Regional school inspectors in primary schools in Dalmatia up to 1918

Abstract

During its history Dalmatia was for many centuries ruled by different rules. During the Venetian rule (1409-1797) nobody took any care of the schools. City authorities in accordance to their material means opened city schools with teachers who were foreigners. Later home teachers taught also. During it's first domination Austria (1797-1806) put the schools in charge of the church and the teaching was done in Italian. Long Venetian rule and short Austrian domination did not improve the school system so it is pointless to speak of school inspection in Dalmatia at that time. During the French domination in Dalmatia public schools were opened and the inspection was given to the »school department« (chief inspector was B. Benicas iz Zadar). During the second Austrian rule in Dalmatia which lasted for more than hundred years, that is, from Vienna congress in 1815 to the fall of Austria in the First world war in 1918, Austrian autohrities did not take great care, especially in the beginning, for primary schools and the teaching was done in Italian. However, from 1848 the conditions improved. After the victory of People’s party in different tonwswips the teaching in primary schools began to be conducted in »our«, that is, Croatian language. Regional school council became responsible for the work in primary schools and it introduced the system of inspectors. First inspectors were dr Miho Klaić, prof. Dragutin Bakotić, prof. Josip Peričić, prof. Antun Stroll and dr Antun Primožić. Although in the service of pro-Austrian rule, the regional school inspectors realized the needs of people for schools in their language so they sided with them in their struggle for national schools and Croatian language.