Budapest Gymnasiums

In preparation for a tour, last month I reread Budapest 1900 by John Lukacs.¹ His chapter "The Generation of 1900" lists famous Hungarians, which reminded me that, among many other accomplishments, John von Neumann enabled running on a ca. 1950 computer the first useful numerical weather forecast. The successes of Neumann and others of his generation are credited in part by Lukacs to the schools in Budapest that by 1900 had reached standards comparable to the best ones in Europe. Lukacs continues on page 142, The most important impact was that of the middle schools, which were articulated into three kinds, the highest of them being the humanistic gymnasium—requiring, among other subjects, Latin and Greek, and attendance for eight years, usually from the ages of ten to eighteen. There were three such gymnasiums in 1876 and twelve by 1896 ...
One afternoon I made a pilgrimage to the famous Fasori Lutheran Gymasium. The site was off the normal tourist path, but was only four metro stops and another two blocks from our group's hotel. The name comes from the street, Városligeti Fasor, which means effectively City-Park Tree-Lined Avenue. It is somewhat more residential than the parallel Andrassy Avenue. The church building is on the corner of Városligeti Fasor and Bajza Street. (On the afternoon of my visit a public concert in the church was just ending.) The school building is adjacent. On the front of the building and to the left of the door is a plaque honoring three of their most famous graduates.

The plaque reads, from left, Nobel-prize-winner physicist (Wigner) world-famous mathematician (Neumann) and Nobel-prize-winner economist (Harsányi). The plaque also honors famous teachers of the graduates. Mikola taught physics (Wigner), Rátz taught math (Neumann and Wigner) and Renner taught Harsányi.²
Before the trip I had picked up the false impression online that most of Budapest's famous physicists had attended the same Fasori Gymnasium.³ Since returning, I found that the book entitled The Voice of the Martians corrects that legend.² The book's title plays with another legend, a running joke (pp. 116-119) that the reason for so many famous Hungarian scientists was that a Martian spaceship had crash-landed in Budapest around 1900. Immediately below the plaque at Fasori is a (presumably restored) monument,

which I translate as celebrating in 1905 what was then already 25 years of turning out graduates. The explorer/athlete seems to symbolize the highly competitive environment of the Budapest gymnasiums. Lukacs¹ on pp. 144-146 describes the high quality of the teachers, as well as both good and bad consequences of the environment.
Edward Teller and several other famous graduates chose the Minta [Model, emphasizing hands-on learning] Gymnasium, which was founded by Theodore von Karman's father.² So my next trip to Budapest will include a visit to the site of the former Minta Gymnasium, whch is now the Trefort School of the ELTE University.

1. Lukacs, John, Budapest 1900, A Historical Portrait of a City and Its Culture, 1988, Grove Weidenfield, New York, 255 pp., pbk. ISBN 0-8021-3250-2.

2. Marx, George, The Voice of the Martians, Hungarian Scientists Who Shaped the 20th Century in the West, 3rd Ed., 2001, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 427 pp., ISBN 963-05-7830-1. The hypothesis of a spaceship landing is supported on p. 118 by a map of Budapest showing the locations of the childhood homes of 17 famous scientists/inventors. [On the last afternoon of the group tour I took a walk, intending to retrace my steps, but got lost and headed south on what was then an unfamiliar street just as intermittent downpours began. I took shelter in doorways along the street during the heavier downpours. Now seeing the map on p. 118, it looks like two of the entryways where I waited must have been the childhood doorsteps of John von Neumann and John G. Kemeny.]

3. McCagg, William O., Jewish Nobles and Geniuses in Modern Hungary, 1972, East European Quarterly, Boulder, Columbia University Press. On p. 215 the main text and the footnote probably contributed to the incorrect legend of one school having produced most of the famous graduates. Nevertheless, McCagg downplays the specialness of the schools in Budapest, noting that their elitist outlook and emphasis on personal training was similar to other schools in Europe. Instead McCagg emphasizes the cultural and societal changes in Budapest that made a good education possible and desirable. From that perspective, the quality gymnasiums staffed with outstanding teachers, all competing for the best students in Budapest, were merely satisfying a demand.