Public Schools of Dorpat District in the Beginning of the Reign of Emperor Alexander the First

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to show the nature of the relationship between Emperor Alexander I, professor of the University of Dorpat Georg Friedrich Parrot and members of the Ministry of Public Education in the process of discussing the reform of parish schools in the Dorpat educational district at the beginning of the 19th century. Professor Parrot became the author of a project on the establishment of parish schools in the district, and his close friendship with the king made it possible to hope for the approval of his ideas by the minister. However, having received the initial support of the emperor, the Dorpat professor faced resistance from some members of the Main Directorate of Schools who did not want to amend the decisions which had already been adopted, and then the military conflict with France became a serious obstacle to the implementation of the planned transformations. Over the course of two years, Parrot had made changes to the text of the draft three times, but could not achieve the final consent of Alexander I. The author comes to the conclusion that Parrot’s desire to get special conditions and partial state maintenance for parish schools of the Dorpat district was unfeasible given the context of the protracted war and the worst financial crisis. The article introduces into scholarship an unpublished correspondence between the emperor and the Dorpat professor, which significantly supplements the idea of the reforms of public education in the first decade of the 19th century.