Chapter 5.4: Education

With the advent of the Modern Era and the rise of the role of the state, which needed educated bureaucrats, judges and pastors, the state would start to take a more keen interest in education, which had been until then mostly under the purview of the church.

The view of the world, knowledge and skills of the Estonian peasantry came from two different sources. From their parents they learned folk tales, legends and beliefs and from the church they learned Christian teachings. Increasingly they would also be influenced by public education.

The focal point of Protestant education was the idea that all people were supposed to be able to read holy texts themselves. In addition, the peasants were also taught the fundamentals of Christianity and church songs.

At first, educating the peasants was solely the responsibility of the pastors. As the parishes were large and the pastors lacked the sufficient language skills, the results were rather meagre.

Steps in Bengt Gottfried Forselius, the son of a Swedish pastor. He founded a school near Tartu for preparing future schoolmasters in 1684, and even though it only existed for three years, it would provide the fundamentals which would allow the establishment of a village school network. He used the most modern methods to teach, which made learning much more efficient and faster. In total, about 150 boys learned to read, write and calculate, theology and church songs, around 50 of them, the best students, would become teachers. In 1686, he even went to Sweden with his two best students to show the results of his work to the king and the ministers. As a result, the king gave orders to establish a village school in each parish of Livonia. The governments also supported the idea of establishing village schools in the province of Estonia, but the process was much slower there. Forselius is seen in high regard in Estonia, as he is considered as the forefather of the Estonian education system.

The schools were generally located in farmhouses, later dedicated schoolhouses would be built, but they would still not differ from other houses. The children of peasants would learn reading, theology and church songs for 2-3 winters. Most children would not go to school though, due to the lack of schools, the length of the journey and the hard economical situation of the peasants.

Sweden also wished to establish higher schools. High schools would be established in Tartu in 1630 and Tallinn in 1631 (this is my high school btw :)). In these schools, in addition to other subjects, classical languages would also be taught. The students were the children of German citizenry, who had gone to town schools. In 1633 a printing press would be established in the High School of Tallinn, the first in Estonia.

Under the initiative of the Livonian governor Johan Skytte, the school in Tartu would be turned into a university in 1632, the Academia Gustaviana. It had four faculties: philosophy, theology, justice and medicine. All students would study philosophy for the first few years and then choose a more in depth subject. The work took place in Latin. Academia Gustaviana was the second oldest university in Sweden, after Uppsala. Due to the Russo-Swedish war, the university was moved to Tallinn for a short period, then back to Tartu and then during its final days it would be located in Pärnu. During the Great Northern War the university would be closed down and remained closed for more than a century. The offspring of peasants did not study there during this period.

As protestantism foresaw the need for each christian to be able to read the holy teachings in their own language, an Estonian grammar had to be developed. The first Estonian grammar books, dictionaries and spelling books were released. At first, written Estonian was entirely based on the grammatical rules of Latin and German, which made it very different from the spoken language. The peasants called it the language of the church or the language of God. In the end of the 17th century, a more accurate grammar was developed by Forselius, which would stay in use until the second half of the 19th century and be known as the old orthography.

In fact, as the dialects of Estonia formed two distinct groups, Northern Estonian and Southern Estonia, two written languages were developed, one for each. The New Testament was translated by Johannes Gutslaff into Southern Estonian in 1686, a version of the New Testament in Northern Estonian was not released until 1715.