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66 Mirela Lumini^a Murgescu 2

system. In 1864 a new Education Law reorganized the whole education system and decreed that elementary schooling was to be free and compulso-rily nationwide. Certainly, we could have chosen the establishment of the unified Romanian nation-state in 1859 as a tuming point, but we think that its main effects in education were felt only some years lat er. We have also-another reason for avoiding to stop our investigation with the year 1859. During the years 1831—1856 the Principalities were under a tight Russiaa protectorate (the Ottcman suzerainty was much looser) and this could have determined the abstention from raisińg some themes. After 1856 such exter-nal pressures were less important. Yet the years 1856—1859 were a period of great political turmoil and are inconclusive from our point of view. There-fore we have to investigate the years 1859— 1864 in order to see whether pre-vious accents and the absence of some themes were genuine ,or had been determined by extemal pressures.

We have focused our attention on the speeches delivered by public au-thorities in schools on various occasions, especially at the prize-distributiort ceremonies ending the school year. We have analyzed 80 speeches published in the gazettes of this period, most of them from Wallachia, but some also from Moldavia. We chose only published speeches not only for reasons of accessibility, but also because govemment control over the press madę these speeches seem even morę official than it was already perceived due to the social position of the speaker. Quite morę, the discourses published in the gazettes became models for teachers, who inspired themselves from these official archetypes when preparing the speeches they were obliged todeliver in their own schools.

Whatever their rank, all speakers agree when they try to define the generał aims of schooling. In their opinion, school should educate "honest people”, "good citizens", "useful to the society". This education, which, ac-cording to the Moldavian prince Mihail Sturdza (1834—1849), should be "ad-justed to the social position and to the needs of each class of people” ^{1 2}, had to be built on the principles of religion and morality. This linę had been de-fined already by the Wallachian "logofSt” (minister) for Public Instruction, Barbu §tirbey, who was to become later prince of Wallachia (1849—1856), and who had stated flatly at the school ending ceremonies of 1833: "The go-vemment is deeply persuaded by the truth that teachings according to the status of each man in society and based on the principles of religion and morality are the most mighty means to make the happiness of a people” ®. 20 years later, C. Bosianu, the Wallachian director of schools, reasserted the fact that "the School Administration strived to cultivate and fortify the religi-ous, morał and intellectual faculties of the youth” ³. The same ideas, although with some interesting accents, were expressed also by Petrache Poenaru, one of the most important organizers of the Wallachian school-system: “in the ąuick move towards progress and perfection madę by the European peo-ples during this nineteenth century, the most powerful means to come for-ward are the extension of popular knowledge and the establishment of the principles of religion and morality on which are founded the eternal laws of

1

V. A. Urechia, Istoria fcoalelor de la 1800—1864, Bucureęti, 1892, vol. I, p. 279.

2

• "Curierul RomćLnesc”, 1833, no. 42, p. 166.

3

"Yestitorul Rom&nesc”, 1852, XVII, no. 52, p. 207,