Agricultural education in nineteenth-century Hungary

This chapter deals with the issue of agricultural education in Hungary during the long nineteenth century, inquiring how far this served as a means of adaptation to new Euro-American standards shaped by the transnational processes associated with historical globalisation. To understand the transformations of agricultural education in late-eighteenth and nineteenth-century Hungary, this chapter focuses on the role of the imperial and Hungarian governments in recognising the importance of education as a possible tool for eliminating economic “backwardness.” After the 1867 Settlement (Ausgleich), the new Hungarian government restricted scientific research into only one institution – Magyaróvár – an academy accompanied by various research and experimental stations. Aside from this institution, the government’s goal was to deliver practical knowledge to a broad segment of the population engaged in agriculture. This was manifested in practice-oriented colleges in higher level education and in farming and tillage schools at the elementary level.