The reign of the Empress and Queen Maria Theresa (1740 –1780) is associated with many reformative steps. These also affected the educational and the schooling system, which began to be seen as a political issue. In December 1774, that is 250 years ago, the General School Ordinance for all German primary schools in all the imperial and royal hereditary lands (Allgemeine Schulordnung für die Deutschen Normal – Haupt – und Trivialschulen in sämtlichen Kaiser., Königl. Erbländern) was issued in German in the Austrian (thus also the Czech) part of the Habsburg monarchy. Three years later, in 1777, the Method of Education and Instruction, for Hungary and the incorporated provinces, better known in its abbreviated form as Ratio educationis, came into force in the Kingdom of Hungary.
Maria Theresa’s school reforms introduced, for the first time in the history of our territory, a unified schooling system, designed to consider the separate requirements of the Austrian and Hungarian parts of the empire. They were the first step towards the unification and nationalisation of education. The regulations stipulated that the educational system divide schools into primary, secondary and university levels. The primary educational system established schools where the number of teachers and the types of subjects were specified depending on the size of the area they served and the social position of the children. The mother tongue of the children was the stipulated language of instruction at primary schools. Thus, the preparation of new unified schoolbooks began in these languages. Six-year grammar schools and follow-up academies were also established. Universities were the highest level of the educational system. The word “schoolability” was first introduced in the context of the Theresian school reforms. However, it was a long time before the reforms were thoroughly fulfilled.
The stamp shows the Empress Maria Theresa late in her rein with her symbols of power – the Czech royal orb and the Hungarian crown and sceptre. She is leaning over with her hand resting against the state emblem in the form that was printed in the General School Ordinance. The FDC was inspired by a simple aid used to teach children to read, named after a depiction of a young cock chicken so called Kohútik. It was a home-made small wooden board with a sheet showing the alphabet, numbers and the Lord’s Prayer glued on both sides. It was a simple form of an alphabet book.
Miroslava Slezáková
