Komisja Edukacji Narodowej wobec projektu studiów prawniczych Hugona Kołłątaja

Abstract

Enlightenment, as commonly known, by recognizing rationalism, empiricism and utilitarianism as the main benchmark of the progress of science, led to a significant revaluation in the hierarchy of the existing authorities, resulting in the decrease of the previously unquestioned position of religion and tradition. This was also reflected in legal sciences, where the doctrine of the law of nature was placed in the foreground. The implementation of these assumptions had to, obviously, result in significant changes in the curricula of university studies, which did not exclude the Cracow Academy. The reform of the Academy in the spirit of the Enlightenment, was entrusted by The Commission of National Education to Hugo Kołłątaj, who while performing that task, prepared a memorandum O wprowadzeniu dobrych nauk do Akademii Krakowskiej [On the introduction of good teaching at the Cracow Academy]. He proposed the introduction of a new subject called “history of all rights” in place of the Roman law. This new subject was to include the history of the different legal systems, among other: Jewish, Carthaginian, Cretan, Lacedemonian and, treated on the same principles, Roman. The Commission of National Education did not, however, take Kołłątaj’s suggestions into account.