The beginnings of technical education in Poland (19th century)
When, on the initiative of Stanisław Staszic, the Preparatory School for the Polytechnic Institute was established on January 4, 1826, teaching physics at this Higher School from the very beginning played a fundamental role.
Rys. 1. Rozkład zajęć studentów na pierwszym roku Szkoły Przygotowawczej do Instytutu Politechnicznego
Figure 1 shows the student class schedule for the first year. What were the lessons taught in physics? The program of the lecture in physics, prepared by Józef Skrodzki and the director of the Kajetan Garbiński school, was given in the "General program of courses for lectures on May" for the opening of the academic year 1830/31 (Fig. 2).
Rys. 2. "Ogólny programmat" kursów Szkoły Przygotowawczej do Instytutu Politechnicznego
Physics
This skill, which has numerous applications in agriculture, commerce, arts and handicrafts, is one of the main subjects in which a new industrialist should improve ...
...consider at length: the general properties of bodies; over the force of gravity; over the properties of bodies in the threefold state of solid, liquid and expandable aggregate; as well as measuring the amount of material in the bodies involved, that is, the determination of their density. Passing the whole science of heat, it will indicate various applications for heating solids, for volatilizing, evaporating and distilling various liquids, for heating apartments, for drying rooms. He will not forget about the applications either when he talks about three other activists: electricity, magnetism, and light. Finally, he will explain with meteorology, where he will explain the occurrence of all water, electrical, optical and aerial phenomena by heated air in the atmosphere.
It is amazing how modern this program was - after all, when it comes to electricity, the first twenty years of the nineteenth century was a period of the emergence of the science of electricity represented by the famous experiments of Volta, Oersted, Amper and Faraday. It was possible because the main author of the program, Józef Skrodzki, was sent by the educational authorities of the Congress Kingdom to Germany, the Netherlands and France, where he learned and studied physical issues. After returning to Poland, he was not only a co-author of the physics program, but also the organizer of the physics laboratory at the University, which was used by students of the Polytechnic Institute. Unfortunately, after the fall of the November Uprising, the Preparatory School (actually the Polytechnic Institute after all the departments were filled) was closed.
