The School

Tradition on record has it and references scattered in various other sources attest that the existence of a Protestant school in the town of Hódmezővásárhely can be traced back to the end of the seventeenth century, despite the fact that the official date of the foundation of the secondary school is 1723. The Laws of the School were drafted that year, and educational activity has continued unbroken ever since. In the same year a new school building was erected and a grammar school was instituted for students of 10 to 14 as well as a faculty for students of 14 to 18 - young theologians - coming from Debrecen. The students accepted the Laws of the School by signing them. The school was directed by a headmaster, who taught the senior students, the most eminent of whom taught their juniors. In the nineteenth century one of the most important events was that the school was given a new building in 1822. Later on an extension was added to the old building, and the present-day (new) building of the grammar school was put up in 1896. Beginning with the school year of 1822-23 the lists of names and number of students, and the curriculum are extant and available. The most important achievement of the Reform Age was the right - won in 1845 - to issue officially recognized certificates, and this contributed considerably to the prestige of the school. From 1826 the school had a regular staff of two teachers (the first one was Benjámin Szikszay), which leads us to the conclusion that the grammar school was becoming more and more independent of Debrecen. During the Revolution and War of Independence of 1848-49 the school served as a military hospital. During the years of repression after the defeat - as the Hungarian Ministry of Education had ceased to exist - Hungarian schools were subjected to Austrian authority. A new Law of Education (Entwurf der Organisation) was drafted. Pursuant to this law, the grammar school in Hódmezővásárhely was degraded to a lower status, that of a four-grade junior school and had to apply for a new authorization to be able to issue officially recognized certificates. The authorization was not given before 1854. The Austrian Ministry of Education introduced a system of final examinations for school-leavers who were given a general certificate of secondary education (the first examination took place in 1864). After 1873 even the official name of the school, "főgimnázium" (higher secondary school) reflected its higher status, that of an eight-grade secondary school, with senior classes. The school owed its ability to meet the requirements of this higher status not to chance but, among others, to the activity of two prominent teachers, Imre Garzó and Gusztáv Kis, who had founded the Physical and Natural History Museums. Of the headmasters, Mihály Futó's activity (1887-1904) should be mentioned in particular - under his direction another new building was constructed, an extensive collection of books was acquired, he was the author of a history of the school, established an archaeological and historical collection, and a sports club and a choir were also formed during his headmastership. The first female student was admitted to the school in 1909. The girls were private students, they were allowed to attend classes, but during breaks they had to stay in a separate room, under the charge of women. As a result of the nation-wide secondary school reform of the post-war years, the school specialized in teaching the humanities first, but later developed into a secondary school offering a comprehensive curriculum. The school was given the name of Gábor Bethlen in 1930. A Dormitory for Poor Students (the present-day Cseresnyés Students' Hall) was founded to provide secondary education for poor but talented young people coming from a modest social background, small farmsteads scattered on the Hungarian plain, outside and sometimes far from villages. From 1945 to 1948 László Németh, one of the most prominent figures of twentieth-century Hungarian literature (a novelist, essayist, and translator) was a member of the teaching staff and proved to be a brilliant teacher. In 1948 the school was taken over by the State. Besides regular classes correspondence and evening courses were introduced, to help the catching up process. In the sixties a Students' Literary Theatre Group was formed. The origins of the school choir can be traced back to the late forties. The UNESCO-circle was founded much later. A linguistic laboratory and two computer rooms fitted up with high quality new equipment have contributed to the modernization of teaching. In 1990 the school joined the Programme for the Advancement of Information Science and Infrastructure. As part of this programme, computer terminals were installed in the school, and almost the entire world can be contacted now through computer networks. The school developed close contacts with foreign schools: in the Netherlands (Herbert Vissers College), in Romania (the Gábor Bethlen Secondary School in Transylvania), and in the Carpathian Ukraine (Aknaszlatina). The best students have been awarded the Bethlen, the Laszlo Nemeth and the Muzsi-Imolya Prizes.

In 1994 the school was restored to the Calvinist Church by the State, and since then, it has been a denominational school, administered by the Calvinists.

The Library

The Library of the parent school in Debrecen possessed one of the most extensive and valuable collections in Hungary at the time of the foundation of the affiliated secondary school in Hódmezővásárhely. Therefore, it was quite natural that the development of the library collection should be a high-priority consideration for the promising new school. In the opinion of experts, in the course of time the library has become a rich repository of treasures and the pride of the school. The school library had been supported and patronized by a great number of people for centuries, and managed to build up a highly valuable and extensive collection of books.

The first recorded mention made of the library, and shedding light on its history originates from 1727. Samuel P. Erdélyi, the rector (headmaster) of that time gave the school four books (on logic and philosophy), so he is considered to be the first donator. A number of book lists are known from the period between 1758-1799. Before embarking on a historical survey of the library holdings, it should be made quite clear that, by eighteenth-century standards, the collection of the library can be considered to have been fully up to date, in thematical composition as well as in topical interest.

The first catalogue was compiled by Daniel Thury in 1758. The collection - consisting of only a limited number of volumes - was confined to manuals and educational material. The members of the teaching staff may have possessed some books of their own.

On examining the subjects represented in the collection, some characteristic trends become discernible: to begin with, the library has a great number of Latin classics. In a country where the official language had been Latin up to 1844, it must have been quite natural to use ancient authors' works for teaching the first language, as well as grammar, poetry and rhetoric. This is why works by Cicero, Virgil, Julius Caesar, Plinius, Cornelius Nepos, Curtius Rufus, Phaedrus and other ancient classics could be considered as repositories of knowledge, still relevant enough to offer useful information for "modern" eighteenth-century students. It is important to stress that while average Hungarian private book collectors would usually buy rather old editions of the classics, the librarians of the school purchased the latest modern editions. This means that the users of the library had access to the latest philological achievements of e.g. professors from Dutch universities. The same can be said of the editions of the Bible and the books of Biblical hermeneutics collected by the school library. On the other hand, there are a remarkably great number of works on (lay!) philosophy, science and geography. This can be explained by the influence of the Enlightenment on both the teachers and the students of the school. It should be mentioned, however, that the philosophy of the French Enlightenment was not accessible to them in its original form, only through the mediation of German, Dutch and Flemish scholars (Wolff, Puffendorf, Nieuport) and interpreted by them, because the Austrian authorities did not admit the original works into Hungary.

There were only a few theological books in the eighteenth-century holdings of the library, but former collectors had obtained a number of books on the sciences (physico-theological trend) that were to influence the theology of the age (H. Sander:Goodness and Wisdom of God in Nature, J.G. Sultzer: Conversation on The Beauty of Nature). Theological rationalism was represented in the collection by theoretical works, too.

Imaginative literature was almost entirely absent from the collection, volumes of poetry by Bálint Balassi and János Rimay can be considered as not the rule but the exception. Few works published in Hungarian could be found in it - which was also a characteristic of most contemporary school libraries of the age as well as of most private collections. Even Hungarian authors, e.g. the professors of the Debrecen College (theological academy), published their works in Latin.

A finding list of 1799 recorded more than 300 volumes, the subjects represented in the collection showed the same pattern as before.

A large number of donators contributed to the development of the library: Benjámin Szikszay, the first professor of the school; Benjamin Szőnyi, a local clergyman; the Reading Company headed by Sámuel Szél (649 volumes); the heirs of a county attorney general, Ferenc Nagy (375), Károly Szikszay, a teacher (206); Dániel Gaál, a clergyman (300); Imre Szomor, a lawyer; József Bene (350); the heirs of Samuel Vajda, a clergyman (269); Lajos Dobossy (335). These donations not only led to a considerable increase in the number of volumes held by the library, but also made possible that several private book collections could become part of the holdings of a public library collection, despite the rather limited financial resources of the school. In this way the reading tastes and preferences of private individuals, people of some erudition or specialized in a particular branch of knowledge, could influence the taste and be instrumental in the education of the school's teachers and students. The donations were extending the scope of the collection more and more, it became more heterogeneous and, consequently, it helped to extend the readers' intellectual horizon. By 1853 the number of volumes amounted to 1326.

In 1866 another library was founded for poor students, and in 1878 a student organization called Petőfi Sándor Önképző Kör (Sándor Petőfi Literary and Debating Society) started to build up its own collection, which at present forms part of the so-called teachers' library.

Two important events must be mentioned from the twentieth-century history of the school library. In 1938, Elek Baranyi's library of 2329 volumes was given to the grammar school by his sister, Irén Baranyi. He was a well-read medical doctor and the list of his books shows the wide range of his interests. Among these books numerous local historical works can be found, with special regard to the history of Hódmezővásárhely, books and periodicals published there, works by persons who were either born in the town or lived there, and publications about the town of Hódmezővásárhely or in some way connected to it. Thus the library offers important material for local researchers, for scholars in particular. Another important aspect of the Baranyi bequest is the great number of publications about or in connection with Hungary, called Hungarica, to be found in it. Doctor Baranyi was much interested in collecting this kind of material. Each period of Hungarian history is amply covered in his collection. Every kind of imaginative literature is represented there: the masterpieces of Hungarian and world literature, comprehensive surveys of the history of literature, accounts of famous geographical discoveries, travel books, descriptions of various countries and continents (North-America, New-Zealand, Russia, Moldavia, Albania, Macedonia, Africa), biographies of famous composers, etc. are all available. Being a connoisseur of music, Doctor Baranyi collected even scores. He had an extensive collection of calendars, exhibition catalogues and works about arms. He had a liking for reading material about national minorities, for the history of the Jewish people and that of the Gypsies in particular. Being a medical doctor, he was interested in pathology, anatomy, problems of impotence, pharmacy, ophthalmology, the organization of public health and hygienic problems. The scientific works in his collection treat subjects of natural history in particular, such as botany, mineralogy and thermal waters. He was much concerned about prostitution as a social and medical problem. As his library includes books written in thirteen languages, it is not surprising that a great number of dictionaries can be found there, too.

László Németh, the prominent Hungarian author, who had close ties with the school and the town, was the other benefactor of the library. The Kossuth-prize winning writer donated to the school the full amount of the prize awarded to him in 1957, for the purchase of books, in order to develop the library. (At that time the Kossuth prize was the highest State award, and the sum involved was considerable.)

At present our school has two libraries holding about 70.000 volumes in all. The teachers' library contains 45.000 volumes, and another collection of recently published material - 25.000 volumes - serves the teachers and student's day-to-day educational work as a teaching aid.

The two libraries are housed separately: the teachers' library can be found on the ground floor. This collection contains the sixteenth-century books and other old and rare books, the priceless treasures of the library. The periodicals, the local historical material (publications about the history of Hódmezővásárhely, in particular), the yearbooks of the school, books on computer technology, a collection of nineteenth-century posters, theatre bills, records and documents from the fifteenth to the twentieth century, among others the records and documents of the school from the beginning to the present, leaflets and newspapers from 1848-49 are held there. Some duplicate copies of books weeded out from the upper library, because of shortage of shelfspace, are also stored there.

The other library is on the second floor. It is an open-access reading room used by the pupils of the school. It contains recently published books (cca. 25.000 volumes), mainly required reading and textbooks,  serving the purposes of teaching and education.

The form of the entries

The aim of our catalogue is to give a full description of the sixteenth-century titles to be found in the holdings of the Library of the Gábor Bethlen Calvinist Grammar School. The bibliographic descriptions adopted the form and requirements used by the Central Library of the Attila József University and the National Széchényi Library for cataloguing their sixteenth-century holdings.

The alphabetical listing of the titles includes only the authors' names, and does not contain the names of the other contributors. These can be found in the index of names, in Latinized form, except for those writing in vernacular languages. Their names are recorded in the original - vernacular - form, e.g. Lazaro Soranzo.

The catalogue entries are literal transcriptions of the original title-pages, thus words or phrases in italics on the title-page are printed in italics, line endings are indicated by vertical strokes, the contractions and abbreviations have been expanded.

If an entry describes a work bound in a miscellaneous volume, a note referring to this fact has always been appended to the description. The number of the entry containing the full description of the miscellaneous volume is also referred to. A work has been considered as a separate publication, if it has a title-page of its own bearing the author's name, the title and the imprint: the place and date of publication. The particulars of printing (the seat of the printing press and the printer's name) as well as the collation can be seen in the next line of the entry. The description of the title-page is followed by a list of the book's possessors in chronological order, by the indication of the type and present state of the binding and stampings-in and, if necessary, even occasional notes and comments have been added. The standard bibliographies consulted by the compilers to identify the titles are cited at the end of each entry. When looking up a title in a bibliography, the seat of the printing press and the author(s) and printer(s)' names were our main points of access. Therefore for works printed in Germany VD/16 was used as a source of information. For works by Erasmus, Bezzel or for books about the Ottoman Turks, which had been very popular in the sixteenth century, Göllner was our authority.

As many indexes as possible have been prepared, in order to facilitate for the users interested in the holdings of this special collection to find what they need. The numbers in the index refer to the bibliographical entries.

We wish to express our thanks to István Monok, Katalin Keveházi, Katalin Velencei and Sándor Czeglédi for their kind help and valuable advice.

Edina Zvara
Ferenc Simon