The rediscovered Prohászka Lajos

Prohászka Lajos (1897-1963) was a philosopher, a pedagogue, one of the XX century outstanding personalities in Hungarian pedagogy, he was a professor and a correspondent member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The pedagogical system of Prohászka Lajos was of no value for the socialist pedagogy and there is no coincidence that after his death commemorations were recalling the image of the great humanistic scientist: that could be undertaken out of his intellectual heritage. After the change of the regime his membership in the Academy was restored, his works became the object of scientific analysis from various points of view and we can rightly believe that his archive manuscripts and studies will contribute to the formation of his image. This research will mainly focus on the study of his writings published in the Hungarian Pedagogy (Magyar Paedagogia) journal. The formation of Prohászka's intellectual image was determined by the fact that he was Pauler Ákos's disciple; since 1917 he was Fináczy Ernő's apprentice. However, Eduard Spranger exercised the greatest influence on him; they got acquainted in 1923. One part of Prohászka's life-work was connected to the philosophical journals, however his works published in the Hungarian Pedagogy enable one to follow his point of view that interprets the relation between philosophy and pedagogy. Prohászka's two-part study under the title Pedagogy as cultural philosophy published in the journal in 1929 was of outstanding importance. This analytical study can be regarded programmatic from the point of view of pedagogical theory. Prohászka's pedagogy based on cultural philosophy considered education to be a process directed by values that forms the personality via culture. In his study People and culture published in 1935 Prohászka provides a historical analysis of those historical events that require special attention to understand the “political and humanistic ideal”. Since 1940s Prohászka's pedagogy based on cultural philosophy is much more than a scientific experiment aimed at rethinking pedagogy: it is a confession of a scientist concerned about human values. The professor and his scientific creed were tragically neglected in Hungarian pedagogy of the 2nd half of XX century