10
2 Boarding School and University
The liberal movement, led by Thorbecke, advocated a society with as much
freedom as possible for individuals. The rule of the state and of the church
had to be separated and limited to what was necessary. Freedom of religion
was enshrined in the constitution and turned the effectively Protestant Netherlands into a secular state. In 1853, Thorbecke allowed the Roman Catholic
Church to re-establish dioceses and appoint bishops. The change was particularly great in the field of education. Until then, public schools had in fact
provided Protestant education, which led to discontent among Catholics and
Jews. For the establishment of schools next to the public ones, permission had
to be requested and when approved in general no subsidy from the government
was made available. From now on everyone was free to found a school according to their own religious beliefs. This was an important but not yet decisive
step in the ‘schoolwar’, because the special schools were disadvantaged in a
financial sense. The Education Act of 1857 regulated a system of primary and
comprehensive secondary education and the establishment of special schools
in addition to the public schools, an option which Catholics and Jews, but also
orthodox protestants, began to use extensively. Traditional protestants were
not all that happy with these developments.
Thorbecke led three cabinets, in the beginning characterized by opposition
from King Willem III (1817–1890) (who, more than his father, had problems
with his new constitutional role) and the moderate Protestants. In 1863, during
his second term as prime minister, he reorganized secondary education. A
crucial developments was that he set up a new type of secondary school in
addition to the gymnasium. The latter was the route to prepare for university
studies. This new type of school was called the ‘Hoogere Burgerschool’ (literary
Higher Civil School) HBS, which was set up with the aim of educating boys
(not yet girls) from the bourgeoisie, preparing them for the more influential
positions in society, particularly in trade and industry. This would ultimately
have a major impact on the academic world as well. In the first place because
at the HBS teachers had an academic background, often with a PhD degree.
This was one major way of offering a career with standing to academics with
a science background. Because of this, the HBS grew into a solid secondary
education in particular in mathematics, physics and chemistry and the modern
languages English, French and German. The establishment of the HBS was
an important stimulus for our ‘second Golden Age’ and is at the root of the
success of Dutch science at the beginning of the twentieth century and the
relatively large number of Nobel prizes won by Dutch scientists in the early
decades. The Nobel Prize winners in physics and chemistry Jacobus Henricus
van ’t Hoff (1852–1911) in 1901, Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1853–1928) and
Pieter Zeeman (1865–1943) in 1902, Johannes Diderik van der Waals (1837–
2 Boarding School and University
The liberal movement, led by Thorbecke, advocated a society with as much
freedom as possible for individuals. The rule of the state and of the church
had to be separated and limited to what was necessary. Freedom of religion
was enshrined in the constitution and turned the effectively Protestant Netherlands into a secular state. In 1853, Thorbecke allowed the Roman Catholic
Church to re-establish dioceses and appoint bishops. The change was particularly great in the field of education. Until then, public schools had in fact
provided Protestant education, which led to discontent among Catholics and
Jews. For the establishment of schools next to the public ones, permission had
to be requested and when approved in general no subsidy from the government
was made available. From now on everyone was free to found a school according to their own religious beliefs. This was an important but not yet decisive
step in the ‘schoolwar’, because the special schools were disadvantaged in a
financial sense. The Education Act of 1857 regulated a system of primary and
comprehensive secondary education and the establishment of special schools
in addition to the public schools, an option which Catholics and Jews, but also
orthodox protestants, began to use extensively. Traditional protestants were
not all that happy with these developments.
Thorbecke led three cabinets, in the beginning characterized by opposition
from King Willem III (1817–1890) (who, more than his father, had problems
with his new constitutional role) and the moderate Protestants. In 1863, during
his second term as prime minister, he reorganized secondary education. A
crucial developments was that he set up a new type of secondary school in
addition to the gymnasium. The latter was the route to prepare for university
studies. This new type of school was called the ‘Hoogere Burgerschool’ (literary
Higher Civil School) HBS, which was set up with the aim of educating boys
(not yet girls) from the bourgeoisie, preparing them for the more influential
positions in society, particularly in trade and industry. This would ultimately
have a major impact on the academic world as well. In the first place because
at the HBS teachers had an academic background, often with a PhD degree.
This was one major way of offering a career with standing to academics with
a science background. Because of this, the HBS grew into a solid secondary
education in particular in mathematics, physics and chemistry and the modern
languages English, French and German. The establishment of the HBS was
an important stimulus for our ‘second Golden Age’ and is at the root of the
success of Dutch science at the beginning of the twentieth century and the
relatively large number of Nobel prizes won by Dutch scientists in the early
decades. The Nobel Prize winners in physics and chemistry Jacobus Henricus
van ’t Hoff (1852–1911) in 1901, Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1853–1928) and
Pieter Zeeman (1865–1943) in 1902, Johannes Diderik van der Waals (1837–