When Parents Did Not Want Their Children to Go to School: “Please Do Not Send My Child to School”

For many families in the Military Frontier, sending a child to school was not simply a question of choice. It meant taking badly needed help away from the household and paying a cost that poor communities could barely afford.

Only a small number of children received an education, mostly boys. Schools existed, first under priests or religious orders and later as several types of state schools, including elementary and German-language institutions. Most of the population remained illiterate, and the importance of education was rarely questioned. When families did consider it, survival needs usually came first.

Records from the Slunj Border Regiment show how difficult attendance could be. In 1857, the Blagaj company area had 18 villages and three parishes, with 4,255 residents living in houses scattered across rocky, poor land. Only some communal households stood within an hour's walk of the newly built schools in Veljun and Cvijanović Brdo. As a result, only 40 to 50 children could attend.

Even in good years, the households struggled to produce enough food from their infertile holdings. Municipalities were too poor to support two teachers, although the state provided teachers with firewood and building materials. Local leaders therefore petitioned for classes to continue only at the German school in Veljun. They proposed replacing lessons at the other two elementary schools with Sunday and holiday religious instruction until residents' economic conditions improved.

The request reflected a hierarchy within the education system. The German school was considered more useful for training military and administrative personnel, and talented children under nine could be transferred there from elementary schools. Military authorities said that children who failed to show progress in their first year could be allowed to leave school. The surviving records reveal an education system shaped as much by poverty and labor demands as by any stated commitment to schooling.

“

Please do not send my child to school.