THE LEGEND OF THE
FOUNDATION
The life of an institution has the drama of human existence, it is a kind of biographical journey on the scale of history. Its cold form – a building, a functioning scheme, a regulation, wagons of documents – is animated by people and truly acquires identity through their personality. In the case of C.N.M.B., through that of the students and teachers who constituted it. They constitute it.
The life of an institution demands to be celebrated, like that of people, because it sums up the effort to exist, the effort and sagacity, the sacrifice and intelligence, the passion and courage, the ambition and professionalism. The best of the best. The Days of the National College “Mircea cel Bătrân” are, every year, such an occasion. Generation after generation, the students and teachers of the college sum up, during these days, the achievements of the present and contemplate the impressive past of the institution. Any candidate hoping to join us knows what the National College „Mircea cel Batrân” is now. Much less is known about its history.
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To paraphrase the Junimists, we will say that the origin of the College is lost in the night of time. In fact, in a period when Dobrogea was trying to recover after the War of Independence and to integrate organically into the political, economic, cultural and administrative system of the country. The need to establish a secondary education institution in Constanţa was then strongly felt, because, as was argued in the local press of the time, “Children who have passed the primary grades, if their parents do not have the means to send them to other cities, cannot continue their studies, and those with the means go abroad, for example to Constantinople, where they lose the sense of Romanianness.” In the cosmopolitan reality of Dobrogea, the pressing problem of secondary education arose. This is how it happened that, once the project was approved by the Ministry of Religions and Public Instruction, on September 1, 1896, a classical boys’ gymnasium was established in the city of Constanţa, the ancestor, we would say, of the current College.
A difficult problem proved to be, from the beginning and for a long time, finding an adequate educational space. The classical boys’ gymnasium initially operated in a building (which no longer exists) on the former Stradă a Justiţiei (now Mihai Viteazul) Street, on the corner of Stradă Rahovei and Stradă Luminei (now Lahovari), then in the houses of the former French consul Magrin. In its first school year, 1896 – 1897, the gymnasium included grades I and II of the lower cycle, with mathematics teacher Demetru Rădulescu as its director.
Against the backdrop of the increasingly sustained cultural movement since the beginning of the 20th century and on the initiative of the then director of the institution – Virgil Andronescu – in 1901 the gymnasium received the name “Mircea cel Bătrân”.
But the operating conditions of the institution remained precarious. In 1904, the school was located in a small premises on Lascăr Catargiu Street, after having passed through others, equally unsuitable. 130 students, generally children of poor people, small officials or merchants, occupied the 4 classrooms of the building. Parents with a helping hand continued to send their children to study elsewhere. A campaign to equip the school with the necessary equipment was carried out between 1901 and 1906, but with modest results. A suggestive, but also amusing fact, „even considering the vote and influence – small of course – in the municipal elections” (as noted in the archive documents), it was not possible to procure the sum of 120 lei for the construction of a cabinet necessary for storing teaching materials: stuffed birds, maps, laboratory instruments.
But in the spring of 1906, King Carol I visited the gymnasium, accompanied by the Minister of Education, the prefect and the mayor of the city. It was a decisive occasion to determine the change of the material base, including the premises in which the institution operated. His Majesty’s remarks regarding the role of the high school in the social life of the city, as „the only school that can contribute to the work of nationalism” were, as the teachers who witnessed the event would say years later, „the basis of the progress we know today.”
Starting with the following year, 1907, the life of the gymnasium would indeed experience an upward course. The new director, N.T.Negulescu, set conditions for local officials before accepting the position: the gymnasium should be arranged as a high school, the strict selection of full-time teachers, substantial contributions to the school’s equipment, the cessation of inspections carried out by the prefect! Benefiting from this relative autonomy, the institution’s management and teaching staff are engaged in a sustained effort to consolidate the training and education offered to students: the material base is enriched and diversified, including with cinematographic films, modern pedagogical methods are practiced, popularized and through demonstration lessons held outside the city, a select and numerous teaching staff is created, made up almost entirely of tenured teachers.
This collective effort led to increased public interest and support from local authorities for the Constanta school, so that in 1911 the gymnasium was transformed into a high school. The fact is recorded by the Order of the Constanta Prefecture (September 10), which asks the City Hall to delegate teachers from the „Mircea cel Bătrân” Gymnasium to take part, in the Capital, in the festive moment of officialization of the institution’s new identity. It is an important step, „for which both our side and the citizens made interventions with the Minister of Public Instruction and a favorable result was obtained”, declared the then director, Mr. N.T.Negulescu. Since its establishment, the profile of the high school has been oriented towards „real and practical sciences”, in accordance with the „spirit of the locality”. The first sections were, therefore, real and modern, and for a period, until 1918, when the Higher Commercial School was established in Constanța, the commercial one.
The organization of the high school was carried out in accordance with the „Haret Law” which stipulated that the secondary school for boys was to be divided into two cycles of four years each: the gymnasium (or lower high school course) ensured a unitary training for all students, the upper course being structured by specializations. Therefore, in 1911, a higher cycle was added to the gymnasium consisting of a „modern” section with a single class. It was not until the 1914-1915 school year that the high school’s organizational scheme was finally fixed. It included a lower and a higher cycle, each with four classes. Entry into the first grade took place following an admission exam, and passage to the upper course through a Capacity exam. The graduation diploma was obtained following a rigorous Baccalaureate exam. Starting with the seventh grade, students could opt for the real or the modern section.
Its growing importance in the educational life of the area led to the decision in 1913-1914 to build a special building for the functioning of the high school. Consequently, the City Hall ceded 6000 m2 of the city’s public garden to the Ministry of Religions and Public Instruction. Unfortunately, the outbreak of the First World War and Romania’s entry into the war interrupted the project.
The high school was entering one of the most dramatic periods of its existence. In August 1916, the Minister of Education, I.G.Duca, sent a circular to the prefects requesting them to visit the schools to talk to the students about the “righteous cause” of Romania’s participation in the war. The senior students and some of the teachers of the newly established high school went to the front as part of the 9th Infantry Division – Constanţa. In those historical circumstances, the high school gave its first heroes and martyrs, in the battles of Mărăşeşti, Oituz, Nămoloasa, Turtucaia. During the war, the building was transformed into a Romanian military hospital, and after the fall of the city, following the bombings of October 9, 1916, into a German military hospital. Under Bulgarian occupation, the schools were closed and those who demanded the reopening of the high school, teachers and citizens, were met with death threats. The exodus of the local population to Moldavia and Wallachia followed; in this context, the matriculation registers and part of the high school archive were transported, at great risk, to Hârşova.
The Romanian authorities returned to Constanța in December 1918, after the end of the war, and thus the high school classes were resumed at the beginning of the following year. However, the study conditions were disastrous, with most of the material base being destroyed, so that some first-grade students stood during classes; textbooks were missing and there was a serious shortage of teaching staff. In the first years after the war, classes had even reached 72 students.
To solve the problem of the institution’s facilities, a school committee was established, made up of teachers and parents, whose main task was to raise funds and purchase furniture and teaching materials, and to help poor students. The funds managed came from taxes, subsidies from the Prefecture and the City Hall, voluntary contributions, donations, benefits resulting from celebrations, book distribution and the sale of school supplies. But the problem of the premises remained essential. Because there were no funds, the city’s citizens were called upon, who, through subscription lists and donations, contributed massively to the re-initiation of the project. An unprecedented local solidarity was created. The high school was supported materially and morally by cooperatives, banks, chambers of commerce, associations and individuals, through donations in money, books and laboratory equipment, furnishings, scholarships and free medical visits.
On October 13, 1923, the foundation stone of the current high school building was finally laid, the funds necessary for the construction coming from the donations of the generous inhabitants of the city of Constanţa, from the subsidies of the City Hall and from those of the Ministry of Public Instruction. The inauguration of the imposing high school building will take place on October 26, 1928, together with the emotional celebration of half a century since the reunification of the ancient land of Dobrogea with the Mother Country. In the same year, the „Mircea cel Bătrân” High School is evaluated by the Ministry in the category of „E” type high schools, an index of the elite in Romanian high school education. More and more of its graduates are pursuing higher education at various faculties in the country or abroad (in Vienna, Berlin, Rome, Paris, Antwerp), so that it covers all fields of activity in the Dobrogea region. An interesting statistic from the beginning of the third decade indicates the subsequent specializations of the 256 graduates of the high school: officers, merchants, lawyers, bank clerks, doctors, journalists, clerks in the financial administration, on the railways or at the post office, accountants, teachers, pharmacists, magistrates, engineers, industrialists, a doctor of chemistry, a philosopher, a writer, a sculptor, an agronomist, a director in the Ministry of Labor, a director of a graphic arts establishment. Some of the graduates defended their doctorates at prestigious higher education institutions abroad.
The period 1931 – 1932 meant the transfer of the entire student body to the new premises and the consolidation of the prestige of the high school. In the interwar decades, the history of the institution was directly linked to the personality of its director, history teacher Gheorghe Coriolan, an exceptional pedagogue who led the destinies of the high school between October 1, 1920 – September 1, 1940. He was called “the director of the two decades”! The presence and dedication of the director, the exceptional quality of the teaching staff, the organization scheme of the instructional-educational process constituted the solid reinforcement that made the “Mircea cel Bătrân” High School in Constanța one of the most formidable secondary schools in the country. In an article in the Constanta magazine “Romania from the Sea” it was written in 1936: “All the cultural activity of Dobrogea radiated for decades from the chancellery of this school: journalism, conferences, publications, celebrations. The foreigners who learned books on the benches of this establishment began to feel Romanian, to sympathize with the national element and thus the school created, through the power of its influence and through the apostolate of its teachers in Romanian life, where the ravages of centuries had barely left a pale shadow. The graduates of this high school did honor to all our universities and those abroad by the preparation with which they left the school.”
The internal cultural life of the high school was supported, among others, by the activities of the “I.L. Caragiale” Students’ Society and by the school magazines published over the years: “Şoimii Dobrogei”, “Îndrumarea”, “Tinerimea Dobrogeană”, “Şoptiri Dobrogene”, “Aoptabe”, Zări Albastre”.
The economic crisis and then the Second World War affected the smooth running of the institution, as well as that of the entire Romanian society. The complexity and drama of the times also left their mark on the lives of the young people of Constanța in the forties and fifties of the last century. Some students and teachers were arrested and even convicted under suspicion of being sympathetic to the legionary movement; others lost their lives on the front. After the Second World War, when the high school premises were occupied by the Soviet army (1945-1958), the courses were held, in the afternoon, in the building of the „Domniţa Ileana” High School, today the „Mihai Eminescu” High School. This situation lasted until 1958.
In the post-war period, despite the communist system that began to shake the foundations of the Romanian school edifice, the “Mircea” high school maintained its good reputation, thanks primarily to the extraordinary dedication of its teachers. In 1974, the premises were expanded by building eight more classrooms, which form the so-called “new wing” of today, and a physical education room. By reacquiring this year (2004) the building where the County School Inspectorate operates, the old edifice of the high school will be reunited. With one exception: the former celebration hall which is the building of the current State Theater.
By the Order of the Minister of Education of May 20, 1996, the name of the “Mircea cel Bătrân” High School was changed to the “Mircea cel Bătrân” National College. It was the year of the Centennial celebration. 100 years ago the College was a “classical boys’ gymnasium”, with 74 students. Now we aim to become the first European college in the country.
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As in any creation, to last over time, the stone unites with the soul. There were many who put their soul into keeping the light of education alive in this part of the country. Hundreds of teachers dedicated themselves to the young “Mirchists”, they formed minds and characters. Many were personalities of Dobrogean and national education: from the older Demetru Rădulescu (first director), Ion Bănescu, Virgil Andonescu, Nicolae T. Negulescu, Gheorghe Coriolan, Constantin Mureşanu, Carol Blum, Nicolae Constantinescu-Pană, Ion Bentoiu, Anton Holban, Ion Fodor, Marin Ionescu-Dobrogeanu, Nicolae Georgescu-Roegen, Gheorghe Carp, Ion Morozov, Nicolae Zăgoicea, Ion Banu, Grigore Sălceanu, Petre Caragea, Vasile Neacşu, Ion Vodă, Ion Zaharia, Petre Raicopol, Ion Bădică, Ion Ciocan, to the closest ones: Sever Baltac, Valeriu Anghelescu, Florin Pietreanu, Munteanu, etc.
Among the graduates are: sculptor Ion Jalea, writer Ion Marin Sadoveanu, playwright Grigore Sălceanu, poet Virgil Teodorescu, translator Taşcu Gheorghiu, writer Eugen Lumezianu, painter Lucian Grigorescu, writer and university professor Nicolae Timiras, mathematicians Nicolae N. Mihăileanu and Ion Cristea, university professor Emanuel Vasiliu, writers Pericle Martinescu, Pavel Chihaia, Corneliu Leu, Bogdan Ghiu, Ioan Micu, director Stere Gulea, world-renowned surgeon Alexandru Pesamosca, violinist Varujan Cozaghian, tenor Vasile Moldoveanu, pianist Hary Tavitian, biologist Marian Gomoiu, university professor Petre Frangopol, economist Paul Bran, rector of A.S.E. Bucharest
Many of the graduates of the last decade complete their professional training by taking doctoral exams in major university centers in France, Germany, Italy and the United States.
The current life of the College is reflected in the exceptional results obtained by its students in national and international school competitions, in the participation of teaching staff in training programs initiated by the European Union (the “Lingua Comenius, Arion” programs), in the development of European cultural and educational projects, in the initiation and development of the “Laboratory School” program, as well as in numerous other activities.