Hungarian Works and Research on the History of Women’s Education Until the Middle of the 20 th Century

In Hungary, as early as in the 19 th century several works were published that had a retrospective view and surveyed the earlier attempts in the field of female education, at the same time, although, a number of works have been published on the subject. In this article the author presents an overview of thematic works written mostly in the 19 th until the middle of 20 th centuries in Hungary. It shows that the exploration of the history of women’s education is an eminent area among the numerous topics of educational and women’s history often researched in previous centuries. Long and short monographs, collection of papers, readers, articles and essays were analyzed about the Hungarian history of girls’ and women’s education, along with some summaries dealing with overall female emancipation from various perspectives.


History of education and female education
Exploring the history of female education is one of the most rewarding fields of the rich thematic variety offered by female history and educational history. On the one hand, the historiography of the topic shows that the education of women often appeared as a branch of "general" education. On the other hand, we may observe the increase in the research on female schools and theories about educating women. It should be noted, however, that researchers mainly refer to the education of middle-class girls, as in most cases only they had the opportunity to participate in education at intermediate and advanced levels. According to Hunt, the issue of female education in the history of education is almost always a topic that is dealt with subordinatedly or separatedly. 1 Nevertheless, investigation from the gender viewpoint opened new horizons and established new approaches in the research of female education. Using this as an interpretational framework, it has become salient that in the past one and a half centuries plenty of conflicts arose during the schooling of girls due to the conflicting values and interests between their preparation for the labour market, scientific education and training for doing their household chores. 2 The research activities of the past period have also revealed how close the connections between female gender history and social history are and that the details and conclusions of female education cannot be understood and analysed without mapping the broad background of social history and female history. Research projects have made it apparent that we cannot talk about "female education" or "female cultural customs" in broad and general terms in connection with any society. This is due to the fact that there were significant social, religious and ethnic differences concerning the educational aims, contents and opportunities, not to mention the different educational experience of the research "protagonists", the girls themselves, in their various family and school settings.
In the past more than 150 years the researchers of female education have found and analysed plenty of data. Monographies of varying lengths, study volumes, collections of citations, articles and essays were written about the research results of female education and women's cultural activities. In addition, there are comprehensive works on female emancipation that include certain parts dealing with this topic. Surveying this huge amount of professional literature is presently unimaginable without printed and electronic databases that collect and classify bibliographical data. In this study we will carry out a scrutiny of the evolvement of the Hungarian history of female education together with its professional literature and research results until the middle of the 20 th century, setting the tasks for the researchers of the future as well.

Hungarian researches on the history of female education in 19 th century
In Hungary, as early as in the 19 th century several works were published that had a retrospective view and surveyed the earlier attempts in the field of female education. In most cases these appeared in the emerging pedagogical press, particularly in the issues of Nemzeti Nőnevelés (National Female Education) and Magyar Paedagogia (Hungarian Pedagogy). Approaching the turn of the centuries and some years beyond that, retrospection to the era marking the advent of Hungarian female education and emancipation was a frequent topic covered by the writings of Sándor Péterfy (1887), 3 Sándor Várnay (1909), 4 Ödön Szelényi (1916, 5 among other authors. Péterfy dedicated a separate chapter to the presentation of girl schools and female education before 1868 in the first part of his monography in two volumes with the title A magyar elemi népoktatás (The Hungarian Elementary Education) (1896). 6 Vilmos Szuppán wrote a book in the same year (1896) with the title A magyar felsőbb leányiskolák múltja és jelene (The Past and Present of the Hungarian Higher Female Schools). 7 Even in this early period of research on the history of female education it was an aim of major importance to present the life of illustrious women and also the men who had contributed to the development of Hungarian female education from the 19 th century. The oeuvres of Teréz Brunszvik, Blanka Teleki, Teréz Karacs, András Fáy, Antonina De Gerando, Pálné Veres, Hermin Beniczky, Janka Zirzen and their theoretical and practical activities about female education were treated by authors who knew them personally. We may also come across some presentations about the history of female education in the contemporary press that could be related to certain events, anniversaries.
Of course, not only research results at the Hungarian level, but also the international history of female education became known in Hungary. The Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1864 published the text of Márton Nagy, a piarist monk, teacher with the title A keleti nevelészet (Eastern Education) that dealt with the ancient Chinese, Indian, Persian and Egyptian education. 8 In this publication the author gave a brief summary of the Chinese female education. This study of Márton Nagy had been the first Hungarian work providing a longitudinal overview on universal female education.
We may mention Béla Gyulay's work from 1883, Nőnevelés az ókorban (The Education of Women in the Ancient Times) as one of the examples of the first studies in Hungarian language specifically dealing with the history of female education. 9 Gyulay was actively involved in work concerning the education of women around 1870 and relied on foreign professional sources.
The history of female education in the textbooks written for teacher trainers at the turn of the century At the end of the 19 th century the training of pedagogues at secondary and higher levels created the demand for books based on the latest Hungarian and foreign scientific results that provided modern knowledge and summarized the achievements of contemporary pedagogical science. These works (similarly to Austrian and German works that appeared around the turn of the century) usually included a short presentation of the history of female education with reference to the relevant historical sources and the iconic personalities of educational history.
The teacher, director of teacher's training school in Budapest, very famous Hungarian pedagogical thinker, Áron Kiss published a treatise on female education in his reader compiled at the end of the 19th century, in 1891. 10 At the beginning of this study he gave a brief overview on the female ideals and female educational customs of past ages. He declared at the beginning of his work that the views on female education always depended on the social status of women in a given society. Among others, he quoted from the book of Fénelon translated into Hungarian by Barkóczy in 1842. 11 In addition, he also mentioned the ideas of Pestalozzi and Spencer on female education.
The various details of female educational history were present in the reference books used as textbooks in higher education and in the lectures at the universities. The first outstanding teachers, researchers and professional authors of Hungarian educational history, Ágost Garamszeghi Lubrich, Ernő Fináczy or Lajos Prohászka paid considerable attention to this field. Their writings reflect that these scientists of ours possessed an excellent knowledge of numerous primary and secondary sources about the history of female education, both from Hungary and from abroad. In the following paragraphs of this study we will only present the books of Ernő Fináczy. His summary about the universal history of education was a novelty from the viewpoint of the topic at the beginning of the 20 th century owing to the fact that several extracts of sources about female education were published in Hungarian language for the first time, in the translation of the author himself.
In his book on the education in the Ancient Times Fináczy elaborated on the female education of the Homerian times, 12 the Spartan education of women 13  (About the Education and Instruction of Men and Women in Ancient Times). 14 In its annotation Fináczy considered it an obsolete book written with few criticism, but he praised its chapters on Greek and Roman female education. He also used James Donaldson's Woman, her Position and Influence in Ancient Greece and Rome and among the Early Christians 15 and commented on it as follows: "Whoever wishes to understand the female education of classic peoples, cannot miss out on the content of this work". 16 When treating the subject of Roman female education in the Ancient Times, he relied on István Bogár's A római nőnevelés (Roman Female Education), 17 the Leánynevelés a régi rómaiaknál (Education of Women in the Ancient Rome) written by Miklós Garzó 18 and the volume of Béla Gyulay that we have already mentioned. The works of these authors clearly show the interest in ancient female education of the contemporary Hungarian readers during this era. In the part presenting the old educational values and practices of the Jewish community, Fináczy devoted a separate sub-chapter to outline the Jewish female education illustrated with biblical citations. 19 The second volume of his monumental summary on educational history, the part dealing with the Middle Ages also contains several chapters with various lengths about the female education of different peoples and periods. He elaborated on the life and scientific oeuvre of Saint Hildegaard. He treated the subject of muslim education by counting on the research results of Hungarian orientalist, Ignác Goldziher. He gave a short account of the jewish female educational practices of the era. He also summarized the characteristics of Christian female education in the Middle Ages in a separate chapter that was referred upon several times by later authors. 20 In this review he published the translation of two source extracts that he had translated from Latin (The letter of Saint Jerome to Laeta) and French (an extract from the manual of the Countess Dhuoda). He principally made use of German and Hungarian publications such as the Néhány lap Szent Jeromos paedagogiájából (Some Pages from the Pedagogy of Saint Jerome) written by Gyürky Ödön in 1895, a Catholic writer, journalist and editor. 21 In his book with the title A renaissancekori nevelés története (History of Education in Times of the Renaissance) 22 Fináczy presented the ideas of Juan Luis Vives, a famous Spanish humanist on female education, based on his original texts written in Latin. Fináczy mentioned in a footnote that he used the 1540 edition of the De institutione feminae christianae published in Basel, this work did not have a Hungarian version until 1935. Fináczy dedicated a separate sub-chapter for the female schools of the Lutheran movement, together with presenting his translation of an extract from the regulations in a female school dating from 1543. 23 Fináczy treated the history of female education for the first time in part 24 of the third chapter, the summary dealing with rationalism in his book with the title Az újkori nevelés története (History of New Age Education). He cited ideas from the writings of Fleury, Fénelon and Moliére and provided a comparative analysis of these works with the title Nőnevelés Franciaországban. Fénelon (Education of women in France. Fénelon).
While presenting the pedagogy of naturalism, he analysed Emil written by Rousseau, with special emphasis on the ideas on female education, highlighting the fact that the education of Sophia is considerably different from the education of boys, and also from the formation of noble girls typical of the 18 th century (This evaluation of the Emil and his presentations of French schools in the era of the revolution clearly show that the author was well-read in the French professional literature and translated key notions and several extracts from French into Hungarian). In his work he pointed out Campe's Väterlicher Rath an meine Töchter (Father's Advice for My Daughters) 24 as one of the important manuals on female education produced by the German authors of Enlightenment (This work was published in the translation of Gusztáv Steinacker in Hungarian). He hinted at female education in several other parts of his book, for example in the texts presenting the life of Pestalozzi.

Books on female education between the two world wars
As far as the history of Hungarian female education is concerned, the first significant summarizing monographies of this field appeared in the first part of the 20 th century written by Gyula Kornis. The ouvre of Kornis still provides a solid foundation for our knowledge about the subject. Kornis published his work in two volumes with the title A magyar művelődés eszményei 1777-1848 (The Paragons of Hungarian Culture 1777-1848) in 1927. In the second volume we can find a lenghty, substantial chapter with the title A régi magyar leánynevelés. 25 This starts the presentation of the topic with the training of knights and education in monasteries during the Middle Ages with the brief description of the theories and writings of some foreign authors (Saint Augustin, Erasmus, Agrippa of Nettesheim, Vives, Ratke, Comenius, Madame de Maintenon, Fénelon, Rousseau, Condorcet and others) about female education. Although he made some affirmations about several writers from different countries (referring to the above mentioned works of Fináczy), the summary of Kornis was basically written about the Hungarian female education and the evolution of the female ideal from the Middle Ages until 1848, supported in detail by printed sources and manuscripts.
Kornis gave reference and analysis of many press debates and literary works that have been used as sources by several researchers for 90 years since the publication of this book, only with slight changes of the evaluating viewpoints. He described in detail the 23 Ibid., 215-218. 24  remarkable debate on the cultural opportunities of women in the Age of Reforms on the pages of the press product called Tudományos Gyűjtemény and hinted at plenty of articles published in the Felső Magyar Országi Minerva or Nemzeti Nőnevelés papers. He highlighted the ideas on female education of István Széchenyi (an aristocratic political reformer), András Fáy (an author of women's education books), Éva Takács (who wrote in newspaper articles about the right of women to learn), Teréz Karacs, Blanka Teleki and Klára Lővei (who organised girls'school in the middle of the 19 th century), Antonina De Gerando (who was famous writer and director of a girls'secondary school at the turn of the 19 th and 20 th centuries). He also recorded their activities of school foundation. In addition, he made an overview on the thoughts of famous Hungarian poets and writers about female education, like Csokonai, Kazinczy, Vörösmarty. His work is more than a simple description of opinions and life oeuvres since he dedicated a separate chapter to the presentation of institutions dealing with female education.
Between the two world wars there was an observable trend of the appearance of women among the researchers of female education and female emancipation both in Hungary and internationally. For instance, Marianne Czeke and Margit Révész prepared a new biography of Teréz Brunszvik in 1926. 26 Etel Schwarcz, 27 Ida Bobula, 28 Gabriella Evva 29 submitted their doctoral dissertations in this period. Gabriella Evva did not only publish works on the history of female education but also wrote publications about the female education of her era. This illustrates the typical approach to the research on female history in the era.
Several contemporary papers, particularly the Magyar Női Szemle (Hungarian Women's Review), which started in 1935 and existed for six years, published numerous articles written by female researchers of the area, among them plenty of microbiographies about famous women and presentations of the views of well-reputed thinkers about women and female education.
In the thirties of the 20 th century some source publications helping the more profound knowledge of foreign and Hungarian female education appeared together with their interpretations. János Péter published a selection of the pedagogical works of Juan Luis Vives, including the volume describing the Christian female idol of the Middle Ages, A keresztény nő neveléséről (On the Education of a Christian Woman). 30 He also prepared an analysis of the educational ideas of Erasmus, featuring several source extracts translated from Latin and a separate chapter on the education of women. 31  Around this time sources of female education were made available in higher numbers, for example in 1935 the Karacs Ferencné Takács Éva válogatott munkái (Selected Works of Karacs Ferencné Takács Éva). 33 The diary of Antónia Kölcsey written between 1838 and 1844 contained paragraphs of interest from the viewpoint of educational history and was made available for the public in 1938. 34 In 1938 the first part of the diary of Teréz Brunszvik was published with the assistance and introduction of Marianne Czeke. 35 This was preceeded by the publication of Brunszvik's memoir Félszázad életemből (Half a Century of My Life) in 1926. 36 Analysing works about female diaries were also accessible in the period between the two world wars. Györgyi Sáfrán, who was a significant researcher of women's education in Hungary, commenced publishing her works in the 1940s with the focus on the progressive female pursuits of the 19 th century. 37 Later, in the 1960s she made public the book with the title Teleki Blanka és köre: Karacs Teréz, Teleki Blanka, Lővei Klára (Blanka Teleki and Her Circle: Teréz Karacs, Blanka Teleki, Klára Lővei). 38 The second edition of this volume was brought to market in 1979. 39 In 1942 József Váradi published the scripts of his earlier lecture on the ideas of István Széchenyiwho was the greatest politician of the Hungarian Age of Reforms, in the first half of the 19 th centuryabout female education in review pedagogical Magyar Pedagógia and as a separate printsheet. 40 His work, very popular in its times, contained several affirmations about his era, not only about female education, but also in connection with patriotism.

Conclusion
At the end of this study we would like to emphasize that the research on female education did not begin in the sixties and seventies of the 20 th century, after the evolvement and institutionalization of women's studies. It did not start with the prevalence of the socio-historical historiography in the middle of the 20 th century either. Our revelation of sources and historiographical scrutinies prove that in Europe even in the Middle Ages and in the era of the Renaissance some works with scientific elaboration and sophistication were written.
In the Hungarian educational historiography, we may accentuate the important tradition of the research on female education and female cultural activities from the second half of the 19 th century. There were efforts to find, collect and (re)publish the sources. Our inquiries have revealed valuable descriptions that were written about the developers of 19 th century female education by those contemporaries (often relatives, colleagues, disciples) who reported on the activities of Teréz Brunszvik, András Fáy, Teréz Karacs, Blanka Teleki, Pálné Veres, and others in their memoirs and analysing monographies with original citations from these remarkable personalities. Besides presenting the individual life careers, the history of non-institutionalized and schoolbased female education, the storage and publication of sources, the translation and analysis of the most important foreign sources were also present in the researches of educational history at the turn of the 19 th and 20 th centuries. Surveying the works of Hungarian educational historians on the history of female education highlights that the Hungarian authors considered it crucially important to have an outlook on the international agenda and they were well-informed about the professional literature of their field at the international level.
As we had the opportunity to scrutinize a remarkable amount of foreign secondary sources during our research on the history of 19 th century female education, we are obliged to emphasize that except for some cases the historical details and important sources of Hungarian female education are not known abroad and have not been included in the comprehensive works dealing with the history of female education. Due to this fact, the researchers of the near future will have the task to present those outstanding thinkers, pedagogues, school founders and intellectual leaders of the Hungarian nation who laboured on female education. Katalin Kéri (DSc) is full professor of Pedagogy at University J. Selye (Slovakia) and at University of Sopron (Hungary), and head of Doctoral School of Education at University of Pécs (PTE). The member of various scientific societies, for example, of the Scientific Committee for Pedagogy at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. She works in several editorial boards, and she has extensive international connections, especially in Spain and France. Her teaching and research work has been recognized with many awards in Hungary. Her main research topics: History of women's education (18th and 19th century); Representation of the History of Non-Western education in the European sources (19th century); Medieval history of Islamic education.