Chapter 270 A Few Things About Pilot Education (Part 1)

At this time, several church schools in Tyrol had been in operation for nearly three years. As the number of schools increased, the problems exposed became more obvious.

Because of religious beliefs, the church has an irreplaceable appeal in the local area. In addition, the local government agencies vigorously promoted it, especially highlighting the "free nature", which attracted the attention of a large number of poor people.

The educational work carried out in Tyrol at the beginning can be described as "hot", which can be seen from the fact that various church schools were crowded with all kinds of people.

But soon a series of problems emerged. First of all, the quality of this group of educated people was uneven, and some people even chose to receive education only because they could eat for free.

In order to do their best to educate more Tyrolean mountain people, the church added a lot of welfare measures to the school outline, such as no age limit for students and free lunch, etc., and this was also based on Franz's advice.

But it is precisely because of this that some people who love to get a small advantage have the idea of ​​taking advantage of the situation. Soon, after their processing and exaggeration, the news spread from one person to ten, and from ten to a hundred, so that many Tyroleans were bewitched and became part of the army of freeloaders.

Soon, the church was forced to introduce new rules and regulations to strictly prevent these speculators who only came to school for the purpose of freeloading.

To be fair, free lunch is very attractive to mountain people who are struggling to make ends meet, so they cannot be hastily classified as "speculators".

But it is true that some of them only care about the free food and do not want to study in school. They take advantage of the school's initial unlimited food provision to make profits for themselves, and even bring sacks and baskets every time they come for easy transportation.

These people almost take a lot of food home every day to feed pigs and use as fertilizer, and some people who do not know how to cherish it even throw it directly on the roadside and let it rot.

This forced the church to make changes and promulgate new measures: "Food cannot be taken out of school, free lunch is provided to each student, and students who have not attended four classes a day cannot receive it."

As a result, within a month of the new regulations being introduced, three schools were set on fire, more than one hundred faculty and staff were beaten or abused, and eleven priests were tortured to death.

This time, the church joined forces with the Tyrolean government and the army, vowing to catch all the thugs who committed crimes. However, the local people were fierce, and not only did they not catch many thugs, but the military police lost nearly one hundred people, including several excellent hunters.

Moreover, this action also caused a bad result, that is, the vigilant mountain people never stepped into the school gate again, and the figures of those students who really wanted to learn knowledge also disappeared.

For a time, the front of these church schools went from crowded to deserted. Finally, Franz, who learned of the situation, had to write to the local defense army headquarters in Tyrol, asking for help in resolving the crisis.

Given the high status of the royal family in the minds of the Tyroleans, the matter went very smoothly, and soon more than a hundred thugs were detained in the Golden Square of Innsbruck.

(Innsbruck is the capital of Tyrol and the former capital of the Austrian Empire.)

In fact, according to the church's own records, the real number of thugs is far more than this number. But Franz ignored it because he didn't want to retaliate at all.

If these mountain people could really be frightened by hundreds of corpses, so many great conquerors would not have bothered about this issue.

Archbishop Rauscher went to Innsbruck to read the emperor's edict in advance. The principle was naturally "only the main culprit was executed, and the coerced followers were not questioned." Soon the five initiators of the atrocities were sentenced to hanging and executed immediately.

Before they died, the thugs sincerely carried out the priests' request for them to repent.

However, this did not serve as a warning to others, and soon the same evil incidents occurred again. At this time, Franz realized that it seemed that the traditional repentance + punishment model was not easy to use.

In the end, he had to ask Archbishop Rauscher to let the local church school fly the royal flag and order the local garrison to guard it before the violence was quelled.

Afterwards, the church once again issued the rule that "adults are not allowed to attend the church's school for minors".

At the same time, a number of special adult schools were opened in the Tyrol region. Although they were still free education on the surface, the free lunch was cancelled, so it was naturally difficult to attract people. In the end, most of these schools were forced to close.

Who would have thought that after finally eliminating some local snakes who took the lead in making trouble, new problems would follow. That is the weak education concept of the locals.

It's okay for urban residents like Innsbruck, but it's another scene in the countryside, especially in the mountains. Some villages don't even have a person who has read books, so naturally they don't understand the true meaning of going to school.

In the eyes of these country children, as long as they can get a meal, they will actively set an example with practical actions. Under the guidance of this idea, the rural students who come to class are very concerned about the handicraft class, and they will make handicrafts with an extremely serious attitude.

This made the teachers who wanted to use handicraft classes to promote education laugh and cry. These simple children moved them and made them feel helpless.

In order to change the backward thinking of the locals, Franz hoped that Archbishop Rauscher could mobilize the local priests to educate the local people by telling stories and giving examples.

However, the reality is that the residences of these mountain people are often very remote, and it is very inconvenient to travel. Those local priests who have long been accustomed to it can still accept it, but the priests selected from other regions would rather take off their robes than go into the ravines every day.

This led to the entire Tyrol Diocese's enthusiasm for maintaining local church schools gradually weakened, until one day Archbishop Rauscher doubled the salaries of priests involved in education.

(In fact, it should be called "clergy allowance", but some people would find that it is not intuitive enough.)

The income of the priests directly reached three times the local average salary. If the goals set by the church can be achieved, then another reward equivalent to the local average salary will be issued.

Sure enough, there must be brave men under heavy rewards. Those priests instantly turned into God's apostles who were not afraid of hardships, crossing mountains and ridges, and teaching people tirelessly.

To be fair, the priests are not all greedy for money, but after the increase in clergy allowances, they feel respected and are more willing to practice their vows.

However, this also brings a problem, that is, the cost of education has become higher.

At the same time, the unemployed college students recruited by Franz from Vienna began to protest publicly because they felt they were being ignored.

They claimed that it was unreasonable for priests with lower academic qualifications to receive much higher salaries than them. In fact, these people's salaries were 50% higher than the local average.

However, since they were accustomed to the prosperity of the imperial capital, the sense of gap caused by being sent to Tyrol to teach suddenly made it difficult for them to accept it for a while.

So Franz gave this group of people the same promise that they could also do the work of priests, and they could get the same remuneration as long as they met or reached the same level.

However, most of these people did not buy it. They always compared the living standards of Vienna with Tyrol, one of the poorest provinces in Austria, so Franz could only fire those who were not satisfied with the status quo.

In fact, if they were only engaged in basic education, the level of these non-education majors might not be better than those priests who had been in contact with all kinds of people all year round.

Of course, the upper limit of these college students is higher than that of priests, so Franz provided them with a lot of room for advancement, such as some mediocre public offices.

Regardless of the salary and benefits, public office had an unparalleled appeal to college students at that time. This special status can greatly satisfy the vanity of those people.

And Franz himself was also happy to do so because he could win over more talents.

After a lot of practice, many shortcomings of church schools in Tyrol have been improved, including school rules and regulations, as well as publicity and education.