Mártonfi József Közönséges rendtartása
József Mártonfi ’s “Common Regulation”

Summary/Abstract: Analyzing the activity of the school-inspector Joseph Mártonfi (1746–1815) we can draw the conclusion that he had an indisputable role in the scientifi and cultural life of Transylvania at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. Getting closer to his network of relationships and the responsibility that he showed through his work we can see better the picture of this functionary and scientist who showed his greatest devotion and seriousness in his work by bringing reform to the life of the catholic schools. In the presentation of the Common Regulation (Közönséges rendtartás) we can draw the conclusion that the dates of the text’s genesis and its publication differ. Mártonfi came home aft er the Jesuit order was banished (1773), and he taught Mathematics in the normal school in Szeben. Th at’s possibly the period when he wrote the Regulation, which he then presented to the catholic bishop. But the bishop refused it. We don’t know the precise date of the writing of the Regulation, but we can guess that it was written at the end of the 1770’s, because in that period Felbiger’s method (Johann Ignaz von Felbiger (1724–1788) had no appreciation among the bishops. In spite of the early origin of the Regulation, Mártonfi recognized, that Felbiger’s method of teaching could only be introduced to Transylvania if he could make it possible to fi rst establish rural schools. In other words, the conditions for introducing the new method were to have both functioning schools, and the teachers through whom the new method could be applied. Due to his activity and capacity of organizing the functioning of schools, he could make his Regulation compulsory for all the rural schools in 1784, and that’s why he published it. In the edition of the Common Regulation we can see the result of Mártonfi ’s school-visitations: the building of new schools, the adjusting of the salaries of the teachers, which made it possible for the inspector to introduce Felbiger’s methodology into these schools. He considered it important to put the money given for education to its proper use. He could clearly see that it was first necessary for the teachers to come to grips with existential problems, to be trained, and to be adequately paid, in order for the introduction of the new method to be possible, or aquam ex pumice… The objective of his ambition was to strengthen the school-maintaining collective conscience, to create schools independent from the central government through the local communities, which recognized supporting their teachers as their own responsibility.

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