Anniversary of the establishment of the Committee on National Education.
Today in our calendar we will look at the attempts to improvement Polish education, which has been undertaken since the 1940s. 18th century.
Changes in the current educational strategy were initiated by priest Stanisław Konarski. This man, being initially a servant of the Tarłów house, after graduating from national schools, left for Rome, where he studied at a prestigious papal college Nazarenum Collegium. The next phase in his life was a journey to Paris, where he became acquainted with the works of Wolter and Montescius and doctrine John Locke. As he later claimed, Locke’s atheistic views had the top influence on his pedagogical concepts.
Upon his return to Poland, he began to carry out revived activities in the field of education. In 1740 he won the title of a drunkard state and began to reorganize education in a subordinate area. A year later, he founded an elite university in Warsaw Collegium Nobilium, in which according to his concept, future political and social activists were to be educated, who would improvement the country according to the ideals of enlightenment, that is, in the spirit of detaching education from the Church.
The school specialized in abroad languages, history, geography and political sciences. Konarski demanded not only the teachers' thorough education or individual culture, but besides educational skills based on Locke's philosophy. He included his instructions on the requirements for teachers in the mandatory staff Collegium Nobillium, a manual entitled "Coordination of Apostolic Visitation 1753 – 1756".
Konarski, in his works, powerfully advocated the state educational monopoly and the creation of a separate office that regulates the teaching of children and young people. His most celebrated work was the work “On Effective Advice on the Way”, in which he advocated, among another things, liquidation veto liberal and a thorough improvement of the organisation of Parliament. Many of his views aptly exposed the folly of the then democratic system.
Last years of his life, he spent Konarski in disputes with Apostolic Nuncio Angelo Durini, who accused him of negating the teachings of the Church, disseminating the doctrine of education of elites in secular spirit, and lowering the meaning of religion in relation to reason.
Another thread of the dispute was the attitude of both clergymen to the Bar confederation – while Konarski powerfully supported the Russians and the King, Nuntius Durini advocated the Confederates. In 1770 he even blessed Kazimierz Pulaski's troops in Częstochowa. In 1772, Stanisław August, through the Marquis Tomasso Antici, led to Durini's dismissal from Poland by the Pope.
Konarski's concept of mass education as part of the state monopoly came actual in Poland shortly after his death. This was connected with the destiny of the Jesuit order.
In the 1950s and 1960s, there were increasingly violent disputes between enlightened philosophers and members of the Jesuit Order throughout Europe. The Jesuits, leading a crucial number of high-quality primary, secondary and higher education schools, were evidently in the way of Locke’s concepts and their function models.
During this time, anticlericals gained considerable power in many countries, and frequently at the same time members of free-mulcerous lazines, for example. Pedro de Aranda in Spain, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo known as Marquis de Pombal in Portugal or Étienne-François de Choiseul in France. For various reasons, they drove the Jesuits out of their lands.
The issue of Jesuit simplification in Paraguay was peculiarly loud. In addition to converting local Indians, missions whose structure was modeled on medieval abbeys achieved considerable profits, thanks to well organized tea cultivation and production of highly advanced quality utility items. Paraguayan reductions have become a strong competition on local and global markets, which has greatly hurt local growers and their European rulers. They besides hurt masonry, for which they were salt in the eye, especially with respect to the reduced concept of social life, modeled on early Christians.
The reductions were taken by force or forced to self-destruct, and the symbolic opposition of the members of Jesus Society and their subjects was utilized as an excuse to close the office of the Order besides in Europe. In 1773, nominally Catholic states forced the pope to cast the Order of Jesuits.
Due to the fact that the Order ran a crucial number of schools in the territory of Poland, the hazard of collapse of the educational services marketplace was hung over the country. At that time, the dismemberment parliament addressed the question of the transformation of the property of the Jesuits. The Crown and Lithuanian Commission was created to manage the property of the deleted order.
The people at their head, specified as Adam Poniński and Franciszek Branicki, embezzled immense sums of money, frequently losing them later in the cards. The mirrors sent to the field besides committed many thefts and manipulations, and the nobles and magnates, massively prioritized the Jesuit lands to their properties. The seized silver and gold were donated to the mint, including monstrans and another liturgical objects, and buildings and land were initially put up for auction. Stanisław August Poniatowski saw in the liquidation of the order, an easy chance to enrich himself.
To this end, he organised the takeover of the board of the Jesuit property by the substituted persons. The courtiers and supporters of the king besides received much of the possession.
During this time Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, a French economist, a physiocratist theorist, was in Warsaw, a proponent of enlightenment concepts. As the king's individual secretary, he formulated the thought of nationalizing the buildings of Jesuit schools and creating a network of public schools, subordinate to the central office in the capital. The French received the support of the court and national thinkers specified as Hugo Kołłątaj – a bishop who, like Stanisław Konarski, was fascinated by the enlightenment thought.
Under the Parliamentary Resolution of 14 October 1773, the National Education Commission was established. A group of experts led by Kolłataj and du Ponta, developed a three-step teaching model. At the lowest level the name was educated by peasant and urban children. On the higher – noble and the most talented students of the first level. The 3rd degree consisted of Kraków and Vilnius universities.
The natural step following the creation of the Committee on National Education was to establish uniform curricula and school textbooks. This was addressed by the alleged Society of simple Books founded by Kolłataj in 1775. The president of the Society was until 1791, Ignacy Potocki – the master of the "Great East of the National Poland", followed by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, besides a high-ranking mason.
Large scale education reforms led to a number of abuses in the early years. The value of post-Jesus property, according to the census, amounted to a staggering sum of PLN 32,000,000. According to newer calculations, even half of this property has been robbed, both by the mirrors of the publishing commissions and officials of the National Education Commission.
One interesting thing is that in the long run the improvement of education has had different effects – many nobles have hidden their children and organized for them, without enlightened indoctrination, home education. These were the first secret sets in Polish history. Equally interesting, in the territory of the 1st Russian partition, the Tsarica did not liquidate the Order of the Jesuits, mainly due to the advanced level of teaching in their schools.
Previous entry from our calendar is available Here.
