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Boarding Schools and Changes in

Society and Culture: perspectives
derived from a comparative case
study research
Yitzhak Kashti
Published online: 02 Aug 2006.

To cite this article: Yitzhak Kashti (1988) Boarding Schools and Changes in Society and Culture:
perspectives derived from a comparative case study research, Comparative Education, 24:3,
351-364, DOI: 10.1080/0305006880240307

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 Comparative Education Volume 24 No. 3 1988 351

Boarding Schools and Changes in

Society and Culture: perspectives
derived from a comparative case
study research
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YITZHAK KASHTI

Boarding schools tend to appear as selective, conservative and elitist educational organisa-
tions, striving to stabilise current social conventions. In this essay, I shall attempt to present
an additional aspect of these schools, namely that they could sometimes appear as education-
ally integrative, innovative in cultural fields and as unravelling the patterns of social
structure, mainly by accelerating the processes of mobility and change in society. Boarding
schools' chances of acting as accelerators of change in society and culture increase when they
themselves operate in an environment of change. In these circumstances, the changes
produced in the schools tend to appear in restructured patterns of role and status of the
schools' graduates, and in innovative spreading and strengthening of the principles of faith
or ideologies.
In a historical perspective, boarding schools in Europe were, first and foremost, a
Christian phenomenon. At the end of the Middle Ages, their attention was still given to
recruiting students who would, when the time came, serve as community priests (Finaczy,
1914; Rodgers, 1938). These schools focused their attention on students' acquiring an
education in Latin and theology, while increasingly co-opting the students within the school
system (Bekefi, 1910; Cook, 1917).
From the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries onwards, boarding schools became wide-
spread in most parts of Europe, and constituted an important element in education systems.
During the Reformation, the number of these schools increased, and they became an integral
part of the effort to spread Protestantism, or to renew the strength and hold of the old
religion (Aries, 1965; Bajko, 1984).
In each country boarding schools had different names. In England they were known as
'public schools', and were originally intended for children of the poor (Gathorne-Hardy,
1977). In Hungary—before and after the Reformation—the Kollegium came into being. It
was initially open to all classes of society and, by means of scholarships and arrangements in
the school and the community, encouraged the education of the children of tenant farmers
and the bourgeoisie together with those of the nobility [1].
Eventually, in continental Western Europe and in England the poor students in the
boarding schools were replaced by paying students. In the eighteenth century, the majority
of boarding schools were intended for such students, who came from bourgeois and upper
class families (Aries, 1965; Pinchbeck & Hewitt, 1969). The final crystallisation of these
schools in the nineteenth century as places for training children of the upper class, the
gentry and the upper-middle class marked them with the stamp of traditionalism, conserva-
 352 Y. Kashti

tism and class interest (Hiding, 1901; Bamford, 1967). This characterisation fits the pattern
of change in the schools of mainland Western Europe and England, but it is impossible to
determine whether these trends were consistent, or characteristic of all boarding schools.
Another development in the field of institutional arrangements, which emerged in
parallel with the boarding school pattern described above, was the rise and spread of
institutions intended for the lower classes (Carlebach, 1970). These shelter institutions were
originally established for orphans, or lost or abandoned children; they had existed in Europe
in limited numbers for hundreds of years (Tugener, 1969). Their spread as institutions of
shelter, treatment or re-education began mainly in the nineteenth century, when the
relationship between the two types of boarding arrangements—the school on the one hand
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and the shelter institution on the other—crystallised finally in the form of mutual separation
(Pinchbeck & Hewitt, 1969).
This process stabilised the representation of the boarding school as being rooted in
preserving the interests of the upper classes on the economic and political plane, while the
school's activities in the cultural field were characterised as fostering and reinforcing
exclusive status symbols (Millham et al., 1987). Similarity, the image of the different types
of shelter institutions crystallised as appropriate to and compatible with the supervision,
shelter and care requirements of the lower classes (Carlebach, 1970). The polarisation of
boarding arrangements assisted in fixing the phenomenon on the front of social preservation.
Sociologists tend to explain this, inter alia, by the stabilisation and crystallisation imposed on
the original status of graduates because of lengthy exposure in boarding school to the
symbols and norm systems unique to a certain class (Polsky, 1962; Weinberg, 1967).
The situation described tends to be reflected in theories of the sociology of education:
that is to say, the different kinds of schools are nothing but the reflection of the social
structure, as Durkheim argued (1956); or one of the functional parts of society, as conceived
by Parsons (1959); or the result of social intervention, as in Archer's description (1984) of
the rise of educational systems. Even authors outlining the image of society as a complex of
conflicting relationships of domination and dependency among the different classes also view
the school as a tool of the dominant class, which by this means arranges the production and
use of cultural capital to reproduce the existing class structure (Bourdieu, 1971, 1973;
Willis, 1981).
Generally, it seems that boarding schools do not deviate from these generalisations.
Moreover, when they are viewed from the aspect of their stated and covert aims, and when
their activities are examined on the level of social mobility or the stability of their graduates'
status, they not only do not appear as exceptions to the rule but sometimes seem to be its
outstanding implementers (Cookson & Persell, 1985; Millham et al, 1987; Kashti, 1986).
Boarding schools usually focus on objectives and means similar to those of day schools,
but operate in different dimensions of time and space. These dimensions tend to create a
more intensive environment of socialisation, reflected in increased involvement of partici-
pants in the organisation and construction of an insulated framework which tends to limit
the conflicts characteristic of relatively open educational organisations (Kashti & Arieli,
1976). From this standpoint, boarding schools appear to offer educational, social and
cultural options different from those of day schools, in the same way as they tend to
constitute a separate category from institutions for shelter and remedial treatment (Kashti,
1979).
In the following discussion I demonstrate and substantiate the argument that the view
of boarding schools as agencies stabilising or conserving social status and cultural traditions
is not necessarily valid. I indicate three historical instances where, in my estimate, boarding
schools' orientation was mainly one of change. I do not argue that these schools were
 Boarding Schools 353

independent foci of change or innovation; however, they can be viewed as accelerators and
formulators of processes of change in culture and social structure. The activities of the
schools under examination in this regard are expressed in the legitimisation of new roles, in
social recruitment and the mobility of their students, and in the mediation and dissemination
of culture.
These modalities of involvement in change refer to the Kollegium schools in Transyl-
vania and Eastern Hungary in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the English Public
Schools in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the Israeli youth villages during the
British Mandate and in the first decade after the establishment of the State of Israel,
especially between the 1920s and 1950s.
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The methodology of my work is based on three social-historical case studies, with the
majority of the data emanating from secondary sources. The data of each case study were
examined separately, compared with those of the others, and finally analysed in light of
sociological conceptualisations and generalisations (Crossley & Vulliamy, 1984).

The Kollegium Institutions of Transylvania and Eastern Hungary

The majority of boarding schools in Hungary and Transylvania originated as Catholic
schools or monasteries (Revesz, 1870; Finaczy, 1914). Characteristic of the Kollegium, upon
the conversion of some of them to Protestantism—mainly in Eastern Hungary and Transyl-
vania—was the broadening of curricular activity, of student recruitment, and of informal
activities undertaken by students. All these found expression in students' involvement in
issues of religion, art and science. In addition, a dense network of autonomous social
activities was established in the schools. These last activities were compatible with the
Kollegium's formal and stated objectives. This mutuality between the formal structure of the
school—its aims, functions and methods of control and rewards implemented by the
staff—and the informal structure of the students, would henceforth shape the development
of these schools in Transylvania and Eastern Hungary, which were relatively free from the
Turkish conquest and the Habsburgs' attempts at domination [2].
As mentioned earlier, Kollegium institutions were non-selective in choosing their
students from one social class or another. Moreover, the Kollegium invested considerable
effort in recruiting new students, of both rural and urban origin. Important tasks were
imposed on students in the higher grades who served, as a means of ensuring their further
study, as teachers in remote country areas [3].
Daily life in these schools, where the number of students totalled a few hundred, was
very active and crowded with studies, religious ceremonies, social activities, voluntary and
semi-voluntary arrangements, personal maintenance and upkeep of the dormitories, food,
heating, security, etc. The organisation of daily routines into continuous activity supervised
by students with pre-defined responsibilities was based on broad autonomy for the students
[4].
Aspects of the daily life in the Kollegium were no different from the processes of
change taking place in Eastern Hungary and Transylvania, but actually interacted with them.
The meeting points were in the fields of: (a) religion, with Protestantism spreading with
great momentum, assisted by its moral and social innovations, and supported by national
feeling [5]; (b) the socio-political plane, with the Transylvanian Principality moving towards
centralism while facing up to the harsh requirements of national and economic survival [6];
and (c) education, as Kollegium institutions' expanding activities corresponded to new
'educational needs' expressed by a developing elite, mainly bureaucratic and mobilised in
 354 Y. Kashti

parallel to the consolidation of Transylvania's political, structural, social and economic

orientations [7].
The Kollegium's activities do not indicate any participation in processes of planned or
deliberate change taking place outside their boundaries. The inclination for change is
revealed rather by its being a hothouse for its students' values and orientations, thus
accelerating new activities in social organisation and institutionalisation.

The English Public School: social mobility and class solidification

The Industrial Revolution raised England to a position of precedence in industrial capital-
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ism. This situation brought change in land ownership, and created pressure for social
mobility. The newly-rich, arising out of the middle class, attempted to integrate with the
upper class. One of the central ways of attaining this aim was to send their children to the
traditional boarding schools of the aristocracy, the Public Schools. These tendencies brought
about the establishment of new schools and expansion of the existing ones [8].
The Public Schools traditionally guided their students towards isolation and withdrawal
from cities. They preferred country life for the sake of moral education (distance and
isolation supposedly making the educational process easier). In the schools, the students
were constantly exposed to teachers, religious leaders and prefects. They were under
continual pressure to attain achievements dictated by the classical curriculum and to behave
in an exemplary manner in public (Weinberg, 1967).
However, in spite of the schools' tendency to strictness and moral education, they also
tended towards organisational and administrative irregularities. Students' dissatisfaction with
the physical conditions, the lack of teachers and the lessening of educational activities
resulted in repeated riots. These disturbances continued for almost 100 years, until Arnold's
reforms in 1828 [9].
Arnold brought a string of reforms to the Public Schools, first implemented in Rugby,
where he was active, and from there they extended to other schools. Following the reforms,
both students and teachers calmed down, and the Public Schools continued to spread. The
schools now accepted as students—in growing numbers—the children of the new middle
class as well as the gentry and the upper class (Mingay, 1967).
The pedagogic and organisational principles which crystallised in the Public Schools,
and assisted in mediating cultural codes and upper-class norms for all students, were as
follows.
(1) A view of the student, the future graduate, as a Christian gentleman. A gentleman
was envisaged as a person of blameless character, of reliable judgement and consistent
behaviour. Such a person could be trusted with government and the determination of
policy (Weinberg, 1967).
(2) Cultivation of a strong bond between the church and the school. The principals
viewed the church as the central source of their influence. There was no conflict
between the message brought by the church and the values which the school desired to
teach. Educational ideals of moral obligation, public service, reliability, fair play and
faith found their roots in religion (Musgrave, 1979; Chandos, 1984).
(3) Informal education. An informal student system was re-instituted, mainly by Arnold
at Rugby. Arnold aimed, successfully, at earning the students' loyalty, while changing
their status in school and re-defining their roles. The prefects, students in the senior
classes, were required to advise and supervise their "house" peers. Actually, in previous
years older students had also been responsible for order and discipline during school
 Boarding Schools 355

hours, but they themselves were not really under any supervision at that time. The
prefects now served as a bridge between formal activities conducted for the school's
aims and the students' own informal system (Gathorne-Hardy, 1977).
(4) The curriculum. Disputes about the character of the Public School curriculum
lasted about 400 years—between parents, teachers, principals and church leaders. Since
boarding school education was distinct from that in ordinary schools, the idea of
'institutional independence' was formulated in determining the curriculum. The central
dispute in the nineteenth century focussed on the question of the preferability of
classical studies over a progressive education. Classical education was based on studies
of Latin, Greek and religion. The study of Latin was especially valuable because it
constituted a unifying cultural factor for the children of the elite. In addition, a
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knowledge of Latin was essential to the acceptance of graduates at the universities at

Oxford and Cambridge. Classical studies, which were mainly secular, also served to
balance religious studies. Supporters of change in the curriculum were influenced by
scientific developments and the rise of new ideas in education. A new understanding of
childhood and the view that it was a complex of features needing cultivation eventually
resulted in the deepening of the school's role in Victorian society (Lambert et al.,
1975).
(5) Games. Arnold instituted new rules. Wildness gave way to order, and roughness was
softened and civilised. Games had always been popular, but were never previously part
of the curriculum. Now, emphasis was placed on the need for developing physical
fitness, discipline and tolerance. Above all, the development of a team spirit was
stressed. This view made the change in the games' style more profound, giving
preference to group activity over personal achievement (Weinberg, 1967).
The changes which characterised the British Public Schools from the 1830s onwards—
diversification of the student population and innovations in the bonding influence of the
expressive curriculum—brought results different from these schools' original frame of
reference.
The Public School not only aimed at innovations in formal and informal fields of
activity, but also helped its new students to internalise symbols taken directly from the
traditional world of the aristocracy. This process took place during a period of growing
response to pressures by middle-class parents to have their children accepted in these
schools, converting the Public Schools in the public awareness of the period to "the Schools
of the Plutocracy" (Westminster Review, 1848).
In parallel, students in these schools were exposed to the expectations of a social world
determined by the definition of new situations and objectives in the fields of industry,
finance, international commerce, and national and imperial administration. Exposure to new
fields of activity carried with it legitimisation for graduates of the Public Schools to engage
in these fields (Bamford, 1970).
On the face of it, the Public Schools operated in the second half of the nineteenth century
in response to social changes crystallising during that period. This argument is not basically
denied; but one must remember that changes already appearing in various fields of life had not
been adjusted or absorbed into the web of expectations and roles of the various status groups.
The Public Schools focused on this socio-economic and cultural meeting point. Their
activities promoted the acquisition of new values and class symbols by middle-class students,
yet secured for them a safe social place in the rarified heights of the upper class [10].
However, this inter-generation mobility constituted only a part of the general process of
change in which the Public Schools were involved. The other components of this process of
change are to be seen in the orientations and modalities required to direct and maintain
 356 Y. Kashti

modern systems, and in legitimisation and institutionalisation of these modalities. When this
learning-training process takes place together with the absorption of social newcomers into a
social class having a lengthy tradition of domination (yet based on the expansion of the range
of culturally acceptable roles for this class itself), this is proof that these schools are
involved in the process of change taking place in society and culture [11].

Israeli Youth Villages: social integration and elite formation

The Israeli Youth Village, which is the typical model for boarding school education in Israel, was
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influenced in its development by the changing European boarding schools of the beginning of the
twentieth century. At the edges of European boarding schools systems towards the end of the
nineteenth century, the expectation of developing new models of schools based on pedagogic,
psychological and social principles different from those characterising nineteenth century
boarding schools was formulated, especially in England (Skidelsky, 1969).
The boarding schools of the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the
twentieth century, such as that of Reddie in Abbotsholm in England, or Lietz's village
boarding schools in Germany, tried to express resistance and protest. Reddie's Abbotsholm
(Ward, 1934) was opposed to the type of education customary in British Public Schools.
Lietz's ambition was even more far-reaching: he aimed at re-instituting Rousseau's ideas of a
return to nature and the small community. He repudiated the city and its culture, and
viewed them as undermining the fundamentals of German education and nationalism (Lietz,
1909).
Gustav Wyneken taught in one of the 14 boarding schools established or initiated by
Lietz in Germany; but, after a dispute with Lietz, he established a boarding school in
Wickersdorf with his friends (Wyneken, 1922). From Wickersdorf came Geheeb, who
established and for many years directed his progressive institution—Odenwaldschule (Rhee,
1960). These two persons, Wyneken and Geheeb, paved the way in new education for their
boarding schools and their successors in Europe, the USA and Israel. The boarding schools
established by them, or in the spirit of their educational ideology, tended to loosen the close
historic connection between the boarding school arrangement and class interests [12].
Other boarding schools at the beginning of the century which operated in a similar
spirit, and influenced the development of boarding school education in Israel, were
Makarenko's settlements in the USSR of the 1920s and the first agricultural schools
established in Israel during Ottoman and British rule (Makarenko, 1949; Shapira, 1966).
The majority of the founders of the new boarding schools, in Israel and elsewhere,
carried with them a certain social or educational vision, and the boarding school served as an
experimental workshop. During the first stages of their existence, the orientation of these
boarding schools was more cooperative than competitive, democratic rather than authori-
tarian; it focussed more on the group than on the individual. As Utopian experiments, the
new boarding schools developed an active stance towards culture and took part in its
creation (Lehman, 1962).
The ideology that accompanied the crystallisation of the pioneering Zionist Movement
at the turn of the century gave clear social approbation to education outside the family. The
socialisation necessary for the new roles of young children born in Israel, and particularly
new immigrants, developed within the boarding school framework. In these institutions,
members of various ethnic groups and social classes were brought together (Arieli, Kashti &
Shlasky, 1983).
A 1928 document, written as the final report of the Jewish-American Committee for the
 Boarding Schools 357

Affairs of Orphans in Palestine (Berger, 1928), illuminates the perspective of the future: "It
is an almost accepted axiom that, in great measure, the success or failure of the experiment
in Palestine will depend on the Jewish population's success in agriculture. Any effort in the
direction of this objective is, therefore, a direct step towards the rebuilding of a Jewish
Palestine. There is, therefore, a great need for an educational system which operates through
the medium of children's villages, a framework which not only creates for the child the
possibility of achieving basic technical skills, but is also a place where the child's mind can
be influenced and formed with the help of an agricultural atmosphere".
At the end of the 1920s, boarding schools in Israel were characterised by internal
cohesion and a structure tending towards 'closedness' and the development of close
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relationships between the students, who were organised in age groups. Training aimed at a
new social status (the 'pioneer') was preferred to training for a defined role—for instance, a
profession. It is not surprising, therefore, that the boarding schools became the route for pre-
socialization of elite groups (Reinhold, 1953).
During the 1940s, and at the beginning of the 1950s, the various boarding schools
became the central means of absorbing and educating young immigrants into Israel,
particularly survivors of the European holocaust (Kol, 1957; Pincus, 1970). The encounter
between immigrant youth and the arrangements prevailing in Israel at the time raised many
difficulties and conflicts. Their acceptance as 'young pioneers' and rejection as 'holocaust
survivors' was one of them. At the same time the young immigrants' struggle over their
identity, while being absorbed into youth villages and Kibbutz youth groups, helped them to
integrate and to become a component of the emerging Israeli identity (Eisenstadt, 1967).
For about 30 years, from the 1920s until the 1950s, there was very little selection of
students, or none at all, in Israeli youth villages. This situation, together with the schools'
tendency to be involved in the ideologies then prevalent in Israeli society, turned the
boarding schools into organisations typically promoting social mobility.
The educational process and the expected 'social product' explain the features pres-
erved in Israeli boarding schools: structural 'closedness' and a kind of 'autarchy' of
educational and other services, together with cultural openness—even accepting and inter-
nalising whole ideologies or 'platforms'. The structural 'closedness' was aimed at supporting
the complex educational process taking place against a background of non-selection of
students with varied earlier experiences, while openness to different ideologies ensured the
boarding school and its graduates an appropriate place in society (Horovitz, 1942; Nadad &
Hiram, 1962).
During the late 1950s, profound changes appeared in the youth villages and in some
agricultural schools. The changes were both structural—because of adjustment to organisa-
tional patterns formulated in the State education system after Independence—and of
content. That is to say, the ideological 'pioneer' message tended to be replaced by a practical
one, considered 'appropriate' to a student population which was also changing: from students
born in Europe to immigrants from Islamic countries (Kashti, 1971).
The juxtaposition of these complex changes directed the development of many of the
boarding schools to the channel of re-socialisation in a way never known before. The student
population was conceived more and more as needing to internalise 'new' cultural symbols,
together with behavioural norms described as unknown to the children. Opportunities for
new groups of students to advance up the social ladder were viewed as of secondary
importance to the task of conscripting them as novice members of society. This viewpoint in
boarding schools—as in other educational organisations—was sometimes expressed in diag-
nostic terms referring to individuals or groups as: 'backward', 'socially retarded', or
 358 Y. Kashti

'requiring special care'. In other words, the education of the new groups of students tended
to be expressed in terms of treatment or rehabilitation (Feuerstein, 1971).
In conclusion, from the 1920s onwards, boarding schools in Israel contributed to social
integration, to training individuals and groups for the roles of a 'serving elite' and to the
crystallisation of ideologies. The boarding schools' participation in these aims—while Israeli
society itself was experiencing the processes of nation-building and creating new cultural
systems—converted them into accelerators of the processes of change.
The success or failure of these overt and covert aims was clarified in three great waves
of immigration: in the 1930s, with the immigration of youth from Germany and other
countries; in the late 1940s, when the boarding schools served—in growing numbers—chil-
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dren and youthful survivors of World War II; and in the 1950s, when they were absorbing
children and youth immigrating to Israel from Islamic countries. .
The youth village's characteristic activity crystallised while absorbing the first wave of
immigrants; it attained the majority of its goals mainly during the second wave; while, in
absorbing Oriental youth changes appeared in the boarding schools' cultural, educational and
social orientation, marking the decline of their historical roles in the fields of social
integration and mobility [13].

Concluding Remarks
The three cases which have been discussed here seem to indicate that boarding schools have
considerable power of survival. This power is realised in the conservation or production of
cultural assets, usually placed at the service of privileged-status groups or classes, but
sometimes promoting social integration and mobility, or cultural unification, or processes of
change in culture and society, as I have tried to show.
These processes always developed through the use of the boarding schools' structure,
which tended to 'closedness'. In addition to its organisation features, this structure includes
unceasing negotiations with and among students, while the boundary or split separating the
formal structure from the informal (Goffman, 1961) is often crossed both by the staff and
the students. As a result, roles, patterns of control and local codes tend to be created in
interactive frameworks, and to form a multi-dimensional educational environment. Indeed,
residence in the schools described above has even been represented by their students as an
exclusive experience of their discovery of culture, while personal experience and social
contacts have often been described as harmonic and symmetrical or cohesive.
Engagement in culture has been reported as studious and creative reading of religious
and secular literature, as the production of literary and dramatic works, or as scientific
experiments such as became customary, for instance, with students and teachers in the
Kollegium institutions in Hungary from the sixteenth century onwards. The activities of
many of the English Public Schools bear a similar aspect, revealed in innovating sports
activities in accordance with certain rules and codes, or beliefs and attitudes in the fields of
morality and science; and such has been the activity of the Israeli youth village, which
structured and deepened systems of values—or ideology—for the interpretative, evaluative
and constructive use of its students.
Indeed, it seems to me that one of the characteristic features of boarding schools which
has become part of the processes of change in society and culture is their relatively
autonomous engagement in the interpretation and development of culture. The daily
realisation of this, together with other attitudes and motivations, deepens the consolidation
and alternation of perspectives of participants in the formal and informal structure of the
 Boarding Schools 359

boarding school, and thus intensifies the students' involvement in the symbols mediated or
produced by the boarding school.
The mutuality developing between the formal structure of the staff and the informal
structure of the peers, by means of continuous negotiation in expressive and instrumental
fields, tends to expose boarding school students to the joint consciousness and normative
supervision of both these structures; and when these structures are compatible, complemen-
tary or supportive—as appears from the case studies we have presented—they promote
boarding schools' activity in the direction of change.
Boarding schools tend to constitute a relatively closed educational environment. They
isolate their students for long periods from their family contacts, their original social
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environment and usually also from the environment in which the school is located. These
structural features create an infrastructure moulding the boarding school as an educationally
powerful environment.
When to these features are added intensive occupation in culture or ideology, while the
formal structure of the staff and the informal one of the students interact mutually or
alternately for the attainment of common expressive and instrumental objectives, the options
for change and development of the students increase.
A boarding school which intensifies its autonomous occupation with culture and the
application of the other features described evidently increases its students' chances to
participate in activities bearing a fresh normative and symbolic meaning, or in building social
structure. This building of social structure, as it occurs continuously in the small world of
the boarding school, tends to be revealed in historical perspective as parallel to (in the
Kollegium), as nourishing (in the Public School) or as nourished by (in the Youth
Village)—but always accelerating—events and processes of change developing outside the
boundaries of the boarding school.

Acknowledgements
My thanks are extended to Yehudit Harel, Semadar Bar-Nir and Anat Sha'shua for their
great assistance in collecting data.

NOTES
[1] This trend has a number of sources: the tradition of the church schools in Hungary, which were open to all
classes even before the Reformation; Protestant educational ideology; social and economic needs, which
motivated the political leadership to support the opening of schools for the lower classes in the feudal
hierarchy—from tenant farmers through the bourgeoisie to the upper-middle classes who lacked the titles of
nobility enabling them to take up positions of political power. In the Kollegium boarding schools, procedures
were instituted to finance and maintain the children of the poor in boarding school with the help of
scholarships from town councils, the nobility and the central government. Needy students also paid for their
studies and living expenses in the boarding schools with services rendered to other students and to the boarding
school itself. The ruler of Transylvania between 1613 and 1629 granted 40 residential scholarships to children
of tenant farmers, and the law forbade estate owners to prevent these children from going to school (Nagy,
1940; Ravasz, 1966: 69-74; Bernath, 1971; Fekete, 1971: 14-16).
[2] Following the Turkish conquest of central Hungary (1538-1541), and annexation of the Kingdom's north-
western regions to the Habsburg Empire, Transylvania and a number of regions in Eastern Hungary became
the focus of the cultural and political autonomy of Hungary for over 150 years. The Transylvanian Principality
was ruled by Governors whose responsibility it was to manoeuvre, using their political judgement and
sometimes daring gambles, between the two political and military powers of the period (Barta, 1984: 8-113;
Ujvary, 1984).
[3] 'Subsidiary' schools in remote country towns and villages were affiliated to Kollegium institutions. Each
Kollegium constituted a 'mother institution', having subsidiary institutions operated by teachers sent on a
yearly basis by the 'mother institutions'. The best and most outstanding students from the subsidiaries
 360 Y. Kashti

discovered by their teachers were sent for further study in the 'mother institution'. In addition, emissaries were
sent by the Kollegium to remote places, even within the regions under Ottoman rule, to advertise the
Kollegium and to raise funds and recruit new students. Some of the important centers which began developing
in the sixteenth century were: Debrecen, Sarospatak, Kesmark, Kecskemet, Sopron, Papa, Pozsony, Gyulafeh-
ervar, Marosvasarhely, Kolozsvar, Nagyenyed (Bajko, 1976: 188-191; Nagy, 1940; Meszaros, 1981: 311-331).
[4] The principle of autonomy was expressed in Coetus, the society of students and teachers. At the head of the
student society stood the Senior, an outstanding student from the older age group, and other students were
elected to assist him in various responsibilities: the Oeconomus who was responsible for the students' presence
at formal and informal activities; the Contrascriba, who was the Senior assistant and deputy; the Kantor, who
was responsible for the students' singing in church and at events. There were responsibilities in other
areas—security, dining room, etc. Older students taught groups and individuals both inside the institution and
outside it in remote schools. All students participated in the tasks which were important for the school's
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existence. They took agricultural jobs in exchange for food, and gave various services to the community
supporting the school: they sang in the church choir, at weddings and funerals; the Debrecen Kollegium even
established a firemen's unit which served the city (Meszaros, 1981: 311-331; Bekefi, 1899; Ravasz, 1966:
102-108; Bajko, 1976: 233-251; Nagy, 1940; Beraath, 1971: 86-87).
[5] In the remnants of Hungary after the fall of Mohacs (1526), the message of Protestantism challenging the
extravagant and immoral way of life of the nobility and church leaders was well received, among other reasons
because the Protestant preachers gave this as the cause of the national and governmental breakdown.
Moreover, the fact that most of the population, including the nobility, in the semi-autonomous areas of
Transylvania and Eastern Hungary had converted to the new religion sharpened opposition to the Catholic
Habsburg Emperors, while validating ethnic differences and Hungarian nationalist awareness (Barta, 1984:
141-150; 170-174; Ujvdry, 1984).
[6] This varied, intensive and complex activity was in great measure a direct result of the status of the
Transylvanian Principality as an apparently neutral link between the Ottomans and the Habsburgs, but no
less—and perhaps even more so—of the pressing needs of survival in view of the threat of conquest emanating
from these powers. The need to manoeuvre between the two political and military giants and withstand the
pressures motivated the Transylvanian rulers to try and bolster the Principality's economic foundations, while
developing national sources of income: international trade routes were opened up, the church's property was
brought under supervision as was that of Catholic nobles who had fled, a national mechanism of supervision
was established for the collection of taxes and customs duties, and steps were taken to develop artisans' trades
(Ujvdry 1984: 192-273).
[7] In order to man the new positions created in the bureaucratic organisation, the central government needed a
growing number of educated professionals. The majority of the Principality's rulers supported the establish-
ment of schools and saw to the flow of funds to them from sources at their disposal, while forcing the nobility
to support educational institutions in exchange for properites which had fallen into their hands when they had
taken control of the assets of the Catholic Church. Beyond that, Gabor Bethlen (1613-1629) and Rakoczi I
(1629-1648) aimed at creating a power base outside the mainline system of the feudal hierarchy. To this end,
these rulers pressed to open schools for the children of land tenants and the bourgeoisie. They viewed the new
generation of intellectuals who were not of the nobility as a support and source of strength to bolster the
central government, which had traditionally stood at a conflict of interests with the feudal nobility (Meszaros,
1981: 211-217; Fekete, 1971; Ujvary, 1984: 192-273).
[8] From the middle of the nineteenth century a change occurred in the class structure of Public Schools students
as compared with the 1820s. The new bourgeoisie wished to present itself as the heirs of the ancient nobility,
and aimed at putting its sons into the established schools at Eton, Westminster, Harrow, Winchester. In
parallel, new schools were opened which were run along the same lines as the old public schools. For example,
in 1841, a boarding school for boys was opened in Cheltenham, and a year later Marlborough College was
opened. By 1900 another 40 boarding schools had been opened (Armstrong, 1981).
[9] A situation of uneasiness, agitation and uprising characterised the activities of students in the English boarding
schools from the middle of the eighteenth century until the first quarter of the nineteenth. The riots occurred
on a background of dissatisfaction with physical conditions: food was limited, and fuel for lighting and heating
was scarce. In addition, many of the teachers lacked suitable qualifications, and were heavy-handed with the
students. Among the principals of the Public Schools acts of financial corruption were revealed, which had
resulted in lack of attention to the varied needs of the students. All these caused the students to demand a
share in decision-making in the schools. This demand was sometimes especially violent, so that the Public
Schools caved in under the pressure of the riots. This period saw a marked decline in the number of students,
as indicated in the figures for four of the main schools:
 Boarding Schools 361

Change in number
School Period of students

Charterhouse 1825-1832 From 480 to 137

Eton 1833-1835 From 627 to 444
Harrow 1816-1828 From 295 to 128
Rugby 1821-1827 From 300 to 123

It was Arnold of Rugby who responded to the demands of the period and established new student regulations
which brought settlement and calm (Mack, 1938; Rodgers, 1938; Gathorne-Hardy, 1977).
[10] During the nineteenth century the aristocracy's property diminished, mainly through loss of land. This
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damaged their prestige and some of them avoided sending their children to boarding school. This situation
resulted in a change in the balance of forces in the Public Schools, raising the children of the middle class to
positions of control therein. At Eton, for instance, which was considered a fortress of the aristocracy, the new
class became the majority. However, the demands for service all over the Empire resulted in the schools'
expansion and strengthened their position, while increasing the demand for educated and skilled graduates
(Mack, 1941).
[11] The British Public Schools encouraged all their students to adopt and internalise the cultural codes of the
upper class, and to acquire the control and skills required for leadership and administrative roles. These
processes deepened the legitimisation of social mobility via the schools, and contributed to it considerably
(Gathorne-Hardy, 1977). The graduates' massive participation in the higher levels of the social hierarchy was
outstanding beyond what was usual in other school systems. The graduates were especially noticeable in
government, the armed forces, the church, industry and science, education5 culture and social reform. Thus,
for instance, from 1834 to 1868, the positions of Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance
Minister) and Foreign Minister were filled 53 times by Public School graduates. In 1883, at the peak of
Britain's Imperial rule, Eton supplied 127 members of Parliament, and between 1880 and 1905 every Prime
Minister was an Eton graduate. For about 30 years from 1870, some boarding schools established volunteer
units. Public School graduates were a prime source of officers who filled senior Army positions in that period.
Their graduates saw the Army as a career, and it was an accepted view that Army life constituted a natural
continuation of boarding school life. Forty-six per cent of the bishops were Public School graduates, mostly
from the older schools; outstandingly, Eton graduates constituted the majority of those serving in the Church
(Armstrong, 1981). In industry and banking, the graduates' interest had been considerable from 1777;
graduates of Eton and Harrow especially aimed at filling top positions in the Bank of England. From the
middle of the nineteenth century a 6% rise in Marlborough graduates was noted in the fields of commerce and
foreign careers (Mack, 1938; Ward, 1967).
[12] The phenomenon is especially noticeable in boarding school arrangements connected or parallel to the events
of World War II. These boarding schools should be considered from the beginning of the 1930s. They
originated in reaction to the Nazi regime in Germany, and ended as a movement of saving, rehabilitating and
educating boarding schools. Aliyat Hano'ar (Youth Immigration) (Kol, 1957) was the pioneer of this
movement. From the ranks of the Zionist Youth Movements in Germany, and a very few other countries,
about 10,000 young people were brought to Israel to youth villages and to 'youth societies', a kind of small
boarding school for pioneer training on the Kibbutzim. In the given conditions, the Youth Aliyah (Immigra-
tion) should only have been able to use the boarding school as a central educational tool, but it utilised it far
beyond organisation or instrumental needs. About 10 years later a movement of students and teachers of
peasant origin began to operate in the universities of Budapest. Showing opposition to the Fascist regime and
Nazi occupation, this movement laid the ideological and organisational foundation for a system of boarding
schools which encompassed, after the war, over 10,000 young people in the popular Kollegium (Kardos, 1977).
The third movement was a continuation of the activities of the Youth Aliyah (Immigration). Under the
leadership of activists of the Zionist Youth Movements, survivors of the War and the Holocaust, and of
emissaires from Israel, about 15,000 children and youths from the remnants of European Jewry were collected,
helped, organised and educated in the Youth Aliyah Children's Homes. These were a kind of mobile boarding
school—on the way to the shores of Italy and France—with the aim of emigrating to Israel. From 1945 to 1949
these groups migrated—joined by a common fate and commitment to a Zionist Youth culture—through Europe
and British detention camps in Cyprus, till they reached the youth villages and youth societies in Israel (Dapej
Europa, 1948; Sha'ari, 1981; Oren, 1985). Parallels to this movement, in supplying the basic needs of
rehabilitation and ensuring frameworks of care and education, were to be found all over Europe, especially,
Poland, Yugoslavia and Hungary. In these countries, because of lack of other facilities, the boarding school or
 362 Y. Kashti

'children's home' was utilised widely (Payne & White, 1979). Another boarding school system, which focussed
on caring for needy children at the end of the war, was the SOS organisation in Germany. Its boarding schools
developed new organisational and educational methods, aiming to supply the homeless child with psychological
and environmental conditions similar to those in the families living in their community (Gmeiner, 1976). In
the 50s, the majority of these movements had fulfilled their original task. Their institutions—except for the
popular Kollegium, whose activities had already been stopped in 1949—began undergoing a process of
stabilisation and routine, while the population of their students changed. Some of them were confronted with
the expectation or demand to change their patterns of activity on the basis of their integration into already
established systems, or for reasons of ideology, or as a result of social changes. These boarding school
arrangements, at least until the 1950s, tended not to select their students according to class, origin or scholastic
achievement, and thus the students tended to stabilise at the social centre.
[13] In the absorption of Oriental youth into the boarding schools, changes took place at three levels: (a) diminished
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application of ideological orientation and 'elite' training; (b) exchange of progressive pedagogy for traditional
or therapeutic pedagogy; and (c) viewing the students' 'absorption needs' as adjustment to the framework of
the school. These developments were reinforced from the 1970s onwards, from the time when these young
people—called now 'disadvantaged' or 'needy'—constituted about two-thirds of all boarding school students.
The proportion of boarding school students in Israel, (about 20% of children aged 13-18) is perhaps the
highest in the world: (Arieli, Kashti & Shlasky, 1983).

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