The Regulation of the Lithuanian Piarists for provincial education Methodus docendi
pro Scholis Piis provinciae Litvaniae (Vilnius, 1762) should be considered as
the main document showing the changes in education of the Enlightenment era,
announced prior to the establishment of the Board of Education, a secular institution
of education. That is an important source of the Lithuanian science history
of the 18th century, opening a relevant contextual panorama of cultural processes,
illustrating the intersection of the values of the Baroque and the Enlightenment.
The study Methodus docendi pro Scholis Piis provinciae Litvaniae deals with
the specifics of daily routines which shows obvious following of Ordinationes
Visitationis Apostolicae (Warsaw, 1753 [1754]–1755) prepared by Stanisław Konarski.
As it can be noticed, many of the aspects of the school routine (such as
the necessity to start lessons in time and not waste the time for frivolous talking,
relationship between the students and teachers, personal hygiene, proper physical
condition, behaviour of students at school and outside it) in the Regulations for
provinces of Lithuania are defined much more laconically. The attitude to go ad
rem was determined by the goal to have a document with the scope and precise
presentation of the subject which could be smoothly used in daily practice. On the
other hand, the differences, such as elimination of the paragraph on temperance
(not mentioning the whole chapter), shows that the Lithuanian adaptation was
not word-for-word (or mind) following and that only the issues that were really
significant for the developers were taken over. The actualisation of the daily posture
shows the efforts of the Piarists monkhood to respond to the changes of the
time, to implement the principles of education covering the overall upbringing
of a person.
Keywords: Piarists, etiquette, household routine, teacher, student, drinking,
Enlightenment, Grand Duchy of Lithuania (the 18th century).