Parents' Rights and Obligations Regarding School Attendance at the Beginning of the 20th Century

Abstract

The parents’ rights and obligations can be interpreted in two approaches according to the participation of children in public education. On the one hand, it is necessary to examine, that parents have the right to choose the appropriate educational institution for their child, on the other hand they have the obligation to ensure the compulsary schooling or education for their child. In the following I show these two eras regarding the beginning of the 20th century. My research is based on the Act XXXVIII of 1868 on public education, Act XXX of 1921 on ensuring the fullfilment of the schooling obligation, and the documents of the National Archives of Hungary Baranya County Archives. The choice of school could have been influenced by several factors, such as religious affiliation, residence, financial situation. The parents’ right to choose a school was wide, so they could find the appropriate intstitutional or private school for their children. There wre problematic situations in those cases, when the parents did not want to use the existing confessional school, but the municipalty did not have the opportunity to establish public school and the parents also did not have the opportunity to educate their child at home. Formerly there were only confessional schools in Hungary, but in the middle of the 19th century it became evident that the churches can not maintain schools alone, so the role of the state is necessary. Based on the Act XXXVIII of 1868 on public education „Public education institutes can be established and maintained by confessions, associations and individuals, communities and the state.” After choosing a school parents were obligated to ensure the school attendance of their child.  The Act XXXVIII of 1868 on public education declared the general obligation of education or compulsary schooling. Children had to attend in everyday elementary school for 6 years and then in repeating school for 3 more years. The broad determination of the maintainers of the school supported the idea to extend the obligation of education. This meant that there was a need for more schools, regardless of the maintainers (confession, municipalty, state, etc.) in order to ensure education for most of the children. The public and ecclesiastical authorities were obliged to take action in order to ensure compulsory schooling, and there were gradually sanctions against parents. However, it did not always go smoothly, and it was not necessarily the fault of the parents or the children, but for example epidemics, world war. There were some misunderstanding regarding the attendance on religious education.