Published on 19 September 2016
The Academic Grammar School in Prague can boast of being the oldest functioning secondary school not just in the Czech Republic, but in the whole of Central Europe. Its history is connected with the arrival of Jesuit Order in Prague. The Society of Jesus was introduced to Bohemia on the invitation of Emperor Ferdinand I in 1556 by Peter Canisius (later canonized), who established the collegiate academy in the Clementinum in Prague. A Latin grammar school was established as part of the college. In 1653, Clementinum college merged with Charles University and the institution was given the name the Charles-Ferdinand University. It remained under Jesuit administration until the order’s abolishment in 1773. From then on, the university and the grammar school functioned as separate institutions.
The original designation of ‘academic grammar school’ signified the close connection with the university (the academy), and ensured matriculation for students of the two highest classes, thus granting them the rights of members of the academic community. In Austria in 1848, academic rights were revoked for these grammar school students. However, the school’s designation as "academic" remained in its title to distinguish it from other grammar schools in Prague. Other grammar schools with the same title remained in Vienna, Lviv and Pest. Of course, the grammar school's name has changed over time, but it ceased to be “academic” only in February 1948. Since 1990, the school has professed its tradition by adopting the title yet again. Its current name is: Akademické gymnázium, škola hlavního města Prahy (Academic Grammar School of the capital city of Prague).
The Jesuit Order did not meet with an enthusiastic welcome in the Czech lands at the time of Recatholisation, and several popular revolts against the order took place. Despite this, the Prague Latin school soon began to flourish. In 1565, it already had five classes - three lower lever grammar classes (principia, grammatica, syntaxis) and two higher level rhetoric classes (poetica, rhetorica).
The number of students was growing due to richly supported educational institutes at the college, where tuition was free. It was a boarding school for the nobility, an institution for poor students and a papal seminary. The school attracted new students due to its good reputation regarding the maintenance of discipline and grand festivals. The Jesuits were publicly active from 1559. The order organized various declamations, concerts and theatrical performances, both in Latin and in Czech. It quickly brought results – in 1583 the school boasted four hundred students, and fifteen years later as many as six hundred. Interestingly, right from the start the school’s students did not come only from Catholic families, but also from Utraquists. The Academic Grammar School became a model for the establishment of Jesuit colleges and grammar schools in other Bohemian towns.
After 1600 the grammar school was transformed, according to a curriculum for Jesuit schools (Ratio et institutio studiorum societatis Jesu, prepared from 1581 and published in 1599), to a six-year institution, including one preparatory class, ‘parva’ (also ‘rudimenta’). By this reform the grammar school was separated from philosophical studies and made subject to a special superior, a head master selected by the provincial superior.
Teaching concentrated on the religious life and on strengthening memory, and it focused on subjects like history and geography. However, the natural sciences were supressed to a great extent. The main teaching language was Latin. The first of the school’s teachers did not even speak Czech, as they mostly came from Flanders and Italy. The Czech language was used sporadically, but only for communication among students. More emphasis was put on Czech only from 1763, after Filip the Count of Kolovrat, the Supreme Burgrave of Prague, issued a decree supporting Czech as the language of education. Among the most notable teachers working at the Academic Grammar School during the Jesuit era were Bohuslav Balbín (1621-1688) and Josef Stepling (1716-1788).
After the abolishment of the Jesuit Order, a new curriculum for grammar schools was prepared, the preparatory year was removed and only five classes were left (rhetorica, poetica and three grammar classes). All subjects in one year were taught by a single professor. Latin remained the teaching language and Czech was pushed into the background in favour of German. Besides languages, religion, history and geography were taught. Space for science and the natural sciences was reserved only in ancillary lessons. Greek became a voluntary subject and was moved to humanitarian classes. Supreme supervision over the administration of grammar schools was given to a director (Slazan Karel Hynek Seibt), and the head master was obliged to submit to him regular reports on the activities in the institution. The teaching staff consisted of the head master Jan Jiránek, rhetoric teacher Josef Hebenstreit of Streitenfeld, and the teachers Francis the knight Schönfelda (poetica), Ignaz Cornova (rhetorica); and the teachers of grammar classes were: Jindřich Trottmann, Tadeáš Wolraba, Josef Langmayer and Jan Noblitze. Even after the order's abolishment, the staff consisted entirely of graduates of Jesuit schools, but soon they were replaced by laymen. In 1775, a very valuable source for the history of the grammar school was started – the school chronicle, which reports, for example, about the poor conditions of the teachers, or truancy.
From 1808, the grammar school again functioned a six-year institution (rhetorica being the highest class), with six teachers and a head master. In 1805 a new curriculum was issued, under which teachers taught according to subjects rather than year. However, this system lasted only until 1819, when the school returned to the system based on years. In 1804 the position of catechist was established to teach religion. From 1812 on, an adjunct teacher was allotted to the staff to gain experience and to substitute. A regulation of 1828 set the maximum number of students in a class at eighty. Therefore, parallel classes began to be opened, for which, however, tuition was charged.
In 1803 Karel Ignác Tham attempted to introduce voluntary lessons in the Czech language. Yet the classes, which took place three times a week, were soon cancelled. Another attempt to teach the native language came with Josef Jungmann, who taught at the institution from 1815. The Czech spirit at the Academic Grammar School in the pre-March period was ardently supported by the pedagogue František Svoboda. The patriotic efforts at the institution peaked in the revolution year 1848, when the students together with their teachers became members of the Academic Legion, which helped to maintain order and held the guards of honour (for example at the Slavic Congress), and participated in the meetings of the National Committee and the fights against General Windichgrätz. Students of the Academic Grammar School fought alongside students of philosophy at the barricades around Clementinum. The leading figure was the grammar school graduate from 1846, Josef Václav Frič; the most active from the professorship were Jan Pravoslav Koubek and Václav Kliment Klicpera.
However, it was not the year 1848, but 1849 that was an important milestone in the history of secondary schools. On 16 September the document Outline of the organization of grammar schools and secondary schools in Austria came into force, known as the Exner-Bonitz reform; which, of course, also influenced the Academic Grammar School. Among other measures, the university philosophy classes were merged with the humanitarian classes of the grammar schools, and so an eight-year grammar school ending in the school leaving exam was created.
As the result of the revolutionary upheavals, the option of teaching in the Czech language was opened in some schools. On 18 September 1848 at the Academic Grammar School the Czech language was declared a compulsory subject and Czech became the teaching language in the lessons of religion, history, geography and the natural sciences. Between 1850 and 1853, the grammar school was even pronounced Czech, which means that Czech was the teaching language for the majority of subjects.
A turning point came on 3 October 1853, when a regulation was issued providing for teaching in the Czech language only in certain lessons and only in the lower level of grammar schools. The decree came in response to patriotic activities in the higher classes of the grammar schools. Together with his classmates, Vítězslav Hálek, at the time a student at the grammar school, published a student magazine which became a thorn in the side of the Austrian authorities. In the first two years it was published under different names (Varito, Lyra). Publication in the third year was suspended and investigations started. The police director Sacher-Mason filed a report on a suspicious magazine published in plain sight of the professoriate, which “demonstrates the national fanaticism and most importantly the spirit of 1848. The grammar school’s headmaster, Václav Kliment Klicpera, defended his students, saying they were not publishing a magazine, merely practice essays. However, his situation in the investigations was aggravated by the fact that Serbian was taught at his institution. Besides restrictions for teaching the Czech language, the investigations resulted in major penalties for the teaching staff: the headmaster, Václav Kliment Klicpera, was pensioned; František Čupr was dismissed from employment; Václav Svoboda was sent to Bratislava; Josef Pečírka was transferred to Jindřichův Hradec; and so on.
We can learn about the school’s history from 1851 from the regular annual reports. From this source, we can follow the tolerance for the Czech language at the institution. The first reports were in Czech but changed to German in 1854, with occasional professional articles in Czech or Latin. From 1859, however, these reports were published in Czech. The institution’s chronicle is written in Latin from 1858, and later also in Czech. The influence of the Czech language increased in the early 1860s, when it was decided that at the lower level of the grammar school the official teaching language would be Czech again; the director, Josef Hoffmann, who could not speak the language, was replaced by Jan Nečásek. In 1867, the mixed grammar school was definitively proclaimed to be Czech.
The interest in studying at the Academic Grammar School did not decrease. On the contrary, in 1868 an unmanageable number of 870 students studied here. Luckily, new grammar schools soon opened in Prague and the students could be divided among several institutions. In 1872 the first girl, R. Vocelková, came to the Academic Grammar School, as possibly the first female student in the whole monarchy. 23 years later, the students of the Minerva grammar school for girls sat their school leaving exams here as external students.
The patriotic spirit remained at the institution, and yet it was not always tolerated. In 1873, for example, the headmaster Tomáš Bílek was forced to retire for “his unashamed patriotism and progressive views”. Yet students and professors visited pro-Czech cultural events, like the centenary of Josef Jungmann's birth, the funeral procession for the historian František Palacký and the gala evening at the National Theatre in honour of Václav Kliment Klicpera. In this period, a great figure inspiring the students' interest in Czech history was Zikmund Winter.
At the time of the First Republic of Czechoslovakia the number of students decreased, not so much due to the lower prestige of the school, but possibly because of the higher number of secondary schools in the capital. Students participated in national celebrations – for example, the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the National Theatre, the commemorations of František Palacký and the funerals of Alois Jirásek and Viktor Dyk. For many years the post of headmaster was held by František Lakomý (1926-1940). After him Jaroslav Vocílka came to direct the school during its uneasy years (with a short break at the end of the war until 1948).
During World War II the number of students decreased greatly, from 595 in the academic year 1939/1940 to 270 in 1944/1945. Some professors and students were arrested by the Gestapo and deported to concentration camps. The heroism of the students of this grammar school was also evident during the Prague Uprising, when they fought at the barricades. For this they earned public recognition and military honours.
The general decline of grammar school education after the school acts of 1948 and 1953 ceased in the 1960s. After the directorship of Josef Zachystal (1948-1952), Alžběta Okrouhlá (1952-1957) and Karel Rakovič (1957-1963), Rudolf Franěk came in 1963 and introduced specialized classes in Latin and Greek. There was also an experimental restoration of the eight-year grammar school system in 1968. Unfortunately, all the "achievements" of the relaxed political atmosphere of the 1960s were cancelled fast with the onset of Normalization.
The period of Normalization brought the nonsensical introduction of the polytechnic specialization of studies. Moreover, in 1983/1984 there was the “Free Europe” affair. Some of the students from a class taught by a staunch Communist founded a prankster group and sent a report on it to the editors of the banned radio station. The State Police (StB) investigations ended up with several students being expelled.
The ordinary running of the school was interrupted several times by the anniversary celebrations. The deferred celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the grammar school’s foundation took place only in 1966, and culminated in the conferring of the Order of Work (for exceptional educational work) to the institution at the congress of the students and professors of the original Academic Grammar School. In 1986 a group of teachers decided to put together an almanac, which was followed ten years later by another publication of the same character.
The Academic Grammar School, nowadays inextricably linked with the building in Štěpánská 22, has moved across Prague many times during its long history. First, it resided right in the Clementinum building. In 1793, due to an imperial decree, it was moved to the former Jesuit seminary of St. Wenceslaus, no. 240 Husova street in the Old Town. In 1805 it returned to the building in Clementinum, where it remained for 78 years; it found refuge after the establishment of the Czech university in the building at Smetanovo nábřeží 995, and from 1902 in the building at Na Rejdišti 1. After the creation of the Czechoslovak Republic, namely in 1920, the grammar school was located in the former Piarist grammar school (no. 856) in the New Town on the corner of the streets Na Příkopě and Panská. Only after World War II did the school move to its address at Štěpánská 22 (no. 614) in the New Town. This building was originally built in 1899 for the German state Realgymnasium in the Neo-Baroque style, as designed by Václav Nekvasil. The last time the school had to move so far was in 1978, due to the reconstruction of the interiors. The reconstruction lasted seven years, and in the meantime the school went to two addresses: the streets Na Okraji and Nad Alejí.
In addition to several other collections, the Academic Grammar School boasted an extensive library. It was founded in 1817 thanks to the head master F. Petritsche. The former book collections were transferred to the library of the Charles-Ferdinand University. Thanks to donations from the head master, the professors and the students, the library expanded quickly and in its first year contained 500 volumes. In 1841 it already had 2,540 volumes. In the academic year 1854/55, the library was divided into a part for professors and a part for students (each being run by a different professor). The number of volumes increased both through donations and acquisitions. In 1884 the first cataloguing took place. In the 1950s during the school reforms, the library fonds were scattered (as in the cases of other secondary schools) for ideological reasons, but also due to the lack of space. Even before, in 1945, the National Museum Library accepted 1,365 volumes from the library of the Academic Grammar School. Yet from this collection only a fraction survives in this institution: approximately 160 titles. At present, the library of the Academic Grammar School still contains the school's chronicle, the original publication of Dobrovský’s writings, the collected works of Jungmann, an authentic Krameriusovy c. k. vlastenské noviny paper from 1797 and other rare publications.
Naturally, through the course of its existence, many prominent personalities have gone through the venerable grammar school. Their portraits adorn the wall of the school’s staircase. Of the long list of names, let's mention, for example: Karel Čapek, František Drtina, Jaroslav Goll, Jaroslav Heyrovský, Bedřich Hrozný, Jan Hřebejk, Petr Jarchovský, Erazim Kohák, Josef Koutecký, Josef Svatopluk Machar, Jan Masaryk, Vít Nejedlý, Jan, František Ladislav Rieger, Bedřich Smetana, František Xaver Šalda, Josef Švejcar, Josef Kajetán Tyl and Miroslav Tyrš. In 1954, Václav Havel passed his school leaving exams at the evening school for working people.