Stanisław August Poniatowski - Establishment of the National Education Commission

The suppression of the Society of Jesus by Pope Clement XIV (1769-1774) on 21 July 1773 necessitated a reform of the education system in many European countries, including the Republic of Poland, where Jesuit schools prevailed.

A resolution of the Sejm of 14 October 1773 established the Commission of National Education (KEN), to which the universities of Kraków and Vilnius, several dozen academic and monastic schools, four military schools – excluding the Knights' School – and quite a number of parish institutions were subordinated. The KEN was a collegiate body, consisting of eight members appointed for a six-year term. To develop curricula, teaching materials and implement the reform in practice, the Society for Elementary Books was set up in 1775, and its members included: Grzegorz Piramowicz, Hugo Kołłątaj, Kazimierz Narbutt and Antoni Popławski. KEN undertook to implement an educational programme in which learning and upbringing were subordinated to the good of the Homeland.

KEN was commemorated by three medals struck at the Warsaw Mint by Jan Filip Holzhaeusser (1741-1792). Their obverses are decorated with the bust of the King, their reverses are filled with Latin inscriptions with laudatory content. On two of the medals we can admire a portrait of Stanisław August in an oak wreath, unusual for most works, which according to the ancient tradition was used to decorate people for special civic merits. Holzhaeusser transferred the portrait of Stanisław August onto the medal in question. The portrait was designed in 1766 for the coronation medal, of which the monarch was particularly fond. The bust of the monarch describes the content: ‘Stanislaw August by God's grace king of Poland grand duke of Lithuania’. At the intersection of the neck the author placed the signature I P H. The Latin inscription on the reverse explains the motive of the work, translated after Count Edward Raczynski: ‘Stanisław Augustus the King to the upbringing of the Polish youth translated by eight commissioners, with the permission of the Sejm. Year 1774’. The eight commissioners of the KEN were then: Adam Czartoryski, August Sulkowski, Antoni Poniński, Andrzej Zamoyski, Ignacy Massalski, Joachim Chreptowicz, Ignacy Potocki and Michał Poniatowski.

Prints of this medal in silver and bronze are known. Our copy was bought to the Museum in 1968.

Tomasz Markiewicz