Founding of Vytautas Magnus Gymnasium, and its first few decades

The article reflects the political and social conditions of founding the first Lithuanian gymnasium in Vilnius, features a list of the gymnasium’s first teachers, and shows the changes in the number of students, the curricula, allocations of hours for individual subjects, textbooks, the examination procedure and student cultural activities. Apart from the minutes of teacher meetings, other sources of information were historiographical resources and teachers’ recollections. Vytautas Magnus Gymnasium was founded against a very complicated historical setting. It was all down to intellectuals who used every tiny gap amidst the great political events in the early 20th century, understanding the extraordinary benefits that a centre of national education could bring to Lithuania once it regained its independence. Obviously, the founders of the gymnasium were thinking about would-be reconstruction of the state. As the German troops invaded Vilnius on September 5(18), 1915, the initiative was taken by the Central Committee of the Lithuanian Fellowship for Support of War Victims. The gymnasium was founded as a private establishment – the Course Lectures of Vilnius Lithuanian Gymnasium of J.Basanavičius, M.Biržiška and P.Gaidelionis. As few as 47 students – 30 boys and 17 girls – came to attend the classes in five classrooms. In several months, the gymnasium found a new patron – the Vilnius Lithuanian Education Fellowship Rytas, which fostered Lithuanian education in the region of Vilnius. After Lithuania’s independence had been proclaimed, on November 27, 1918 the gymnasium was taken over by the Ministry of Education. With war refugees coming back from Russia, the number of students boomed at year-end, up to 320, with 21 teachers to teach them in 13 classrooms. Quite a few students came from Lithuanian shelters and hostels. The first crop of 25 students graduated the gymnasium the following year. Despite the rigours of war and occupation, thanks to its talented management and teachers as well as efforts from the community, the Lithuanian gymnasium grew and flourished. People who had heard the calling of the Lithuanian national renaissance, intellectuals of the region of Vilnius came to teach at the gymnasium – not for the benefit of it, but out of necessity, driven by the noble national idea. The first teachers were prominent public figures, directors of various Lithuanian organisations: would-be presidents of the Republic of Lithuania Antanas Smetona and Aleksandras Stulginskis, Kaunas, Vilnius and Pineberg university professors, the brothers Mykolas, Vaclovas and Viktoras Biržiška, composers Juozas Naujalis and Teodoras Brazys, famous Lithuanian painters Antanas Žmuidzinavičius, Vytautas Kairiūkštis and Adomas Varnas, art historian and museologist Paulius Galaunė, Bishop Mečislovas Rainys, Minister of Education Konstantinas Šakenis. Jonas Basanavičius, the nation’s patriarch, was a founder of the gymnasium and worked there as a doctor. Over the decade, the gymnasium got most of the teaching literature it needed, mostly thanks to its own teachers, but with some input from the Lithuanian Fellowship of Science as well. The literature consisted of translations of valuable foreign textbooks, although most of it was original works. The Polish occupation of the Vilnius region that started on October 9, 1920 was followed by many restrictions of the activities of the Lithuanian gymnasium. The authorities demanded that the gymnasium changed its name and vacated the premises. On August 22, 1921 the Educational Board responded that the gymnasium would continue to operate under the name of Vytautas Magnus. That said, the management of the gymnasium put a lot of effort into obtaining a permit to use certificates that would entitle its graduates to a university entry. Mykolas Biržiška, Vytautas Magnus Gymnasium’s first principal, in 1922 was exiled to Kaunas by the Polish authorities. Then the gymnasium’s helm was taken over by Marcelinas Šikšnys – Šiaulėniškis (1874-1970), a playwright and mathematics teacher. It was under this prominent educator that the gymnasium took its increasingly steady steps on the road of Lithuanian education; he also played a major role in the Lithuanian cultural life in the region of Vilnius under occupation. Šikšnys ran Vytautas Magnus Gymnasium for 17 years and managed to find balance between being integrity and tolerance, demand and empathy, Lithuanian spirit and respect of foreigners, exact sciences and artistic education. What’s more, all of the teachers worked to give students scientific knowledge and bolster their artistic abilities – the gymnasium had its own literary, painting, music circles. Classes would publish their own little newspapers and vie in staging plays. During the Soviet times, the gymnasium lost its precious name and on September 26, 1940 became Secondary School No. 1. And it took tremendous effort from the teachers to keep it going during the German occupation in World War Two. All in all, Vytautas Magnus Gymnasium has succeeded in preserving the Lithuanian spirit in the historical capital of Lithuania. In spite of all the hardships, the gymnasium has always managed to educate true patriots of Lithuania, many of its students excelling in different fields of public life and state work. Today, after finally regaining its honorary name, Vytautas Magnus Gymnasium still carries the school’s historical memories and its good tradition