Centuries of hungarian higher education [antikvár]

Introduction "The Europe of Knowledge today is a widely acknowledged and indispensable element of social and human development, consolidation of European existence and enrichment" — this was stated in the Bologna Declaration ofthe Ministers ofEducation of Europe. The road to knowledge thus leads through the teaching-studying communities, schools and universities. On the millennial anniversary of the Hungárián State we have collected into a volume and published for the Reader the historical mementoes of Hungárián higher education with the aim to build the foundation of our future. The history of universities displaying joint European values presents informa-tion to our Partners, interested foreign Readers the correct way our predeces-sors chose and for us, Hungarians helps to answer with certainty the chal-lenges posed by the new millennia. The millennial establishment ofthe Hungárián education system we com-memorated in 1996. It opened the road to European civilisation, and it served from the beginning the development ofnational as well as universal culture. The eight hundred year old history of Hungárián higher education is connected tightly to the history ofthe nation and the country, its landmarks are marking important social changes. The performance of our higher education at interna-tional comparison level is alsó successful, good quality and rightfully called European. In Hungary too, as in other parts of Central Europe, the beginnings are characterised by peregrination, which remained the dominant method of higher education studies from the 1 lth-12th century till the start of modern times. The foundation of the Middle Ages Hungárián universities — Pécs (1367), Buda (1395), Pozsony (1467) — did not lag behind the opening ofthe surrounding regionul universities: Prague, Krakow, Vienna. The "idealism of universitas" prevailed at our first universities, just as it did at other European universities maintaining the universal nature of sciences, and the community ofteachers and pupils. The basic units of our dual higher education system of today were set up during the 16th-l 7th centuries. The first high school centres ofthe Jesuits were called academies, the Presbyterians founded colleges and the Lutherans lyceums. The first university still operating today was set up during that period, in Nagyszombat in 1635. During the 18th century the colleges and academies were the recipients ofthe new higher level mining, engineering, agricultural and commercial speciálist training. With this the institutional network ofthe speciálist education and universities of later centuries was shaping up. The traditions ofthe Collegium Hungaricums operating abroad can be traced back to the years of peregrination. They were fulfilling social and educational tasks in the history of Hungárián higher education, and they alsó had a special cultural mission oftheir own. By the 19th-20th centuries the system of speciálist higher education was completed in Hungary. The historical turning points repeatedly redrew the map ofthe country and the institutional network of education. Sometimes the prevailing ideologies distorted the originál vocation of universities, while during other periods short term social orpolitical interests förmed or deformed educational matters. But higher education remained steadfast even during those exceptionally hard times to be able to preserve its universal values.