Schottengymnasium

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Schottengymnasium
Schottengymnasium
type of school General secondary school (grammar school)
founding 1807
address

Freyung 6

place Vienna
state Vienna
Country Austria
Coordinates 48 ° 12 '46 "  N , 16 ° 21' 52"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 12 '46 "  N , 16 ° 21' 52"  E
carrier Schottenstift
student about 460 (year 2012/13)
Teachers 50 (year 2012/13)
management Josef Harold
Website www.schottengymnasium.at

The Schottengymnasium (actually the public Schottengymnasium of the Benedictines in Vienna ) is a Catholic private school with public rights in the 1st district of Vienna . It is carried by the Schottenstift , the Benedictine Abbey of Our Lady of the Scots .

The grammar school was founded in 1807 by imperial decree. Until 2004 it was the last pure boys' school in Vienna.

history

Before founding

There is evidence of a school in the Schottenstift as early as the Middle Ages . The first documentary evidence of such is from 1330. However, as is customary with theological home teaching institutions , this should only have been open to their own monastery members or candidates. The situation was different as early as 1446. In the Vienna school regulations from that year, the Schotten School is mentioned as one of four schools. The subject of instruction here was the trivium .

On the Prince's Day in Vienna in 1515, students from the Schottenstift performed a game of homage to the future abbot Benedictus Chelidonius . In the further course of the 16th century, among others, Wolfgang Schmeltzl and Johann Rasch were schoolmasters with the Scots.

In 1719 the Scots abbot Karl Fetzer founded a grammar school where secular students were allowed to attend philosophical courses. Attending this school as an external student was only possible for children from aristocratic or high-ranking backgrounds. This grammar school was closed again in 1741.

Foundation of today's Schottengymnasium

Since the previous three grammar schools in Vienna ( Akademisches Gymnasium , Piaristengymnasium , Annaeum) were completely overloaded, especially in the lower grades, the Viennese provincial government asked Benno Pointner , Abbot of Scots , to set up another grammar school in 1804 . Due to a lack of resources, Pointner initially declared that it was unable to do so. But on January 16, 1806 ordered Emperor Francis I in an imperial decree once the construction of a new high school, while the transfer of Annaeums, 1775 at St. Anna had been established to the new location of the Schottengymnasiums. The following year, on November 4, 1807, the new Schottengymnasium was opened under Abbot Andreas Wenzel .

From the 19th century to the Second World War

The new grammar school was attended by children of the nobility as well as the Viennese middle class. Children from the high aristocracy in particular were often externalists.

In 1809 the grammar school had to close for a short time due to the occupation of Vienna by the French. In 1819 the teaching monks of the Schottenstift were obliged to take a teaching examination for the first time . In 1825 the grammar school with a total of 495 students recorded its all-time high student record.

As a result of the March Revolution of 1848 and the resulting restructuring of the teaching system , the grammar school had eight classes from 1849. The lessons were now led by subject teachers. In 1850 the Matura was taken for the first time at the Schottengymnasium. In the second half of the 19th century, the school premises were greatly expanded and connected to the actual monastery building.

The First World War also meant bloodletting for the Schottengymnasium. From 1916, however, with Emperor Karl I , a former high school student headed the state.

After the connection of Austria to the German Reich the Schottengymnasium in the fall of 1938 as a denominational school by the Nazis closed. The students had to switch to other high schools. From 1938 to 1945 the school premises near the Scots were used by the Wasagasse grammar school .

Emblem of the Schottengymnasium

Since 1945

In 1945 the Schottengymnasium was reopened, so that in 1953 the first students could again graduate with the Scots. The Old Scots Association was established as early as 1947 .

In 1967 what had been a purely humanistic grammar school received a new language branch . Also in 1967, the later Abbot of Scots, Heinrich Ferenczy, founded the Schotten Catholic Youth Center - although not dependent on it, but in close connection with the school. Many young Viennese people still know it today as a cellar . In 1970 there were two first classes for the first time after there had been only one class train for almost 100 years.

From 1989 to 2004, Friedrich Wally, the director of the grammar school, was for the first time not a member of the Schottenkonvent. Both of Wally's successors, Johannes Jung (2004–2009) and Christoph Merth (2009–2016), were again Benedictine monks of the monastery.

In 2004, co-education was introduced among the Scots, and the grammar school has been open to girls since then. Up until then, the Schottengymnasium had been Vienna’s last pure boys’s school, although a few girls (mostly as external students) had been admitted to the school, especially in the interwar period .

Faculty

The teaching staff of the Schottengymnasium originally consisted entirely of Benedictines from the Schottenstift. In the second half of the 19th century and in the 20th century, these were also often graduates of the Schottengymnasium. From the middle of the 19th century, free subjects such as Bohemian , Italian , Hungarian , shorthand or singing were taught by external secular teachers. The first regular secular professors did not exist until the 1920s for the subjects of gymnastics , drawing and handicraft . From the 1930s onwards, secular teachers also taught other subjects. Since the reopening of the grammar school after the Second World War , the number of teachers who are not conventuals of the Schottenstift has risen steadily. In the meantime there are around 50 secular professors compared to four spiritual professors. Since the 1990s, female teachers have also been teaching at the Schottengymnasium, increasingly since the introduction of co-education in 2004.

Many of the professors, especially from the 19th and early 20th centuries, gained importance beyond the boundaries of the school due to their mostly academic activities. The directors of the Schottengymnasium (or prefects , as the name was until 1848) were the philologist Meinrad Lichtensteiner (1807–1834; 1825 rector of the University of Vienna ), the natural scientist Sigismund Gschwandner (1886–1895; 1859 and 1870 dean of the university's philosophical faculty Vienna), the historian Albert Hübl (1919–1931) and the later abbots Othmar Helferstorfer (1857–1861), Heinrich Ferenczy (1981–1989) and Johannes Jung (2004–2009).

The historian and later abbot Ernest Hauswirth , the church historian and court preacher Cölestin Wolfsgruber (1907/1908 and 1911/1912 dean of the Catholic theological faculty of the University of Vienna), the philologists Maurus Schinnagl , Heinrich Maschek and Paulus Lieger , the German scholars Berthold Sengschmitt , Hugo Mareta and Meinrad Sadil , the pastors Honorius Kraus and Hermann Schubert , the court preacher Clemens Kickh and the dogmatist Carl Jellouschek (1955/56 rector of the University of Vienna).

Denomination and religion

Although the Schottengymnasium is a Catholic private school, members of other denominations (first in 1810) and religions (first Jewish pupil in 1817) were accepted here almost from the start . In 1878 the grammar school had over 70 Jewish students. Only in the time of the corporate state was the school strongly denominationalized. In the last few decades the number of students of other denominations and religions has increased again in the sense of a Catholic openness.

Attending religious education is compulsory for all pupils at the Schottengymnasium, with each pupil attending classes of his or her own denomination. If the number of participants is large enough, religious instruction from other denominations will also take place at the grammar school itself (e.g. Protestant religious instruction), otherwise it will be collected outside the home with other schools (e.g. with Muslim students).

Well-known students and graduates

The Schottengymnasium enjoys a special reputation not least because of the large number of former students and graduates who have distinguished themselves in politics, culture, science and other areas of public life. Emperor Karl I was a Scottish student as were three generations of the ruling princes of Liechtenstein . The graduates include an Austrian , a Hungarian and four cisleithan prime ministers , an Austrian Federal Chancellor , twelve cisleithan and Austrian ministers as well as numerous members of the state and regional level.

Possibly due to the long theater tradition of the Schottenstift and its schools, which can be traced back to Benedictus Chelidonius , Wolfgang Schmeltzl and Johann Rasch in the 16th century and which found expression in the 20th century, among other things, through the Vienna Schottenspiele Georg Terramares , there is one large number of actors, playwrights and theater directors ( Burgtheater , Theater in der Josefstadt ) among the former students. The list of cultural workers is supplemented to the present day by numerous writers, poets, painters and musicians.

The academically active graduates include several rectors and deans from various universities and faculties. The Schottengymnasium has so far produced three Nobel Prize winners : in 1927 Julius Wagner-Jauregg received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for the development of malaria therapy . Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch received the same award in 1973 for their work in the field of comparative behavioral research .

Quite a few former students were able to achieve key economic positions, while others embarked on a church career. The sometimes encountered dictum that the average Scottish high school student becomes a doctor, lawyer or civil servant applies only to a limited extent. Today the graduates of the grammar school are united in the Association of Old Scots .

Politician

The social democrats Engelbert Pernerstorfer (left) and Victor Adler were classmates.
The portrait of the national economist Eugen Böhm von Bawerk adorned the Austrian 100 schilling banknote for years .
The later Emperor Karl I attended the Schottengymnasium until 1901.

Cultural workers

Before his time, Johann Nestroy was with the Scots at the Academic Gymnasium .
"Waltz King" Johann Strauss attended the Schottengymnasium as did his younger brother Josef .
Ferdinand von Saar dedicated one of his Viennese elegies (1893) to his school days with the Scots .

Scientist

Nobel laureate Julius Wagner-Jauregg graduated from the Scots in 1874.
Konrad Lorenz received the Nobel Prize in 1973 together with a second graduate of the Schottengymnasium, Karl von Frisch .

People from other areas

The Benedictine Urban Loritz was one of numerous high school graduates who embarked on a church career.
Publisher Fritz Molden was one of those students who had to change to another school due to the closure of the Schottengymnasium by the National Socialists in 1938.

literature

  • Albert Hübl: History of teaching in the Schotten Abbey in Vienna . Fromme, Vienna 1907.
  • Johannes Jung, Gerhard Schlass, Friedrich Wally, Edgar Weiland: The Schottengymnasium in Vienna. Tradition and Commitment . Böhlau, Vienna-Cologne-Weimar 1997, ISBN 3-205-98683-0 .
  • Manfred Anselgruber u. a .: The Schottengymnasium under the swastika . In: Festschrift Schottengymnasium of the Benedictines in Vienna, anniversary year 2007 . Vienna 2007, pp. 25–40.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "It was a very good learning school" Interview with Heinrich Treichl in the Wiener Zeitung of September 21, 2007, accessed on October 30, 2012
  2. ↑ See Jung, Schlass, Wally, Weiland: Schottengymnasium. 1997, pp. 255-260.