoolmaster is to be filled only by such persons as are qualified to teach in the languages of their pupils, and assistant teachers speaking the language of racial minorities are to be appointed so far as the means of the commune permit.[12] This provision is reinforced by section 17 of the famous Law of Nationalities of the same year, which definitely pledges the State to supply all its citizens with instruction in the mother tongue " up to the point where the higher academic course begins." In other words, the State is to erect primary schools and gymnasiums with Slovak and Roumanian language of instruction. But almost from the first this clause has been ignored or openly violated. Not merely has the State never erected a single secondary school where the language of instruction is anything but Magyar, but it has even Magyarized some of the few existing non-Mag­yar gymnasiums, and those which it could not Magyarize, it tyrannously dissolved. The whole energy of the Magyars for a generation past has been devoted to the creation of a Magyar middle class, with which to feed officialdom and main­tain the Magyar predominance. Their chief instrument has been the secondary school, which has been skilfully adapted to the manufacture of renegades. As Béla Grünwald brutally remarks: " The secondary school is like a huge machine, at one end of which the Slovak youths are thrown in by hundreds, and at the other end of which they come out as Magyars."[13] The process of assimilation went on merrily so long as there were more posts to fill than individuals to fill them. But a new stage has now been reached, when the renegades or Mag­yarones as they are called, are no longer welcome, and when competition is embittered by the overproduction of an edu­cated class; and as this corresponds with a genuine economic revival among the non-Magyars, those who would have been turncoats or trimmers a generation ago, find fewer openings and a colder reception than their predecessors, and are thus tempted to remain loyal to their nationality.[14] While the assi­milation of the non-Magyar " intelligence " is no longer making the same headway, the Government has gradually come to realize that in its efforts to create a middle class, a still more essential task has been neglected. On the intellectual and material progress of the Magyar peasantry of Central Hun­gary depends the permanence of the Magyar hegemony in the State; yet since the Ausgleich so little has been done for them that the fever of emigration is decimating their ranks, and that the survivors are permeated-by socialist doctrines and finally estranged from the " idea of the Magyar state " (a magyar állam eszme). An anti-democratic franchise still conceals this fact from the superficial observer, but the knowledge embitters the life of the ruling caste and goads them into unwise measures of repression.

II

The law of 1868 was of course passed by a House where the nationalities were practically unrepresented, and this proves effectually that Chauvinism had not yet gained a hold upon the majority, and that the liberal influence of Deák and Eötvös was strong enough to counteract the Jingoes of the Left. But what the nationalities had to expect in the near future became only too apparent from the intolerance with which they were treated by Coloman Tisza the Radical leader. On November 23, 1868, the future Premier declared that the nationalities must follow the Magyar proverb, " Be silent and pay" (csit, hallgás és fizés). When the Roumanian deputy Babes argued that "equal rights" and reciprocity would vanish if the Magyar language were to be made compulsory in non-Magyar schools, and went on to claim not only the right of each commune to decide what language was to be employed in its school, but also the right of the non-Mag­yar schools to teach their own national history as well as that of Hungary as a whole, Tisza retorted that this would be contrary to the interests of Babes' own constituents, who ought to assimilate as quickly as possible with the Magyar section of the population. Besides, he added, the non-Mag­yars could not boast of any such thing as a " national history "; and it was evident that Babes' intense hatred of the Magyars (which of course the speaker calmly assumed by way of effect) was due to the fact that he had always attended a German school, if indeed he ever visited a school at all ! This kind of rant from the lips of a serious statesman was hardly calculated to reassure the nationalities, and their suspicions soon proved to have been only too well founded.[15]

Eötvös himself may be described without risk of exaggeration as one of the most truly liberal statesmen of the nineteenth century, and the provisions of his Education Act are in every way worthy of their author. Unhappily he was removed by death in 1871, and his successors, though men of genuine cul­ture and ability, found the Chauvinist current too strong for them. Deák, it is true, lived until February, 1876, but although he continued to exercise a permanent influence in all constitutional questions, he regarded the conclusion of the Ausgleich as the crowning achievement of his life, and reso­lutely declined to take an active share in politics under the new era. The racial intolerance which was spreading so rapidly in political circles, was in direct conflict with Deak's calm and dispassionate nature, which sought legal sanction for every action, and which detested the idea that brute force should decide in politics. His'speech at the opening of a Serb gymnasium in Neusatz (Újvidék) proves beyond all question that he utterly disapproved of a policy of Magyarization.[16] But the views of Deák and Eötvös on the vital question of the nationalities were already regarded as antiquated by the majority of their followers. The star of Coloman Tisza was in the ascendant, the dream of a Magyar national State fired the imagination of public opinion, and the Law of Nation­alities within a few years of its adoption had already become a dead letter. In the autumn of 1874 the three gymnasia which the Slovaks had erected in the sixties by their own exertions, were dissolved by ministerial order, under the pre­text that they had fallen a prey to Pansláv influences. No attempt was made to purge them of bad practices, no public inquiry was ordered, no report of the facts was ever published, and their endowments were confiscated with the calm brutality which characterizes a despotic government. Since that date the Slovaks have made more than one attempt to found a new gymnasium, with Slovak as the language of instruction, but the Government has steadily withheld its permission, not even shrinking from the violation of church autonomy to secure its end.[17]

While the clear letter of the law pledges the State to provide instruction in the mother tongue up to the commencement of a university career, in practice two million Slovaks have for a whole generation been illegally deprived of the most necessary means of culture; and of the thirty-nine gymnasia and Realschulen in the Slovak counties not a single one provides instruction in the language of the people. The plight of the Ruthenes is equally cruel, for they too have no gymnasium, and their lamentably backward state has been increased by the ruthless Magyarization of their primary schools, in all but twenty-one of which " instruction" is imparted in the Magyar language. Compared to these two races, and to the scattered German population of West and South Hun­gary, the Serbs and Roumanians are more favourably placed, owing to the national character of their Churches, and thus six of their secondary schools have so far survived the onslaughts of Magyarization.[18] But needless to say, in .their case also the State has never even dreamt of carry­ing out its obligations. In a word, the non-Magyars of to­day (according to the official statistics) form 48-6 per cent, of the population of Hungary proper; but out of the 169 gymnasiums and the thirty-two Realschulen of Hungary only 7.1 and 12.5 per cent, respectively are non-Magyar, while of the eighty-nine secondary schools directly controlled by the State,[19] none at all are non-Magyar, and only one is even mixed. Those who are accustomed to western notions of law and order will doubtless be surprised at so glaring a contrast between theory and practice; but when they discover similar discrepancies in paragraph after paragraph of the most funda­mental laws of the country, they will be tempted to throw doubt upon the liberal nature of Hungarian institutions, and to endorse the mordant phrase of Sennyey and of Polit — "Nous sommes en pleine Asie."

III

The great revival of national feeling among the Balkan peoples in the seventies awakened many echoes in the Dual Monarchy. The outcome of the Russo-Turkish War, the laurels won by Roumania at Plevna, and above all the accept­ance by Austria-Hungary of a European mandate in Bosnia and Herzegovina, caused great alarm and excitement among the Magyars. So thoroughly did they consign their own past history to oblivion, that they presented a well-known Turkish general with a sword of honour and sentenced Mr. Miletič, the leader of the Hungarian Serbs to five years' imprisonment for advocating war against an " allied nation." The Press clam­oured for the adoption of more decided measures to ensure the hegemony of the Magyar race, and attacked the Tisza Cabinet for its complaisant attitude in the Eastern Question. Under these circumstances the Government threw a sop to Cerberus in the shape of a new Education Act, which made little or no attempt to conceal its Magyarizing tendencies.

The new law (XVIII. 1879) commenced by assuming the necessity that opportunity should be offered to every citizen of acquiring the Magyar language as the " language of State," and then proceeded, by a curiously illogical process of reasoning, to make the Magyar language compulsory in every primary school in the country. Henceforth no one can obtain a teaching diploma or be appointed to the post of schoolmaster, unless he can show a sufficient knowledge of Magyar to be capable of teaching it in a primary school (§§ 2-3). The non-Magyar teachers can only obtain their diplomas if the State inspector of schools certifies their thorough knowledge of the Magyar language (§ 6); the inspector acquires an absolute power, and all the many qualifications of a teacher are made to depend upon one alone. The teachers' institutes belonging to the non-Magyar Churches are thus subjected to a control from which similar institutions, if only they are Magyar in character, are exempted; and a direct inroad is thus made upon the legally guaranteed autonomy of the various denomin­ations. Not merely must the Magyar language be taught in all the primary schools of Hungary, but the Minister of Edu­cation is given power to decide the number of hours in the week which are to be devoted to it (§ 4). In the event of failure to meet the requirements of the new act, the Minister is em­powered either to close the faulty non-Magyar institution, or to order the erection of a rival communal school (§ 6, alinea 3, 4), where of course the language of instruction would be Magyar.

To the superficial observer such provisions may not at first sight appear at all unreasonable, and if he discusses the matter with a Magyar friend, he will be met with the argu­ment that in Hungary every one must know " Hungarian," just as in Italy every one knows Italian, and in England every one knows English. Even if he notices the fallacious parallel between force of circumstances and compulsion by law, he will, unless he is familiar with the situation in Hungary, fail to detect the unwarrantable use of the word " Hungarian " to describe the Magyar language. As a matter of fact, one might with equal fairness insist that all natives of India should know the " Indian," all natives of Switzerland the " Swiss " lan­guage; this is a logical reductio ad absurdum of one of the standard arguments in defence of Magyarization. Meanwhile the very men who employ this argument will, when the occasion serves, disclaim all idea of Magyarization.[20] But no one who has studied the Hungarian Statistical Year Book, still less the debates on the Act of 1879, could be deceived by such a disclaimer. These debates will initiate the future his­torian into the mysteries of the Magyar psychology; but for my present purpose a few random instances must suffice. The well-known deputy Helfy (formerly Heller) boldly asserted: "There should be no nationalities, but only a Magyar nation.[21]. . . We cannot renounce the development of our nation and our State merely in order not to embitter the nation­alities "[22] — a typical specimen of the confused reasoning of Magyar politicians, who are still incapable of distinguishing between the Magyar race and the Hungarian nation. Mada­rász argued f rom the Law of Nationalities (!), " that the Magyar nationality is the political nation, and hence Hungary is not a polyglot but a Magyar state!''[23] No one, he asserted amid general approval, who desired not only a free and independent Hungary but also a Magyar state, could vote against this bill. Orban, after calmly contrasting the modest claims of the Magyars with the action of the English, " who have violently Anglicized ten million Irishmen and Scotsmen " (sic)[24] proceeds to give the non-Magyars a foretaste of the future by asserting that the new law will only be effective if beside the Magyar-speaking teacher is placed the Magyar-feeling and Magyar-speaking priest. When the Roumanian deputy Cosma described the new policy as an attempt " to Magyarize the non-Magyar races at all costs with iron and fire," he was greeted with cries of assent and approval from the House; and the same applause followed the complaint of Mr. Mocsáry (the only Magyar who took the side of the Nationalities) that the Bill was merely a stage in progressive Magyarization. As Helfy frankly confessed, the Magyars " were only at the beginning of that which they wished to attain," and the general opinion of the House was that the Bill did not go nearly far enough.

Nothing however shows more strikingly the Magyarizing tendencies of education than the system which has been fol­lowed in the erection of State primary schools. In 1906 there were 2,046 State schools in existence, but although they were attended by 117,746 non-Magyar children, the language of instruction in all save one was exclusively Magyar ! In many cases care has been taken to appoint as teachers men who know no language save the Magyar, so that there may be no danger of the mother tongue claiming its share in the in­struction; and no knowledge of the rules of pedagogy is required in order to imagine the lamentable results. Indeed a not unknown solution of the difficulty is that teacher and pupils absent themselves by mutual consent, and swell the vast number of those who attend no school. Meanwhile, to such lengths has the State carried its Magyaromania, that the pure Magyar districts of Central Hungary have been scandal­ously neglected. While the eleven Roumanian counties con­tain 22 per cent., and the seven Slovak counties 11 per cent, of all the State schools of Hungary, on the other hand the nine Magyar counties and four of the largest Magyar towns to­gether only boast of 6 per cent. In other words, State pri­mary schools are generally erected in non-Magyar and mixed districts, where they may serve to develop Magyar patriotism and to extend by artificial means the boundaries of the Magyar race. For, as a candid official writer significantly admits, "the primary school is one of the most powerful means of consolidating the Magyar national state."[25]

This assertion is profoundly true, but it involves one very necessary postulate — the due execution of the existing laws — and unhappily (or should we say happily) the Education Act of 1879, like its predecessor of 1868, has not been properly enforced. Indeed, in January, 1905, the Premier, Count Stephen Tisza, publicly asserted that it has remained merely on paper.[26] Allowances must be made for a law which attempts to achieve the impossible, and which was perhaps regarded even by its promoters as a piece of bluff rather than as a serious constructive policy. The fact that in 1879 over 2,600 teachers, or. roughly one in every seven, knew not a word of Magyar, shows that its enforcement was by no means an easy task; and in effect after a lapse of eleven years their numbers had only been reduced to 1,600. The gradual elimination of the older teachers by death or retirement has naturally altered this, and the younger generation of teachers may be supposed to have ac­quired an adequate knowledge of a subject without which not even the most accomplished pedagogue can obtain a Hun­garian diploma. None the less, in 1890 Magyar as an obliga­tory subject was either not taught at all or was taught entirely without success in 34 per cent, of the non-Magyar schools, and in 1906 there still remained 957 teachers who were either entirely ignorant of Magyar or possessed a mere smattering of the language. But if any proof were needed that the Act of 1879 has failed in its effect, it is supplied by the fact that 44 per cent, of the population of Hungary proper is still entirely ignorant of the Magyar language.[27] From time to time spas­modic attempts have been made to improve matters, and Dr. Wlassics, as Minister of Education, was in 1902 guilty of issuing the monstrous order that from eighteen to twenty- four hours in the week should be devoted to Magyar instruc­tion in the denominational schools. As the number of hours of instruction in Hungarian primary schools never exceeds twenty-six in the week, it would appear that the minister was less concerned that the children of a Roumanian village should learn the rudiments of reading and arithmetic than that they should be able to talk a language which perhaps not half a dozen persons in the neighbourhood could understand. Even Wlassics' attitude is eclipsed by that of Mr. Rákosi, the brilliant dramatist and editor of the Budapesti Hirlap, who at the Berzeviczy School Commission in 1904 argued that the Nation­alities should be compelled to teach nothing in their schools for three whole years save speaking, reciting and singing Mag­yar. At the same Commission Bishop Firczák worthily seconded Mr. Rákosi by the following argument: " A good educational policy is a security to the State, but its first require­ment is that it should be Magyar in all its parts. (Cries of "Éljen" and applause.) The second requirement is the maintenance of a moral and religious basis in education." In other words, let us insist on national sentiment, and leave the civic virtues to take care of themselves. Very different is the standpoint of a Roumanian leader, who said to me: " I willingly contribute to the taxes of the estate; I am ready to give up my life in its defence; more than that it has no right to ask. The rest is mine ! "

IV

The census of 1890 made it clear that the task of Magyariza­tion was by no means so simple as the parliamentary hot­heads had imagined. Forty-four per cent, of the population still knew not a syllable of Magyar, as compared with 47 per cent, in 1880; and at this rate of progress at least a cen­tury would be required before the entire population could speak the language of State. Considerable alarm had been caused of late years by rumours of a decreasing birthrate among the Magyar peasantry, and the vampire doctrine of Béla Grünwald, the chief literary exponent of Chauvinism, gained every year a greater number of adherents. " If we are to survive," re-echoed his admirers, " we must increase and strengthen ourselves by the assimilation of foreign elements." "Let us hasten, let us hasten and Magyarize ... for other­wise we shall perish," Louis Kossuth had cried in his halcyon

days, and these fatal words were endorsed by the next genera­tion, which turned a deaf ear to those lessons of racial toler­ance which he had learned to preach in his exile. Firmly convinced that there was no alternative between dominance and slavery, the Magyars adopted a policy which Hobbes would have regarded as proving his view of the primitive instincts of man; and they were destined ere long to find an even worthier exponent of this policy than Grünwald, in the person of Baron Bánffy. The Government fully recognized the value of the primary school as a political instrument, but possessing a more intimate knowledge of the prevailing edu­cational and administrative chaos than was vouchsafed to the general public, they were tempted to resort to still more drastic measures. Twelve years' experience had taught them what the common sense of pedagogic specialists had foretold from the beginning — that a language so difficult as the Magyar can only be effectually acquired in a Magyar atmosphere, and that Slav of Roumanian village children, who perhaps only attend school for half the year and during the remaining six months seldom hear a syllable of Magyar spoken around them, are hardly likely to make any real progress in the language, unless the teaching staff is multiplied twenty-fold. An ingenious device was invented to cope with this practical difficulty, which exists even where there is no reluctance on the part of pupils and parents. The children must be won for Magyar culture at that tender age when the mind of the child is as undeveloped and as sensitive as a photographic plate. In 1891, therefore, a Bill was introduced by Count Csáky for the compulsory erection of Infant Homes (Kindergärten and Asiles) throughout the country. The ostensible aims of the new law were (a) to place under proper supervision young children whose parents were not in a position to give them personal attention, and (b) to promote their physical development and inculcate habits of cleanliness and intelligence. That it was not designed to counteract the terribly high rate of infant mortality[28] is clearly proved by the fact that it only applies to children between the ages of three and six. Another aim is regarded by Hungarian statesmen as infinitely more impor­tant than the reduction of infant mortality and the appalling overcrowding and lack of medical treatment to which the mortality is mainly due.[29] This aim is the Magyarization of the coming generation of non-Magyars. Lest I should be accused of exaggeration, I prefer to use the inimitable words of an official Hungarian publication. Since 1867, we are told, the kindergarten movement had lost more and more its human­itarian character, " et son côté important ressortit touš les jours davantage."[30] The disposition regarding language " fait de la question de ľ enseignement des enfants un facteur de cul­ture politique. Cette circonstance possěde d'autant plus d'im­portance, qu'il devient de plus en plus evident que ľenfance est ľage le plus propice pour enseigner la langue hongroise (i.e. Magyar). ... La mission toute nationale de nos étab­lissements d'enseignement maternél est ce qui les distingue surtout des institutions analogues de ľétranger."[31] This official commentary would in itself justify the alarm and protests of the non-Magyars, and makes all further discussion of the text of the law superfluous.

By the Law'of 1891 the State has deliberately assumed the attitude of the Sultans in earlier centuries. Just as the Chris­tian rayah was regarded as a breeding-machine to supply janissaries, so to-day the non-Magyars of Hungary are breed­ing-machines whose children must be taught Magyar from their earliest age, in the hope that they may become renegades to the traditions of their ancestors.[32] If the law were genuinely carried out, a whole generation would grow up which knew the state language better than its mother tongue, and a gulf would thus be created by the State between the children and their parents. But after our experience of previous educational laws, it will no longer cause surprise to find that the Kindergarten Act of 1891 has also been very partially carried out. After a lapse of seventeen years only 21 per cent, of the children who are liable to attend actually made their appearance[33]; and as a quarter of these institutions are open only during the summer, 21 per cent, is really a somewhat arbitrary and misleading figure. Twelve per cent, of the attendants are unqualified;[34] and even if we include these unqualified persons, we find that there is still only an average of one attendant to every ninety children.[35] Under these circumstances there can be little question of the children learning anything, and it is difficult to believe that one woman single-handed can keep ninety tiny children clean and orderly. She can no doubt teach them to wave flags and hum Kossuthist tunes, which is the modern conception of patriotism; but she must surely often feel like the old woman of the English nursery rhyme, " who had so many children, she did not know what to do."

V

The imperfect execution of these two Magyarizing laws is the more remarkable because less than three years after the latter was passed the accession of Baron Banffy to power evoked an outburst of Chauvinism hitherto undreamt-of even in Hun­gary. But though the " Magyar national State " was now openly proclaimed as the great aim of every " patriot," though the ancient placenames of the country were Magyarized wholesale by. Act of Parliament, and though extreme mea­sures of repression were adopted against the nationalities, yet the two educational laws which the Chauvinists regarded as so full of promise, still remained very largely on paper. It is true that in 1896 (Law VIII.) Parliament voted £56,000 for the immediate erection of 400 new primary schools in memory of the Millenary, but five years elapsed before even this seemingly simple provision had been fully carried out. Nothing illustrates more clearly the growing corruption and degeneracy of Hungarian public life than the fact that even these outworks of Chauvinist progress were neglected in favour of party brawls and the ceaseless hunting of a con­stitutional snark.

The gaps in primary education were still so lamentable, that a really far-seeing statesman would have concentrated all his efforts upon raising the educational standard of the genuine Magyar peasantry of the central plains, and thus fit­ting them for the economic crisis with which Hungary was already being threatened. Unhappily the Wekerle and Bánffy Cabinets (1892-1895-1898) pandered to the Chauvin­ist leanings of the majority by erecting numerous state schools in the non-Magyar districts with Magyar as the exclusive lan­guage of instruction, and still more by attempting to effect a breach in the autonomy of the non-Magyar denominational schools. The Roumanians and Serbs, though well-nigh help­less in every other respect, possessed one effective weapon against Magyarization in the legally guaranteed autonomy of their Churches — an autonomy which extended itself to their denominational schools. The weak spot in the armour of these churches is their extreme poverty, and the difficulty which they experience in providing adequate salaries for the teachers in their schools. The Government skilfully took advantage of this difficulty in Act XXVI. of 1893 by fixing 600 (or in certain cases 400) crowns as the minimum salary at all communal and denominational schools. This was in itself a perfectly just and reasonable provision; for it was obvious that even under the primitive conditions of life which still prevail in many districts of Transylvania or the Northern Carpathians, no man with any pretence to real culture could be secured as schoolmaster for the paltry sum of £25 a year. But the real motive of the provision was to encourage and in many cases to compel the church schools to accept a sub­vention from the State, in order to make up the necessary sum; and the acceptance (willy nilly) of his grant secured to the State the right of interference in the management of the church schools. In other words, the Government was fully entitled to insist upon the adoption of higher standards and more modern methods by the denominational schools, but definitely infringed the autonomy of the Churches when it imposed re­strictions on the election of teachers in their schools. For instance the Minister was given discretion (§ 12), in the event of applications for the grant on the part of church schools, to dissolve existing schools, if he considered that "weighty interests of State" demanded this step, and to erect state schools in their place.[36] Finally the new law arranged for the prosecution of subventioned denominational teachers who are accused of a " tendency hostile to the State."[37] This tendency was defined in the most comprehensive manner to include " every action, which is directed against the Constitu­tion, the national character, unity, independence, or territorial integrity of the State, as also against the legally prescribed use of the language of State — whether it be committed in school or out of school, on the territory of a foreign state, in word or writing, by means of printed matter, pictures, books or other objects of instruction." This extraordinary clause, which attempts to impose patriotism by Act of Parliament, has placed the non-Magyar schoolmasters at the mercy of the Chauvinist county officials, who interpret it with all the exclusive ardour of the Magyar race.[38]

Where a church school failed to meet the increased demands put by the State upon its scanty resources, a state school was founded in its place, and in all state schools the language of instruction is exclusively Magyar. In other places, the State has actually erected state schools where communal or denominational schools already exist, and it is usually the latter who suffer most from the unequal competition.[39] But it is fair to add that in such cases the inhabitants are not forced to contribute to the upkeep of the new school, if they already pay the education rate in support of their own church school.[40]

It would not be fair to criticize too severely the Law of 1893; but it cannot be denied that it marked one more stage on the road of interference with the autonomy of church schools. Another fourteen years of undermining were neces­sary before a fresh onslaught could be delivered; but the question of Magyar teaching in the schools would have been brought before Parliament far sooner, had not the military dis­putes which led up to the crisis of 1905-6 wholly absorbed the attention of the Chauvinists. In 1904 an Educational Com­mittee was appointed under the presidency of Albert Berze­viczy, to report upon the reform of primary education, and made various recommendations which caused great alarm among the non-Magyars. The President in his opening ad­dress lamented the inefficacy of the existing law for compul­sory Magyar instruction and urged the adoption of fresh precautions. " The object of this is by no means to deprive forcibly the non-Magyar inhabitants of our country of their nationality and mother tongue, but far rather to secure, by spreading a general knowledge of the state language, such a common means of communication as shall make the assimi­lation of our nation possible. For a nation whose members cannot understand one another can no doubt be described as " a geographical expression," but its unity as a state, its national existence is and remains an empty fiction. The aim of these provisions is to enforce effectively that civil equality of rights without which the equal rights of the na­tionalities cannot exist, since without a knowledge of the language of state the citizen is not in a position to assert him­self in all circumstances with equal right and equal power."[41] In short, this genial Liberal proposed to make the Magyar language the sole key which can unlock the gate of equality. The Roumanian Metropolitan argued that the proposed bill violated the principles of pedagogy in establishing as the chief aim of the primary school not general culture, but the acquisi­tion of a particular language, in this instance the Magyar. At this point he was greeted by indignant cries: " One who speaks thus of the Magyar language has no right to sit here." " That is the language of the Magyar nation, who gives you your bread." The majority of those present betrayed a similar bias and a tendency to regard Magyar instruction as the great end of all education.

The crisis of 1905 was the inevitable result of the rampant Chauvinism which had captured the Hungarian Parliament, and of the growing consciousness that no amount of repression could avail against Roumanian or even Slovak nationalism. The demand for the Magyar language of command was simply an attempt to turn to purposes of Magyarization the educative opportunities of the Joint Army. The scheme failed owing to the firm attitude of the monarch, but meanwhile the tactless­ness of Count Tisza shattered the Liberal party and incident­ally revealed the artificial basis upon which it had governed for forty years. When the Coalition took office in April, 1906, its leaders emphasized the transitional character of their Govern­ment; but the measure of electoral reform which was then allowed to figure as the chief item on their programme was soon relegated to a distant future, and a number of projects of varying degrees of reaction were brought up for parliamen­tary sanction. Foremost among these were the Education Acts of Count Apponyi, which I now propose to discuss in detail.

Act XXVI. of 1907 regulates the salaries of teachers in State elementary schools, according to an elaborate graduated scale. Little exception can be taken to many of its provisions, which genuinely aim at improving the material condition and raising the efficiency of the primary teacher. But this improvement in their status is won at the expense of their freedom; they become mere officials, bound hand and foot by jealous oaths, inquiries, inspections and penalties, their every movement is watched, and all their qualities have to be con­centrated upon instruction in a single subject — the Magyar language. While they are placed more than ever in the power of their superiors, even the very partial control exercised by local school boards is undermined by sections of the Act. Under it no one can become member of a local school board, unless he can both read and write Magyar. This is merely a veiled way of saying that in many districts the local management of the State schools belongs to a handful of Magyar officials, and over 90 per cent, of the population are excluded from all control of the education of their children.

It is of course easy to argue that the State is entitled to insist upon the closest control over its own teachers, perhaps all the more because of the limited number of State as com­pared to Church schools. But no argument save that of force majeur can be found to justify Act XXVII. of 1907, which deals with the salaries of teachers in the communal and de­nominational schools. This Act aims openly and unashamedly at the Magyarization of the non-Magyar primary schools, and its provisions deliberately impose upon the non-Magyar Churches burdens which its framers well knew to be insup­portable. Indeed it is difficult to say which is most flagrantly violated, the Equal Rights of the Nationalities (as guaranteed by Law XLIV. of 1868), or the legal autonomy of the Churches. Its more important provisions, so far as they bear upon the racial question in Hungary, can be summarized under the following heads: —

(A) All teachers in denominational schools are declared to be state officials, and a plausible excuse is thus given for inter­ference on the part of the State (§ 1).

(B)  The State prescribes a minimum salary which must be paid to all teachers in Church schools. It thereby makes impossible demands upon the poverty-stricken non-Magyar Churches, and forces many of their schools to apply for State subventions as the sole alternative to bankruptcy and collapse. For if the necessary funds cannot be raised within a certain period, and if the school authorities still neglect to apply for a grant, they lose the right to maintain their school (§§ 12-13). Of course if the State merely made these grants in order to raise the general standard of education and enable the Churches to provide more capable teaching, they would be accepted with the greatest alacrity. But State aid, though offered to the Church schools — and indeed in many cases thrust upon them in defiance of their wishes — is made to depend upon certain highly vexatious conditions, which play havoc with their autonomy. The financial needs of the schools are of course verified, and compliance with certain rules of accom­modation and sanitation are insisted upon.[42] But in addition to this, the teacher must be able to read, write and teach Magyar correctly (§ 15b); his pupils must receive Magyar instruction in the manner and to the extent laid down by the minister (§ 19); all instruction in the Magyar language, in arithmetic, geography, history and civil rights and duties, must be given solely in accordance with the syllabus sanctioned by the minister, and no books of "patriotic contents" may be used unless they have received his approval (§ 20). Where State aid exceeds 200 crowns (£8) the minister acquires a veto upon the teachers' appointment, and if after a fresh election he is, "on State grounds," still dissatisfied with the new choice, he can make the appointment himself without even consulting the school authorities ! (§21).[43] Asa result of this provision the school authorities, in appointing teachers, are as much at the mercy of the State as is the patron of a living at the mercy of his bishop in the Catholic Church. It is hardly neces­sary to point out that the object in view here is to prevent so far as possible the appointment as teachers of persons who are non-Magyar in sentiment.

The minister is further empowered to order a disciplinary inquiry against any teacher in a Church school (whether in receipt of State aid or not) for neglect of Magyar instruction, for a tendency hostile to the State,[44] for "incitement against con­fessions, single classes of society or the institutions of property and marriage," for meddling with emigration matters, or for the use of schoolbooks which have not received the sanction of the minister (§ 24 and § 22 (i) a to e) — such minor offences as immorality, brutal treatment of his pupils or culpable negligence of his duties, being left to the care of the local school authorities. No check whatever is imposed upon the minister's action, save the vague phrase "if he considers this necessary with a view to assuring the interests of State"; and thus a permanent sword of Damocles is suspended over the head of the non­Magyar teacher, who may at any moment become the victim of some local official's Chauvinistic zeal.

In the event of dismissal as the result of such an inquiry, the new teacher can only be appointed subject to the minister's approval, and a second case of dismissal gives the latter the right to dissolve the school and establish a State school in its place (§ 25). If the Committee of management is implicated, dissolution can at once follow, while if the priest is involved, he is liable to forfeit the congrua or State tithe (§ 27). Thus the whole tendency is to make the teachers less dependent upon their denominations and to reduce them to mere machines in whom any expression of political opinion is highly danger­ous. The comprehensive interpretation put upon "tendencies hostile to the state" places the schoolmaster at the mercy of the local notary or szólgabiró, who, as we shall see in a later chapter, are ultra-Chauvinist even when they are not dictatorial and corrupt.

Finally the conditions to which State aid is to be made subject, are to be tested by the county administrative committee (the local authority for State schools), the fact of the school authorities and their teachers having already conformed to all the regulations regarding syllabus, diplomas, etc., not being regarded as sufficient. The injustice of this becomes apparent when it is borne in mind that this committee is com­posed of the very class to avoid submission to whom the non­Magyar Churches support schools of their own.[45]

(C) Still more astonishing are the linguistic provisions of the Act. (a) In all non-Magyar schools, whether in receipt of State aid or not, the children must be taught Magyar in the manner and for the time prescribed by the minister, "so that the child of non-Magyar tongue on the completion of its fourth school year can express its thoughts intelligibly in the Magyar language in word and writing " (§ 18). Even if no minister of Education in the future is guilty of such a monstrous order as that of Dr. Wlassics (see p. 219), this clause opens the door to all kinds of wild linguistic experi­ments, such as are bound to prove fatal to the general culture of the victims.

(b) One of the clauses of the famous Law of Nationalities secures to the various Churches the right to prescribe the language of instruction in their schools according to their own free will. The Act of 1907 with brazen assurance declares that this clause " is to be understood in the sense that they are free to establish as language of instruction cither the language of State or the mother tongue of the children, while in the latter case the provisions relating to the teaching of the Magyar language must of course be enforced without restriction." If Parliament's mind was set upon a provision of such doubtful content, it would at least have been honest to annul Clause 14 of the Law of Nationalities, instead of striving to inter­pret black as really equivalent to grey. But this law has long served the convenient purpose of deluding foreign opinion on the subject of Magyar tolerance — and hence the abrogation of one of its clauses would have deprived the Magyars of a favourite tactical manoeuvre.

(c)  Wherever Magyar has already been introduced as the language of instruction, this fact can never be altered again (§ 18, subsection 2).

(d)  In all continuation schools Magyar is to be the language of instruction (§ 18, subsection 3).

(e)  If want of success in Magyar instruction is due " not to neglect but to the incapacity of the teacher," the latter must be pensioned or dismissed (§ 28). This clause, if literally enforced, would denude the non-Magyar schools of their teachers, for it stands to reason that proficency in Magyar can only be acquired in a Magyar atmosphere, and this is precisely what is lacking in the non-Magyar districts, where in many villages the children rarely hear a Magyar word outside the school building.

On the other hand the minister can at the suggestion of the Government inspector assign special grants to denominational teachers for " special services," which is of course merely a veiled allusion to Magyarization (§ 4). In other words, a premium is set upon the teaching of Magyar, and the teachers are encouraged to give it precedence over the mother tongue of their pupils.

(D) Great attention is paid in the Act to external forms and symbols. The arms of Hungary are to be erected outside and inside every school, the national flag is to be hoisted on anniversaries, pictures from Hungarian history are to be hung up in the class-rooms (§ 17); everything is to be done to encourage the hysterical form of patriotism. But nothing which " has a bearing upon foreign history or geography," or which is manufactured abroad — in other words nothing which could remind the Roumanians or Slavs of their close kinship with Hungary's neighbours — is to be allowed under any circumstances. The portraits of church dignitaries arc toler­ated, but anything which could remind the Slovaks of Saints a Cyril and Methodius,[46] the Serbs of St. Sava, the Roumanians of St. Basil, would be regarded as the rankest treason. Moreover, all schools, even those in purely non-Magyar districts, are compelled to place Magyar inscriptions on their buildings (§ 17), to use Magyar circulars and printed forms, and to fill up their certificates in Magyar (§ 33) — a clause whose petty and vexatious nature is likely to lead to more ill-feeling than others which are in reality far more tyrannous.

The object of all this is revealed in the clause by which the teacher is legally " bound to encourage and strengthen in the soul of the children the spirit of attachment to the Hun­garian fatherland and the consciousness of membership in the Hungarian nation, as also (this seems to hold the second place) religion and moral sentiments " (§17). Here we encoun­ter the idée fixe of the Magyar politician — that patriotism can be forced down millions of unwilling throats, instead of being a moral conception which differs infinitely according to race, environment and religion.[47]

(E) Apparently with the same object, an oath of loyalty is henceforth to be exacted from all teachers in denominational and communal schools. The oath contains nothing to which a patriotic non-Magyar should take exception, and does not differ from that imposed upon State teachers; but several needlessly offensive conditions are coupled with it. Firstly, it must be taken in the presence of the Government inspector, not of the authorities of the teacher's own school. Secondly, it must be administered in the Magyar language — a fact which is very naturally resented as a needless slight upon the other races of the country. And, thirdly, refusal to take the oath involves a teacher in prosecution for a " tendency hostile to the State." In other words, it is held like a high­wayman's pistol to the victim's head. The "conscientious objector" would fare ill in Hungary.

Under provisions so sweeping as those of Count Apponyi's Act, the autonomy of the Church schools is bound to become little more than a name. But perhaps the most flagrant case of its violation are the clauses which subject all books — even Church catechisms and religious textbooks — to the approval of the Minister of Education (§ 20) and empower him in extreme cases to deprive a priest of the right of imparting religious instruction.

It is too soon to discuss the probable effects of the Act of 1907, for such revolutionary changes as those at which it aims cannot be effected in the short space of a year. But it will be already apparent to the reader that the whole trend of the Act is in favour of State interference of the most crude and vexatious type, and that such powers as still remain to the Churches in educational matters are either dependent upon the good will of the State or have become a negligible quantity altogether. The bitter words of a Roumanian deputy would appear to be justified; for the Act of 1907 is little better than "an addition to the Criminal Code, such as will encourage espionage and demoralize the teaching staff.'' The present edu­cational policy of the Magyars is based upon two radically false assumptions, first that patriots can be created by act of Parlia­ment, and second, that language is the sole basis of nationality. Neither is true, and the Hungarian Parliament, if it must needs shut its eyes to the obvious examples of Ireland and Scotland, might remember that the foremost champions of the nationalities have received a Magyar education and have a complete mastery of the Magyar language.