Student Organizations Asked to Guarantee Peace in Universities as Condition for Increasing Admissions (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
The Hungarian Government, which has for years put high bars around the institutions of learning in the country against Jewish students by the ingenious method of a numerus clausus law, find itself today in a position where it sees the bars crumbling under the pressure of Christian public opinion.
The opening of the school year witnessed a strong wave of indignation and protest on the part of Hungarian Christian middle class elements against the recently promulgated government ordinance further curtailing the general number of students to be admitted to the university.
Under the pressure of this wave of protest Minister of Education Klebelsberg lifted the bar insofar as the law school of the University of Budapest is concerned, by doubling the number of students to be admitted. Simultaneously, plans are under way and negotiations are being carried on for increasing the general number of students, notwithstanding the previous ordinance.
It was stated today on good authority that the Ministry of Education has asked the deans of the colleges and universities to obtain from the anti-Semitic student organizations a guarantee that peace and order will be maintained in the institutions during the coming semester as a prior condition for increasing the general number of students, it being understood that with the general increase the number, also be larger.
The movement against the numerus clausus law has gripped the entire population, particularly in the capital, where the numerus clausus question has assumed an acute character and is likely to have an effect on the electorate. To prevent political complications, all leaders of the Budapest municipal government submitted to City Mayor Repka, a memorandum expressing the demand that an extraordinary plenary session of the City Councillors be convened for the purpose of considering the matter and to send a delegation to Count Klebelsberg to present to him the necessity for revoking the entire numerus clausus system.
In political circles the latest development in the numerus clausus situation is being discussed with keen interest. It is pointed out that the government will find itself compelled to increase considerably the general number of students because the Christian parents refuse to continue an educational policy which in aiming to cause the greatest harm to the Jews also reacts on their children. Great interest was evoked by the statement of Count Klebelsberg, who declared that the recent ordinances aiming at the application of the numerus clausus law without regard to class, had for its purpose to show certain circles how unsound it was to believe that the solution of the educational problem can be found in the application of high sounding phrases.
In parliamentary liberal circles it is pointed out that Klebelsberg’s retreat under the pressure of the Christian Hungarian protests may indicate a decision of the government to abandon a course by which the educational policy was regulated in accordance with anti-Semitic slogans, although it was well known that the Christian population would also suffer.
As the situation stood before these developments, the University of Budapest and the Technical Institute would accept a maximum of fifty Jewish students. The Jewish population of 200,000 is entitled to a proportionate Jewish admission of 200 students. The total matriculation of non-Jews in the various departments of Budapest University include 200 in the School of Philosophy, 200 in the Medical School, 240 in the Law school and 280 at the Technical Institute.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
