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The Pioneering Initiatives and Activity of the Sosnowski Priests
Irena Matus
Agricultural Education
Abstract
Reverends Grzegorz and Flor Sosnowski were educated people, excellent teachers, and above all social activists. Their pioneering initiatives were well ahead of their time. Rev. Grzegorz Sosnowski opened the first school for peasant children in 1850, and further ones after 1859. It is thanks to the efforts of the Sosnowskis and according to their idea that an Orthodox school for male teachers whose curriculum included crafts and agriculture was opened in 1887 in Trześcianka. The school’s agricultural program covered botany, zoology, horticulture, beekeeping and practical exercises (apprenticeships were organized during the summer). In 1890, the construction of a large school complex was launched in Stawek and the school was subsequently moved there. In the 1890s, a fruit tree nursery was established, followed by an experimental field and garden, where the students carried out their agricultural practicums.
The practicums were overseen by teacher Jan Bażanow (a graduate of the middle agricultural school in Kazan) and orchard-keeper Szpakowski. The removal of Flor Sosnowski from the school’s board did not lead to its demise, even though the decision did not necessarily benefit the school. In 1901, an additional, large fruit nursery was founded at the Stawek school. In July 1903, an orchard and beekeeping course was started at the Orthodox teachers’ school in Stawek. The school was the only educational facility in Grodno guberniya to offer agricultural courses before 1904. The final process of reforming the school ended at the beginning of the 1894–1905 school year, when it obtained the status of a teachers’ college with an agricultural section, which was quite a phenomenon at the time. In 1906, the school building in Trześcianka-Stawek burned down. After the Orthodox teachers’ college in Stawek was closed in the fall of 1906, a two-grade school took over its agricultural traditions.
Keywords:
Grzegorz and Flor Sosnowski, agricultural school in Stawek, people's schoolDetails
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