Victor Karady
Education and Denominations in Transdanubia (1910). One of István’s topical issues revisited.[1]
One of the major contribution István has made to Central European social history is contained in his numerous studies full of painstakingly collected local references on matters related to the level of education, intellectual competences and civilisational technologies identified in a number of regional populations, both in the bonded peasantry and in various cirles of the nobility in Western Hungary during the modern era (17-18th century).[2] Particularly important appear to be his findings about educational capacities – indices of having and reading books, the knowledge of Latin, frequencies of signatures and other indices of literacy – in various village circles and social strata, including confessionally different groups.
This last point had a special significance in Hungary, the only feudal state with medieval foundations in Europe which remained confessionally mixed even after the turmoils of Reformation and Counter-Reformation, all the more because the denominational set-up was dubbed by an ethnic multiplicity with several ’ethnic religions’ proper (the Serbians and most Romanians being members of the Greek Orthodox, the Ukrainians those of the Uniate – Greek Catholic Church). But even the basic ethnic constituencies of the would-be later nation state – those of Magyar and old established German stock endowed with corporate political privileges due to noble status or as free city patriciate – remained confessionally divided. There was to be true among the latter since the 17th century a strong Roman Catholic share (representing a majority among Magyars and Germans but not in the whole population of the country[3]), the rest being distributed among Calvinists, Lutherans and a number of smaller confessional clusters (Unitarians, Jews, Greek Catholics and some Greek Orthodox). By the end of the Dual Monarchy in 1910 Transdanubia as a whole, the region which was preferentially targeted in István’s work, had a Roman Catholic majority of 78 %, with a large Calvinist (11 %), a significant Lutheran (8,2 %) and a small Jewish (2,9 %) presence, besides other tiny, statistically insignificant clusters.[4]
Now István’s seminal findings based on a systematic collection of micro-historical case references to various indices of literacy (signatures in public and private documents – like will, contracts, public records -, verbal reports on reading knowledge, information about the use of eye glasses, watches and above all books, existence of schools, the number and education of schoolteachers, etc.) helped him to conclude upon a relative equality of sorts among the main confessional groups as far as levels of literacy and basic education was concerned.[5] Though his focus is not on confessional differences, may be because his data were not abundant enough for systematic comparisons and, possibly, because this was as yet not an essential issue in the preindustrial period he studied, it is worth to be seen whether a similar conclusion would still apply in the period of early industrialisation, more than half a century following the abolition of feudalism, in the situation prevailing in late Dualist Hungary. If the basic statistical indications produced since the late 19th century on the capital city and on the whole country obviously attest to the contrary, it is worth to go beyond these general observations and try to look at the regional details of the problem raised in István’s work for the early modern era. This is the objective pursued in the present study which has, apparently, very few precedents indeed.
For this study I have the chance and the privilege to use an exceptionally rich and pecise data bank extracted from the archives of the Central Statistical Office in Budapest thanks to persistent efforts due to my eminent colleague and friend Peter-Tibor Nagy, which we recently published in a common.[6] This data collection offers a quantified report of hitherto unpublished results of the 1910 census with detailed evidence on levels of education achieved by the population broken down simultaneously (in individual tables) by not less than four variables : religion (8 clusters), territorial units (all counties and cities with administrative autonomy in Transdanubia), age groups and gender. The main findings on the whole region are gathered in table 1.
Table 1.
% of those aged 25-29 years with selected levels of education by denomination
(Transdanubia, 1910)[7]
M E N W O M E N[8] N %
12 classes[9] other se- illite- 12 classes other se- illite-
condary[10] rates condary rates
Roman Catholics 3,3 % 1,5 % 8,3 % 0,6 % 2,1 % 12,7 % 169 041 77,7
Lutherans 3,1 % 2,9 % 2,9 % 0,5 % 2,3 % 3,4 % 18 182 8,4
Calvinists 3,7 % 1,4 % 3,9 % 0,5 % 2,1 % 5,2 % 23 841 11,0
Jews 19,8 % 13,3 % 0,6 % 2,5 % 24,2 % 1,5 % 6 456 3,0
All 217 520[11] 100,0
The table clearly carries a number of important messages.
There was a significant but not very strong discrepancy among levels of education of the Christian clusters, especially at the bottom of the educational ladder. The general educational pyramid of Christians was indeed large in the sense that there were more (or as many) illiterates than those in the categories with secondary or higher education, though the overwhelming majority – over 90 % for Protestants, 87 % for Catholics – eas simply endowed with basic literacy. Very few of them – less than 4 % of men and a mere 0,5 % of women - had accomplished a full secondary curriculum or gone further to do higher studies (these two categories being lumped together in the relevant evidence pertaining to pre-Trianon Hungary[12]). A comparably few 2-3 % had even started studies in secondary schools to achieve at least four classes.[13] Here we cannot find any strong divergences in this respect, even if Lutherans showed on the whole a somewhat more marked degree of involvement in secondary education (6 %) as compared to other Christians (4,8 % of Catholics and 5,1 % of Calvinists). But levels of illiteracy were by that time generally equally quite low. Differences appear though to be much less negligible here and they are obviously enough to the detriment of Roman Catholics and the advantage of Protestants. The proportion of illiterates remained indeed two to three times superior among the majority Catholics compared to Protestants, more among women than men.
Thus, István’s finding of an apparent educational equality among Christians for an earlier period seems to apply largely – if not completely - to the advanced level of formal training, but no more to the lowest levels exemplified by illiteracy.
Another important result of István’s investigations concerned the ethnic divide in matters educational, especially as far as literacy was concerned. He stressed several times that German villages showed more or less systematically higher rates of reading and sometimes even writing knowledge (measured for example by the occurrence of signatures instead of crosses under contracts, wills and other documents) than Magyar villages, the two main ethnic constituencies in early modern Transdanubia. Formally it is quite possible to resort for a comparison in Dualist Hungary to educational data broken down by ethnic groups, but this evidence, apparently reliable, is exposed to a number of socio-historical fallacies. Information on ethnicity was based at that time on declared mother tongue or first language, liable to be a false evidence, distorted as it could have been by temptations of ’linguistic loyalism’ to the nation state : bilingual persons preferring to state Magyar linguistic status under the pressure of prevailing ’Magyarism’ in the exhuberantly nationalist atmosphere following the Millennium celebrations. And bilingualism was far from being exceptional in Dualist Transdanubia. Some 11 % of official Magyar speakers declared to speak German as well in the 1910 census[14] and as many as 39,5 % German spekers spoke Hungarian as well[15]. But German speakers themselves were in Transdanubia strongly divided between Roman Catholics, Lutherans and Jews, that is groups with extremely different schooling records. Thus the meaning of the opposition between Germans and Magyars – the main ethnic groups in Transdanubia – would in fact contrast very mixed categories in terms of educational achievement. There was, morover, a structural bias of sorts in schooling data of ethnic minorities at that time. Since in a region like Transdanubia, elite schooling, including its lowest levels, was provided only with Hungarian tuition, students of advanced education (beyond 4 secondary classes) tended to declare Magyar as their first language – and duely so, given their proficiency in the language of their studies -, even if their home language or mother tongue proper was German or another one.
Such ambiguities are embedded in the 1910 census data on education by ethnic groups. Among Transdanubian men 4,1 % of the Magyars had accomplished at least 4 secondary classes as against only 1,2 % of Germans, while the former had a higher proportion of illiterates (26,7 %) than the latter (25,1 %). Among women the relative numbers appear to be quite similar. 2,9 % of Magyar women displayed a 4 secondary class level as against a mere 0,9 % of Germans, while Magyars had here again a higher proportion of illiterates (33 %) than the Germans (29,6 %).[16] Now the significantly higher level of advanced studies among Hungarians must be, in part, certainly attributed to the national conformism of the better educated, seeking admission in the Magyar gentry or more largely in the Magyar dominated gentlemanly class. On the contrary, the better scores of basic literacy among Germans may be due to the persistingly heavier stress on primary education in German communities, whether Catholic or Lutheran. This can be attested even empirically with reference to evidence of school attendance. In 1896/7 among those of the age of obligatory schooling (boys and girls together) 96,8 % of self declared German speakers, but only 89,2 % of Magyars attended a primary school in Transdanubia, attesting to a clear ’German superiority’ in primary educational investments.[17]
Now, quasi all of these ’Germans’ must have been Christians, the descendants of those in István’s study, since the few Jews still professing a German ethnic identity – just 10 % in Transdanubia - must be in this respect left out of the picture. Their long term efforts at ’self-assimilation’ of sorts had by that time almost fully Magyarized their primary school network, which was not yet true, apparently, of German Catholics or Lutherans. In 1896/7 still some 14,4 % of Transdanubian primary schools were teaching in German (often combined with Hungarian, to be true),[18] and all but very few of them must be Christian schools : even some years later – there are no comparable data earlier – in 1899/1900 German was used country wide in 32 % of Lutheran and 9 % of Roman Catholic primary schools.[19] Transdanubia proved to be by the way the only region in Hungary outside Transylvania (with its strong Lutheran-German primary school network maintained by the Universitas Saxorum) where German schooling still had strongholds in Dualist Hungary, since 48 % of primary schools with fully or partly German tuition outside Transylvania were operating there in 1896/7[20] while the province hosted only 33 % of German speakers outside Transylvania at the previous census (1890)[21].
Thus our data on ethnic discrepancies of literacy in 1910 still clearly replicate and confirm István’s conclusions for the early modern era about the relative educational advantage of Germans on at least the primary level.
Here we must return to the most spectacular differences displayed in table 1. opposing Jews and non Jews. This was not an issue in István’s period, unlike in Dualist Hungary – though the Jewish presence was much weaker in Transdanubia than in the rest of the country, especially in the central and eastern regions (with close to 6 % of Jews in the global population in 1910). In Transdanubia one third of Jewish men and over one quarter of Jewish women had accomplished at least 4 secondary classes as against less than 6 % of Christian men and not more than 3 % of Christian women. On the whole those with a minimal elite education among Jews represented a proportion of more than six times exceeding the Christian average. In this striking discrepancy between Jewish and Gentile educational achievements we cannot but identify a dual pattern of levels of modernisation and ’embourgeoisement’. Manifestly, in Jewish circles secondary education in gymnasiums, Realschulen, Bürgerschulen and commercial highschools[22] started to become a general practice in the young generations of early 20th century Transdanubia, meanwhile this was still rather exceptional, reserved for a happy few of the young Christians.
The Jewish-Gentile disparity appears to be similarly drastic if we compare proportions of illiterates. Among Jews illiteracy tended to disappear completely among men, exceeding 1 % only in the generations above 45 years of age in towns and 35 years in the counties, while never attaining 10 %. Though it remained somewhat higher among Jewish women (as in Table 1), it did not reach the very lowest proportion among Christian clusters and this remained so historically in the elderly generations too. This is in sharp contrast with Christian indices of illiteracy. Among the majority Catholics, for example, close to one third (32 %) of men above 60 were still illiterate in 1910 in the counties as well as close to one quarter (23 %) in towns.[23]
This is not the place to muster all the necessary social historical evidence to interpret these differences. (I tried to do this elsewhere for the whole country.[24])
Among the main explicative factors to be resorted to a special place should be reserved for interconnected disparities of social stratification (with a large sector of ’independent’ traders, craftsmen, bankers, industrialists and free professionals among Jews), demographic modernization (with low death rates and the early spread of the small family pattern among Jews), the recourse to Hungarian schooling in their strategies of ’national’ assimilation (important for many Jews and Lutherans alike, due to their ethnic alienness in terms for example of mother tongue) as well as urbanisation. A reminder of a few evidences to this effect should be in order.
Jews and some Protestants (especially Lutherans) showed already by the early 20th century a much more middle class set-up in most of these matters which we cannot deal with here in detail. Let us simply content ourselves to cite elementary data on the relative size of those in intellectual professions at large. ’Intellectuals’ considered here are those defined in contemporary statistical publications as executives and employees of private economy (agriculture, mines and siderurgy, industry, trade and transports) as well as members of the civil service and the free professions. Now, lumped together and compared to men of 20 years of age and above[25], such ’intellectuals’ represented in contemporary Transdanubia 3,7 % among Catholics, 3,8 % among Calvinists, 4,2 % among Lutherans, but as much as 21,7 % of Jews.[26] This is clear indication that the presence of those whose professional activities were in one way or another conditions by their endowment with intellectual assets - social class set-up - followed closely the rank order of global educational achievements in the denominational brackets.
The same can be easily demonstrated as to Transdanubian differentials in urbanization. Living in cities was directly connected to enhanced educational chances due to the fact that advanced education (from post-primary schooling upwards) was offered in cities and larger townships alone. Now even in Transdanubia, a mediocry urbanized part of the country (as compared to Central Hungary comprising the capital) 22 % of Jewish men lived in the four cities with autonomous administration at that time (Győr, Komárom, Pécs, Sopron) as against 7,1 % of Lutherans, 6,4 % of Catholics and a mere 4,6 % of Calvinists. Thus, differential degrees of urbanization must have been an important variable in educational inequalities too, but certainly not the only one liable to be distinguished in an in-depth analysis of causal factors which we cannot pursue further here.
Rather let us focus on a number of important educational differentials proper between Jews and non Jews and – to some extent - also among Christian clusters in the region.
One striking difference appears by the way precisely between educational patterns or urban Jews and Gentiles as against their respective coreligionists in the counties. Indeed Jewish educational attainments remained not only generally much higher than those of Gentiles but much more balanced between urban and rural settings. The country-town difference – though significant enough - did not reach such dramatic proportions among Jews as among non Jews. Among Jewish men of all age groups (including infants) for example we find some 19 % in the counties and 29 % in towns to have completed at least 4 secondary school classes. In some regions there is not even any significant difference between Jewish educational achievements in urban and rural settings. In Fejér county, for one, Jews outside the central town Székesfehérvár displayed somewhat higher schooling scores (with 44,8 of men having accomplished az least 4 secondary classes) than those in the city (44,4 % with at least 4 classes)[27]. Similar proportions show an incomparably wider range among Christian men, that is 2,2 % in counties as against 10,8 % in towns among Catholics, 2,4 % as against 12,2 % among Calvinists and 2,7 % as against 13,1 % among Lutherans.[28] These contrasts would be probably even more apparent if our data could distinguish between all town dwellers, that is those in small towns too with basic elite educational facilities (secondary schools included[29]) in contrast to all other rural areas. Anyhow, manifestly enough, education was much more equally – if there again not quite equally – distributed among Jews independently from residence, while the educated Christians were much more often concentrated in cities. 5,7 % of all Christian men lived in cities here, but 21 % of those with at least 8 secondary classes and 25 % of those with lower levels of secondary education (4-6 classes), while comparable proportions for Jews were 22 % and 27 % only.[30]
This could mean that the fundamental reasons for Jews to accumulate educational assets, especially those preparing for elite functions, were not necessarily linked in a privileged manner to urban activities proper. That is, they were far from identical to those among Gentiles. Among the latter, the educated gathering more often in cities, education could have been a much more functional means to achieve positions worth of the gentlemanly middle class which could be interpreted, essentially, as a scheme for the reproduction of the gentlemanly strata in charge specially of economic, administrative, political and cultural functions located in cities.
This difference can be clearly demonstrated if we compare the number of those with a minimum degree of secondary education (at least 4 secondary classes) to the size of respective confessional groups engaged in intellectual professions, defined as above[31]. In all clusters dealt with here there were more, to be true, with this basic ’gentlemanly’ or middle class education than those in intellectual professions proper, but the excess of the educated varied very significantly along confessional lines. If the number of ’intellectuals’ is taken for 100, Catholics would have 134 with basic middle class education, Calvinists only 122, Lutherans 144 but Jews as much as 166. Such manifest relative ’excess’ of the educated among Lutherans and especially among Jews show, that these clusters preceded the others on the road towards the generalisation of the demand for education independently from professional needs. This is the very ’bourgeois’ or middle class pattern of education, when sons of independent farmers, craftsmen, traders etc. would send their sons to a gymnasium, a Bürgershule, a Realschule or else into a commercial highschool even when the latter would take over the small or large business of their father, an economic option not necessitating at that time elite schooling.
Jewish and Gentile educational patterns diverged also, as suggested already above, by their historical development as it is disclosed in generation specific levels of schooling. Comparing the youngest adult and the elderly generations, with some reservations referred to in the introduction to our data bank[32], generational data can be identified to time bound chronological patterns of education. Now, comparing both for men amd women the youngest adult category (20-24 years of age) with the 60 year old and above, the discrepancy found among the % of those with at least 4 secondary classes is by far much bigger for Jews (a multiple of 3 for men and 6 for women) as for Christians (a multiple of 2 for men and 5 for women). For example in Transdanubian counties 19,4 of Jewish men of 20-24 years had reached the level of 8 secondary classes or more as against 6 % of the 60 years and above and the progression of the category was uninterrupted for subsequent generational clusters. For Catholic men the two comparable extreme generational levels were 1,4 % for the 60 years and above and 3,2 % for the 20-24 years, but the progression was not at all regular from the older generational clusters to the younger ones. Catholic men of 40-45 years displayed 2,5 %, but those of 35-39 years 2,2 % only and those of 30-34 years 2,4 %.[33] For women, the 4 secondary classes level is the most significant one and we find very similar disparities between Jews and Christians in this respect. While Jewish women showed a constant progression, Catholic ones remained on the same level (2,4 %) from the 35-39 years generations to the 25-29 years one, with a jump ahead for the 20-24 years group (3,5 %).[34] Here one can identify traces of the country wide stagnation of educational investments of Christian elites during the quarter century after the 1867 political Compromise, a period when Jewish schooling investments became a major scheme for strategies of social mobility, integration and cultural assimilation.[35]
There is another strikingly singular feature of the discrepancy between Jewish and Christian educational performances. This is the relative prevalence of male graduates of 8 years of secondary school training over coreligionist men with lower secondary levels among Christians and, on the contrary, the larger proportions of those men with lower secondary school degrees as opposed to those with 8 classes among Jews. Thus the difference between the relative size of Jewish and Christian male graduates at the top of the educational hierarchy proved to be much smaller that at the base. This base was large among Jewish men and very narrow among their Christian counterparts. Thus in Transylvanian counties 1,2 % of Catholic men had attained the 8 secondary classes level as against 1 % with lower secondary qualifications. For Calvinist men the comparable proportions were 1,% as against 0,9 %, for Lutheran men 1,6 % as against 1,1 %, while the proportions were inversed for Jewish men : 8,1 % with 8 classes as against 11,2 % with lower degrees.[36] In Transdanubian towns the above disparities happened to be even more pronounced. The same applied to women with qualifications. There basic secondary schooling was much more frequent for all denominational clusters, but the disproportion between those with 8 secondary classes and others with lower degrees was a multiple of less than 7 among Christian women, while it reached a multiple of 14 in towns and 10 in counties for Jewish women.[37]
This observation raises an intriguing question about the reasons of such strongly patterned statistical differences in educational attainments, all the more that the same can be identified in exactly the same manner both in towns and outcide cities in other regions of Dualist Hungary.[38]
There are a number of factors which can account concomitantly for these discrepancies. Some have to do with objective conditions of educational mobility of the two big clusters, others are the outcome of schooling strategies proper.
Among objective factors one has to remember that the 8 secondary classes level may cover a number of different educational achievement, like graduation from a gymnasium, a Realschule on the one hand, from a primary school teacher training college (Normal School) on the other hand, or else even just the formal completion of 8 or less secondary classes giving access to a priests’ seminary or a training track for army officers. Up to the end of the 19th century even the Ludovica Akademia, the main officer training college contended itself with demanding only 8 secondary classes without graduation. Male graduates of the three years commercial highschools (having accomplished 4 primary, 4 Bürgerschule and 3 commercial highschool classes) were entitled to the one year ’voluntary’ military service and the subsequent advanced training to become a reserve officer. The latter also could thus claim to have accomplished more than 8 secondary classes. Now most of the categories outside secondary school graduation proper in a gymnasium or a Realschule (except for the one with commercial highschool track) were filled with Christians. If we just single out primary school and Bürgerschule teachers, they represent in 1910 some 19,2 % of Christian men and as much as 37,3 % of Christian women as against only 4,9 % of Jewish men and 12,3 % of Jewish women among those liable to claim the 8 classes level.[39] This means that Jews must have had more ’real graduates’ of classical (gymnasium) or non classical (Realschule, commercial highschool) secondary education among those claiming to have the 8 secondary classes level.
But the large educational base of Jews and the narrow one of Christians must have been also dependent on different educational strategies of the two clusters which can be broadly described by two divergent patterns of social reproduction and mobility.
For most Christians secondary schooling was destined to the reproduction of the gentlemanly middle class, that is, the status maintenance of the gentry, the urban patriciate and the educated honoratiors of non noble background. Given the long term stagnation or even decline of the number of Christians in elite education (as mentioned above), this could not be otherwise. In the decades following 1867 till the 1890s the elite training of Christians in secondary schools, universities and academies could but perform functions of reproduction of the given middle classes, but hardly an enlarged reproduction in these circumstances. For this though, the education of most Christians had to target preferentially at least 8 secondary classes, since this was the officially (via for example access to reserve officer’s standing) and socially recognised lower educational boundary of gentlemanly cirles.
For Jews, starting their long (and never fully completed) march towards integration in the ’national middle class’ after the 1867 Emancipation, elite education became immediately a major avenue for assimilation via tuition in Hungarian, acquisition of cultural assets of the gentlemanly class, possible social contacts with members of the ruling elite on schoolbenches (since up to the outgoing 19th century there was hardly any anti-Jewish social segregation in gymnasiums or Realschulen, let alone in Bürgerschulen) as well as – obviously enough – for mobility towards free professional or even civil service positions opening up for Jews at that time. This entailed a fast and generalised educational mobilization of Jewish youth from all social strata, except – at least not immediately – from Orthodox circles bound to their elaborate schooling traditions in cheders and yeshivot. Now most of this mobilization could not end up with Matura or 8 years of secondary school or even a Normal School graduation for various reasons. As to teacher training collges, Jews could not be much interested in graduating from them, since the market of primary schooling was governed by the churches and confessional segregation was paramount for pupils and teachers as well, so that Jews would scarcely find jobs outside Jewish primary schools. For other Jews endowed originally with a religious culture, a language and specific linguistic competences (comprising to be sure a level of bilingualism) of their own, studying in a Christian gymnasium or even in a Realschule represented a major form of cultural alienation, hence particular hardships to overcome before reaching graduation, which most of them could thus not complete. But the function of secondary graduation could equally not be the same for Jews as for Christians. Clearly enough, disproportionately large cohorts of young Jewish men – compared to the tiny relative numbers of Christians – strove for a status in the intellectual professions via studies in universities. But besides this highly mobile Jewish cluster, for an even larger number of Jews mostly of quite poor, lower middle class extraction (sons of petty traders, commissioners, craftsmen) lower secondary school qualification would suffice for a limited degree of upward mobility outside of or following in their fathers professional footsteps as private employees or business managers in trade or industry - which did not at that time demand 8 years of secondary schooling.
One can conclude this essay with the reminder that though the educational market had undergone fundamental transformations in Western Hungary from the 17th and 18th century, István’s historical target, up to the early 20th century, some of his question marks about educational differences between Catholics and Protestants conserved their relevance, while new ones were put on the social and scholarly agenda – essentially around specific disparities and inequalities observable between Jews and Christians.
[1] This study has benefited from the support of the Hungarian national agency to fund scholarly research (NKFP).
[2] See his important book
[3] Especially if Transylvania – administratively not part of the Hungarian state ere 1867 – is included.
[4] Computed from Magyar statisztikai közlemények, 61, 162-163.
[5] See particulary his subchapter on „The role of ethnic and confessional differences” as well as the closing chapter in his book,
[6] See Victor Karady, Peter Tibor Nagy, Educational Inequalities and Denominations – Database for Transdanubia, 1910, Budapest, Hungarian Institute for Educational Research, 2003. (Research Papers no. 253.)
[7] Computed from Educational Inequalities…, op. cit. vol. 2, 208-231.
[8] Same notes as for men.
[9] 4 primary and 8 secondary school classes or more.
[10] Those with at least 4 or 6 secondary school classes.
[11] Excluding smaller confessional clusters not listed here - a mere 0,7 % of the grand total.
[12] For 1920 and 1930 published confession specific regional educa tional data include a category of 8 secondary classes and another one for those with higher education, though the level of the letter (whether it has to do with accomplished studies or just studies begun, with studies in universities, academies, theological seminaries or other institutions of post secondary education) is not specified. See Magyar statisztikai közlemények /Hungarian statistical reports/ nr. 73, 202-217 and ibid. 96, 314-327.
[13] This was the officially recognised lower limit of middle class existence, since the 1883 ’Law on qualifications’ defined a number of public functions (like postmaster, railway station manager, etc.) to which it could give access, besides other forms of non manual employment in the private economy. 4 secondary classes – whatever was the institution in which it was achieved – represented the minimal degree of education necessary for a social standing above those of the ’masses’, the ’people’, those in ’manual’ occupations.
[14] Computed from Magyar statisztikai közlemények /Hungarian statistical reports/ 61, 120.
[15] Same source, 112 and 124.
[16] Computed from Magyar statisztikai közlemények /Hungarian statistical reports/ 61, 278-283.
[17] Comouted from A Vallás és Közoktatási Miniszter jelentése az 1896/97 évre /Yearly report of the Minister of cults and education for 1896/97/, Budapest, 1897, 212-213 and236-237.
[18] Computed from Magyar statisztikai évkönyv, 1897, /Hungarian statistical yearbook 1897/, 342-343.
[19] Computed from Magyar statisztikai évkönyv, 1900 /Hungarian statistical yearbook, 1900/, 334.
[20] Computed from Magyar statisztikai évkönyv, 1897, /Hungarian statistical yearbook 1897/, 342-343.
[21] Computed from the same source : Magyar statisztikai évkönyv, 1897, /Hungarian statistical yearbook 1897/, 40-43.
[22] Secondary education with Matura (formal graduation with different entitlements to do higher studies) was organised in Dualist Hungary in three institutions following the Austrian (and the Prussian) model : gymnasium with Latin (8 classes) giving access to all higher studies, Realschule without Latin (8 classes) giving access to technical and commercial studies, commercial highschool (3 classes after four secondary school classes) allowing only commercial higher studies. Besides these, the so called Bürgerschule (no Matura) with 4 to 6 classes represented lower middle class standards, giving access to teacher training Normal schools and to commercial highschools. Matura (érettségi in Hungarian) was anyhow the officially recognised entry ticket into the gentlemanly class entailing special social and military entitlements (like duelling, special quasi gentry titles when addressed, admission to gentlemanly salons, shorter ’voluntary’ military service, access to the rank of ’reserve officer’, etc.).
[23] Computed from data in our Educational Inequalities…, op. cit., vol. 2, 208-215, 220-225.
[24] See especially my numerous studies in Hungarian in this matter, mostly referred to in the following ones published in Western languages : (with István Kemény) : « Antisémitisme universitaire et concurrence de classe : la loi de numerus clausus en Hongrie entre les deux guerres », Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 34, sept. 1978, 67-96; « Jewish Enrollment Patterns in Classical Secondary Education in Old Regime and Inter-War Hungary », Studies in Contemporary Jewry (Bloomington), 1984, 1, 225-252; « Juifs et Luthériens dans le système scolaire hongrois », Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 69, sept. 1987, 67-85 ; (with Stephane Vari), « Facteurs socio-culturels de la réussite au baccalauréat en Hongrie », Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 70, novembre 1987, 79-82 ; « Assimilation and Schooling : National and Denominational Minorities in the Universities of Budapest around 1900 », in G. Ránki (ed.), Hungary and European Civilisation, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1989, 285-319; (with) Wolfgang Mitter (eds.), Sozialstruktur und Bildungswesen in Mitteleuropa / Social Structure and Education in Central Europe, Köln, Wien, Böhlau Verlag, 1990; « Jewish Over-Schooling in Hungary. Its Sociological Dimensions », in V. Karady, W. Mitter (eds.), Sozialstruktur und Bildungswesen... 209-246; « Funktionswandel der österreichischen Hochschulen in der Ausbildung der ungarischen Fachintelligenz vor und nach dem I. Weltkrieg », in V. Karady, Wolfgang Mitter (eds.), Sozialstruktur und Bildungswesen..., 177-207; "A l'ombre du 'numerus clausus'.La restratification du système universitaire hongrois dans l'entre-deux-guerres" in A la recherche de l'espace universitaire européen, sous la direction de C. Charle, E. Keiner, J. Schriewer, Paris-Francfort, Peter Lang, 1993, 345-372; “Schulbildung und Religion. Zu den ethnisch-konfessionellen Strukturmerkmalen der ungarischen Intelligenz in der Zwischenkriegszeit ”, in Christoph Kodron, Botho von Kopp , Uwe Lauterbach, Ulrich Schäfer, Gerlind Schmidt (Hrg.), Vergleichende Erziehungswissenschaft, Herausforderung, Vermittlung, Praxis. Festschrift für Wolfgang Mitter zum 70. Geburtstag, Köln-Wien, Böhlau Verlag, 1997, Band 2., 621-641; “ Das Judentum als Bildungsmacht in der Moderne. Forschungsansätze zur relativen Überschulung in Mitteleuropa”, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften, 1997, 347-361; L’enseignement des élites en Europe Centrale (19-20e siècles), textes réunis en collaboration avec Mariusz Kulczykowski, Cracovie (Pologne), Ksiegarnia akademicka, 1999; „Jewish Over-Schooling Revisited : the Case of Hungarian Secondary Education in the Old Regime (1900-1941)“, Yearbook of the Jewish Studies Programme, 1998/1999, Budapest, Central European University, 2000, 75-91; « ‘The People of the Book’ and Denominational Access Differentials to Hungarian Primary School Libraries in the early 20. Century », Jewish Studies Yearbook, 2000/2001, Budapest, Central European University, 2002, 193-201; „Les migrations internationales d’étudiants avant et après la Grande Guerre.”, Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 145, décembre 2002, 47-60; (with Lucian Nastasa), The University of Kolozsvár/Cluj/Cluj and the Students of the Medical Faculty (1872-1918), Cluj, Ethnocultural Diversity Resource Center, Budapest-New York, Central European University Press, 2004.
[25] See the data for the computation of the size of relevant age groups in our Educational Inequalities…, op. cit. vol. 2, 208-213 and 220-225.
[26] Computed from relevant data dispersed in Magyar statisztikai közlemények /Hungarian statistical reports/ 56, 332-603.
[27] Computed from Educational Inequalities…, op. cit., vol. 1, 44-45 and 56-57.
[28] Computed from our Educational Inequalities…, op. cit. vol. 2, 208-213 and 220-225.
[29] There were in Transdanubia some gymnasiums and Realschulen at that time, most of them actually dispersed in small towns. For example a township like Pápa (Veszprém county, inhabitants in 1910) had two gymnasiums, one Catholic and another Calvinist. Cf. István Mészáros, Középszintű iskoláink kronológiája és topográfiája 996-1948 /Chronology and topography of secondary schools in Hungary, 996-1948/, Budapest, Akadémiai, 1988,
[30] Same source as in note 23 above.
[31] Computed as in note 17 above.
[32] See Educational Inequalities…, op. cit., vol. 1, 8-10.
[33] Computed from data in Denominational Inequalities, op. cit. vol. 2, 208-213.
[34] Computed from data in Denominational Inequalities, op. cit. vol. 2, 214-219.
[35] For details of the historical circumstances of this fairly long term stagnation or even regression of Christian educational investment in a period of the state organised expansion of the schooling provision see my study in Hungarian : „ A középiskolai elitképzés első történelmi funkcióváltása (1867-1910)”, / The first functional transformation of elite training in Hungarian secondary schools, 1867-1910/, in Iskolarendszer és felekezeti egyenlőtlenségek Magyarországon (1867-1945), /School system and denominational inequalities in Hungary, 1867-1945/, Budapest, Replika-könyvek, 1997, 169-194..
[36] Computed from data in Denominational Inequalities, op. cit. vol. 2, 208-213.
[37] Computed from data in our Educational Inequalities, op. cit., vol 2, 214-219 and 226-231.
[38] See for example my introduction in Victor Karady, Peter Tibor Nagy, Educational Inequalities and Denominations, Database for Eastern Slovakia, 1910, John Wesley Theological College, 2006, forthcoming.
[39] Computed from Magyar statisztikai közlemények /Hungarian statistical reports/ 56, 750-757 (for the teachers) and our Educational Inequalities…, op. cit., vol. 2, 208-231 (for those with 8 secondary classes).