Useful Knowledge and Strategies of Its Dissemination

The manuscript of the textbook, Polizey- und Cameralwissenschaften, that the court commissioned was written, or to be more precise, compiled, by Joseph von Sonnenfels in a very short period of time in the autumn of 1763.Footnote ¹⁰ The fact that it borrowed liberally from the works of Johann Heinrich Gottlob Justi, Georg Heinrich Zinke (1792–69), and the French physiocrats, was not a secret to contemporaries and has been analyzed in detail by modern scholars.Footnote ¹¹ As Simon Karstens has shown, the practical and experienced officials of the Imperial Chamber (Kaiserliche auch Kaiserlich-Königliche Hofkammer) were not entirely satisfied with the quality of the text. Having paid tribute to the clarity of style and praised the author's diligence, they still recommended that he take one more year to correct minor mistakes and clarify some theoretical statements.Footnote ¹² Maria Theresa, however, did not want to wait. She ordered turning the course as soon as possible into a universal tool for creating a whole new generation of officials, and foresaw an even broader application for her subjects. On the eve of the 1763 academic year, in a note to Austro-Bohemian Chancellor Count Rudolph Chotek (1706–71), she wrote: “By means of this resolution it is to be announced in all my lands, that those who attend the course and make good progress would be preferred to other applicants for admission to the imperial and royal service.”Footnote ¹³ A similar note was simultaneously issued to the Hungarian and Transylvanian chancellors, Count Francis Esterhazy (1715–85) and Count Gabriel Bethlen (1580–1629). Her desire to introduce modern administrative techniques and approaches to economy, finance, and administration, in particular in the more remote and less developed parts of her realm, is evident from the following remark: “Those young Croats who are at the endowed Chaos Institution (Chaos'sche Stiftung) are to be explicitly advised to attend this course.”Footnote ¹⁴

It would thus appear that unlike Prussia a quarter of a century earlier, where a similar course served the purpose of “domesticating” the estates, in the Habsburg Lands it was to serve the task of homogenizing administrative norms, practices, and techniques throughout the monarchy, and as a consequence strengthening the sovereign's position. This conclusion is supported by an instruction the empress issued in 1766, again addressed to counts Esterházy and Bethlen: “Those Hungarians and Transylvanians, who have attended the course on Polizey- und Cameralwissenschaften and can prove their good diligence and progress with a certificate signed by Sonnenfels, will deserve special attention in appointments to positions in economic, or town-administration, and in the future it is recommended that the counties also give preference in employment to these people, which those applying to this course should be made aware of.”Footnote ¹⁵ Bernd Wunder entitled his book on the rise of early modern south German bureaucracy Privileging and Disciplining.Footnote ¹⁶ To adopt this formula to the specific conditions of the Habsburg monarchy, one might say that having successfully completed Sonnenfels's course, future officials were “privileged” with preferable admission to administrative positions and by the same token “disciplined” by means of the rigid requirement to observe the ideological and professional norms formulated in the course.

To facilitate access to such courses, Maria Theresa in 1767 created eight scholarships at 200 florins each for students from the Kingdom of Hungary, and four scholarships for those from the Principality of Transylvania. These scholarships were granted exclusively on the basis of Sonnenfels's evaluation of talented but needy students. Nominations were made by the Hungarian Lieutenancy Council, the Croatian Council, and the Transylvanian Gubernium, who were to present a list of suitable applicants to the empress via the Hungarian and Transylvanian chancelleries. Financial issues were in turn monitored by the chamber. The annual reports and recommendations of these bodies allow us to reconstruct how this system functioned, the names of scholarship recipients, and, in many cases, the degree to which they met the requirements of their teachers. However, the authorities soon found that a mere twelve scholarships in the imperial capital could not satisfy the growing demand. For this reason, the court was constantly redistributing the total scholarship fund (1,600 fl.) to support as many students as possible by transferring the course to local educational centers, where the cost of living was much lower. Thus, in 1769, three of the eight scholarships in Vienna were moved to the Warasdin (Varaždin/Varasd) Political-Economic College in Croatia, where the 600 fl. were divided into one scholarship of 100 fl. for the best pupil, one scholarship of 80 fl. to the second-best, and six or seven scholarships of 60 fl. each to less advanced students. The following year the number of scholarships in Vienna was reduced to two, while three more scholarships (600 fl.) were transferred to Tyrnau (Trnava/Nagyszombat) University, where the same scheme as in Warasdin was applied. Between 1766 and 1777 more than 140 scholarship recipients in Vienna, Tyrnau, and Warasdin (later Zagreb) were educated at the court's expense (see Table 1).Footnote ¹⁷

Table 1:

Royal scholarships for attendants of Sonnenfels's course, 1766–77

Exactly who was to enjoy preference in the distribution of the scholarships and why was a question the authorities permanently confronted. The desire to achieve a proper balance between meritocracy and philanthropy, just as in other areas of Theresian social policy, in the long run contributed to the birth of a modern state with welfare state overtones. Thus, for example, in 1775 the empress noted on the Hungarian Chancellery's proposals concerning the distribution of the scholarships in Tyrnau University: “In case, when among those who are considered to be deserving a subsidy, there are those who have sufficient financial means, let their places be given to the needier ones.”Footnote ¹⁸ The Hungarian Lieutenancy Council's School Commission objected: “There is no need to take into account greater or lesser degrees of poverty, inasmuch as subsidies for those who are enrolled as imperial-royal scholarship recipients, are to be allotted without any special attention to wealth, but exclusively to praiseworthy progress in the sciences, and for this particular reason awarded to those deserving the special reward.”Footnote ¹⁹ The Hungarian Chancellery in its turn, making a final proposition to be sanctioned by the monarch, took Maria Theresa's side and recommended that all other things being equal a poorer student should be preferred to a well-to-do one.Footnote ²⁰ In this way philanthropic motives paved the way for talented and clever youngsters of lower origin into the administrative elites of the monarchy. Furthermore, admission based exclusively on knowledge and skill regardless of social status and tempered with elements of a would-be welfare state was ground-breaking for its time.

The admission practices under scrutiny also demonstrate how the principle of meritocracy was making advances with the help of premodern patrimonial networks. The informal character of these kinds of social ties makes them almost invisible to contemporary scholars, unless one comes across references to a client-patron relationship in private correspondences or other, often unlikely, sources. In fact, many of the scholarship recipients were in one way or another tied to persons having access to exclusive information and capable of rendering their support. For example, a young man by the name of Johann Nyagoe was admitted to Sonnenfels's course most likely because he was a relative (son or nephew) of the Transylvanian chancellor's estate administrator (oeconomiae secretarius) of the same name, mentioned in Count Bethlen's testament.Footnote ²¹ Similarly, Thomas Szlabik might be a son of Andreas Szlabig (or Szlabik), the former tutor of Hungarian chancellor Nicolas Pálffy's children and member of archduchess Maria Christina's Hofstatt in Pressburg.Footnote ²² This and similar cases illustrate the importance of personal contacts with mighty aristocrats, who were clearly facilitating access for gifted people of lower origin.Footnote ²³ Proximity to the decision-making bodies was also very useful. The young Michael and Philipp von Seeberg were admitted to the Cameralwissenschaften course in Tyrnau evidently because their father, Zacharias Wanckhel von Seeberg, was a councillor at the Transylvanian Court Chancellery. He first sent them (together with their brother Maximus) to the Theresian College in Vác (Waitzen), where six scholarships were reserved for the nobility from the principality.Footnote ²⁴ Having entered the “pool” of scholarship recipients, two of them later continued their education in Tyrnau.

The Nobility: New Ideals and New Requirements

In conjunction with open lectures at the university, Sonnenfels taught the same discipline to pupils of elite schools, such as the Theresian Noble College of the Society of Jesus (from 1773 the Theresian Noble Academy, also known as Theresianum) and the Savoyard Noble Academy, founded by Maria Theresa Felicitas of Savoy (née Lichtenstein) and run by the Order of Piarists.Footnote ²⁵ He did not question the “established though unjust privileges” of his pupils (as Robert Kann put it), but rather saw his mission as imbuing young aristocrats with a feeling of social responsibility.Footnote ²⁶ In a public lecture held on 14 November 1767 before the noble youth of the Savoyard Academy, Sonnenfels claimed: “The privileges and dignities of your ancestors belong to you only in the expectation that you are not insignificant armor-bearers of your ancestors, but strive to repay the previously made debts through the greatness of your future service.”Footnote ²⁷ Four years later, in his famous treatise “On the Love of the Fatherland,” presented in the Theresian College, he also addressed the nobility: “In Europe people think that virtues and merits have an inheritable nature; this principle would be just if the nobility justifies its privileges … when it uses them to make citizens happy and consider it below their dignity to lag behind lower classes in observing the law, showing loyalty to the sovereign, and fulfilling the duties of a citizen.”Footnote ²⁸ All this was taught in the framework of Polizey- und Cameralwissenschaften.

To underscore the exclusivity of the course and the importance of the knowledge it conveyed, the court welcomed examinations on Cameralwissenschaften in the form of solemn public ceremonies.Footnote ²⁹ This old practice, whereby an examinee answered questions from a pre-printed syllabus in front of a distinguished board, including ecclesiastic and lay dignitaries and respected professors, was well-known in major universities and colleges of the Society of Jesus. On some occasions, examinations were combined with book presentations, written by professors and presented to the “noble and learned” public by carefully selected students. Solemn examinations on imperial law, history, or physics held in the Vienna Theresianum, due to its proximity to the court, received special mention in the semi-official Wienerisches Diarium.Footnote ³⁰ We do not know to what extent other pupils were drilled to give answers to the questions they received in advance, but Sonnenfels insisted that his pupils had to demonstrate their ability by giving spontaneous answers to unexpected questions. On 15 August 1771, his sixteen-year-old pupil, Count Anton Apponyi (1755–1817), presented the abovementioned treatise on love of the fatherland in the framework of a solemn examination on Cameralwissenschaften. His father, Georg Apponyi (1736–82), was a councillor in the Hungarian Lieutenancy Council and Tolna County high sheriff. (The young man would later “inherit” both of these dignities.) He gave answers on seventy-five questions in German from the “science” of police, commerce, and finance, and dedicated his performance to the empress. She, as often happened, was absent, but was represented by her official representative at the examination, the president of the Vienna Court of Audit (Rechnungskammer), Count Ludwig Zinzendorf (1721–80).Footnote ³¹ The remaining board was recruited from the imperial and royal administration, as well as the academic community, which signified the triumph of power imbued with knowledge and knowledge advanced by power.

Imperial law and Cameralwissenschaften were, in principle, the two major examinations held in German for native speakers and foreigners alike. At the same time, the propagandistic value of the examination passed publically by prominent aristocrats was so high, that for those of foreign origin who had spent just one or two years at the college and were not ready to be examined in German, answering in French (Count Angelo Serponti), or Italian (Prince Francesco Ruspoli [1752–1829], the future ambassador to the Naples) was permitted.Footnote ³² By and large, at the Theresianum Sonnenfels's public examination was taken by the sons of most of the prominent statesmen of the monarchy and, as with the examination on imperial law, signified their intention to join the highest ranks of the imperial-royal bureaucracy, to which, as a rule, their parents and grandparents had already belonged. It also served as a public example to their fellow citizens and, last but not least, showed that they would be able to share the same values with their future subordinates.

Sonnenfels's Courses as Bureaucratic Catechism

Because the main aim of the course was to convey its useful knowledge to those who would later serve as minor clerks at lower levels of the administration, the court welcomed all initiatives that might contribute to this goal. In 1763, on the initiative of the Hungarian chancellor, Count Francis Esterházy, a political-economic college was established on one of the chancellor's estates, Wartberg (Senec/Szenc), with the court's financial support. This college was designed in the first instance to educate impoverished nobles and commoners, who saw their way to social ascent by acquiring qualifications in needed professions such as accountancy, geodesism, cartography, and engineering. Initially the college was intended to receive students from all over the monarchy, but due to a lack of funding it remained a breeding-ground mostly for Hungarian Chamber officials. Indeed, attempts by Vienna to reserve some places for young men from the Austro-Bohemian Hereditary Lands were met with deep dissatisfaction by the Hungarian authorities. All in all, this project was a partial success. In 1776 the college's main building was damaged by fire to such an extent that it made no sense to invest in its renovation. The school was transferred to another town in Esterházy's domain, Tata (Totis), but a fatal coincidence of bad financing and the low academic profile of applicants (often unable to succeed in highly specialized disciplines in German) led to the dissolution of the college in 1780.Footnote ³³

One of the court's long-term goals was to turn Sonnenfels's course into a form of political catechization. This becomes even more obvious when one considers to what an extent priests were welcomed in the lectures. When Caspar Ehrenfels began teaching Polizey- und Cameralwissenschaften in Tyrnau in 1769, Maria Theresa ordered making the course obligatory for the students of the Theological Faculty. The same year the empress demanded diligent attendance of the course by the Bohemian clergy.Footnote ³⁴ According to the Wienerisches Diarium the first priest who took the public examination at the University of Vienna was Johann Albrecht Huber in 1772. Count Anton Pergen (1725–1814) stood in for the empress, and the board represented the imperial-royal bureaucracy, academics, and the clerics in exactly the same manner as it did for secular students. The Wienerisches Diarium suggested that “his example will undoubtedly lead to dissemination of this highly important knowledge among the members of his profession.”Footnote ³⁵ This wish came true after the dissolution of the Society of Jesus. Dozens of young, well-educated, and unemployed ex-Jesuits enrolled in Sonnenfels's course hoping to improve their chances in competing for a modest position in the administrative apparatus. Still, the chances of success remained poor for this group of students. Michael Heinzmann, who in his own words, had “lost his source of income after the dissolution of the Society and found himself in the most miserable condition” saw his application declined despite his reported knowledge of Latin and French, as well as having attended the course on Cameralwissenschaften at the University of Vienna, on the pretext of the absence of available vacancies.Footnote ³⁶ Another ex-Jesuit, Franz Pindlmayer, was seemingly luckier. He got an unpaid position as a Praktikant at the Hungarian Chamber in Pressburg (Bratislava/Pozsony), yet it held out little chance for promotion to even a modestly paid job.Footnote ³⁷

Another group that was the target of “political catechization” was the officers of the Hungarian Noble Guard. This institution was created in 1760 to give the provincial nobility from Hungary and Transylvania an opportunity to spend three to five or more years at court to improve their German and to receive social polish through their participation in the court ceremonial. After 1774 guardsmen enjoyed special instruction in languages and in Polizey- und Cameralwissenschaften, which were taught by Johann Hauck.Footnote ³⁸ One of the far-reaching goals behind the creation of the noble guard was to provide the local administration with skilful county officials. In an age when a career was as much the result of slow immersion in office rather than the product of academic education, a university certificate could not guarantee young officers an automatic preference over other applicants, yet many of those who had invested their free time in study in the imperial capital were rewarded with positions in central and local royal or county administration. The career of Michael Csergheő (b. 1738) from Abaúj County is a case in point. His father (a county notary) died when the boy was just three years old. Csergheő received an education, was employed by the county administration as a minor clerk and at the age of twenty-one was enrolled as one of the very first Hungarian guardsman. He spent eleven years (1760–71) in the Habsburg capital. His skills in letter writing and clever self-promotion helped him, without a doubt, to win the empress's benevolence. “I did not waste a single hour,” wrote Csergheő in an eloquent petition, “but have used time free from my routine duties for learning natural law and the law of nations, Cameralwissenschaften in accordance with Sonnenfels's principles, and, last but not least, have made progress in the German and Italian languages, and all that with the passionate zeal to be even more useful to Your Majesty.”Footnote ³⁹ He was eventually employed at the Hungarian Chamber in 1771 and soon promoted to the vice secretaries, becoming the secretary in 1776 and filling this position until 1783.Footnote ⁴⁰

If the names of some 140 scholarship recipients (Appendix 1) were reconstructed through a systematic exploration of certain dossiers in the Court Chamber archives in Vienna, the names of those who attended Sonnenfels's lectures at their own expense could be established only through surveying petitions, job applications, reports, and similar official letters. Behind every such statement there is a unique human destiny, as, for example, that of Ludwig Fejes, who applied for a position in the Hungarian Chamber: “From my early youth, I studied the useful sciences indispensable for royal service. After [studying at] the philosophical faculty I studied civil and Hungarian law in theory, then spent six more years perfecting myself … among other things by living in Vienna at my own expense and studying the German language and Polizey- und Cameralwissenschaften.” In his own words, he had invested all his “wealth” in knowledge and expected that the empress would remunerate him with an appointment.Footnote ⁴¹ Fejes was employed by the Hungarian Chamber for a couple of years as a trainee (Praktikant). With every year, the number of less successful contestants grew. In the long run, the reputation of Sonnenfels and the high expectations of those desiring to join the ranks of the administration contributed to the extraordinary popularity of this course among outsiders, who believed they would be better qualified for desired jobs if they produced a certificate from Sonnenfels or one of his trained teachers. This might partly explain why this course survived in the secondary-school curricula all over the monarchy in the next half a century despite its obvious obsolescence.Footnote ⁴²

Clarity, Conciseness, Uniformity

By the end of the 1770s, when the course was widely taught throughout the monarchy, Joseph von Sonnenfels was occupied with a no less ambitious project. This time his literary qualities were in demand, as he strove to reform the business writing style (Geschäftsstil) of the Habsburg monarchy. Early modern German (and Latin) bureaucratic language in the Habsburg Lands was very complex, in many ways archaic and vague.Footnote ⁴³ The growth of the administrative apparatus and consequent circulation of notes, vota, memoranda, and so forth, made it imperative that all these documents be brief and written in understandable language to allow for the quick and efficient dispatch of business. In 1781 Sonnenfels started lecturing on how to write documents of different sorts in a clear and comprehensible German. His knowledge and expertise were also in demand at the Council of State, which was considering new, shorter, and simpler forms for written applications and petitions submitted to the authorities. Sonnenfels held open, free lectures on the subject at the law faculty of the University of Vienna in the early morning hours, to facilitate access for those who had to be at their offices at eight or nine in the morning.Footnote ⁴⁴ No special programs or “national” quotas were introduced so as to facilitate dissemination of this “useful knowledge” to as many as possible. The lectures were an immediate success. Notes made by those attending were carefully kept and copied for others who wanted to meet the new professional requirements. Although Sonnenfels himself first published his lectures in the form of a textbook in 1784, his devoted pupils did so much earlier.Footnote ⁴⁵ In an anonymous manual dated 1782 the author's preface reads: “I took the trouble of diligent attendance of the free-of-charge lectures, held out of pure love of the Fatherland, on Geschäftsstil of a certain man, to whose depth in learning, elegance in speech and zeal for improvement of literature Austrian youth owes the greater part of its culture; and I faithfully noted samples [of the new style] sounding from his mouth…. Why should I hesitate to call by name my leader, my benefactor? This is Joseph von Sonnenfels.”Footnote ⁴⁶

The reform of Geschäftsstil in a wider sense had a direct impact on every subject of the monarchy. Appeals of subjects to the authorities at that time were written in the form of detailed, often deeply personal letters, in which one could hardly discern the essence of the message unless one read it very slowly, with much concentration.Footnote ⁴⁷ On 2 January 1782 Emperor Joseph II issued a decree prescribing the new way of appealing to the monarch.Footnote ⁴⁸ The concept of short and clearly structured petitions was worked out by Sonnenfels, who later referred to this decree in his textbook: “His Most Sacred Majesty has used the opportunity to define everything which is required for a petition in order to put an end to digressions and repetitions, insomuch as they make arguments not weightier, but vaguer, and the narration itself becomes more complicated.”Footnote ⁴⁹ From now on any eloquent title was replaced by the simple name of the addressee, be it the monarch, a chancellery, or the court. The salutation was to be followed by the essence of the request and supported by numbered arguments, from more important to less significant. The petition was to include the reason (Veranlassung), request (Bitte), and grounds (Gründe) for it. In the conclusion, the undersigned was to refrain from referring to him- or herself as “the most humble” or “most obedient,” but simply write the full name, address, and social status or, if applicable, occupation.Footnote ⁵⁰ Despite many changes in curricula Geschäftsstil was still included as a required course in the fourth year of education in the law faculty as late as 1848.Footnote ⁵¹

As with the course on Polizey- und Cameralwissenschaften, it is virtually impossible to know who attended this course, unless they mentioned it in some written form. One of the future intimate friends of Ludwig van Beethoven, the Hungarian nobleman of Slovakian origin, Nicolas Zmeskal (Zmeškal, 1759–1833), applied for a vacant position in the Hungarian Court Chancellery in 1784. Among the reasons he gave for why he deserved this appointment was his attendance of Sonnenfels's course on Geschäftsstil. He also appended a certificate signed by the professor himself.Footnote ⁵² Private correspondence of the age provides interesting evidence of the paramount importance proficiency in Geschäftsstil had not only among minor clerks but also in aristocratic circles. The family archives of the Hungarian counts Károlyi contain a letter, written by the house tutor, Vincent Henyey, to Count Anton Károlyi (1732–91), whose son he accompanied during his school years in Vác and Vienna, noting that Prince Liechtenstein had paid Sonnenfels a sum of 1,000 fl. for private tuition in Geschäftsstil.Footnote ⁵³ This sheds a whole new light on the role Sonnenfels played in preparing new generations of Viennese aristocrats for higher office. Unwilling to attend public lectures and memorize the catechism-like textbooks, they were prepared to pay for exclusive private lessons. Had they not done so, they might not have been considered competent leaders of their social inferiors, who—in tune with the new requirements—had attended Sonnenfels's lectures.Footnote ⁵⁴

Far and Beyond

From the very beginning Sonnenfels was confronted with a twofold task: he had to train hordes of those attending his course in hopes of subsequent quicker promotion, and to select the most brilliant of those to teach the same course following the teacher's guidelines in other universities of the monarchy. Sonnenfels's statement that all professors of this science in the monarchy were his pupils was by no means an exaggeration. Indeed, Ignaz de Luca (1746–99) in Linz and later in Vienna, Josef Ignaz Butschek/Buček (1741–1821) in Prag, Josef Buresch in Graz, Leopold Schulz in Klagenfurt, Karl Krobath in Laibach (Ljubljana), Caspar Paul Ehrenfels in Tyrnau, Adalbert Adam Barics/Barić (1742–1813) in Warasdin, and later in Zagreb and Buda/Pest, Antal Dobokay in Klausenburg (Cluj-Napoka/Kolozsvár), and, last but not least, beyond the monarchy's borders, Mikhail Balugyánszky (1769–1847) in St. Petersburg were his students.Footnote ⁵⁵ Looking at this group of graduates Karstens concluded that the combination of direct personal contacts, patronage, and cooperation later resulted in a network of students and alumni that could be mobilized to mutual benefit.Footnote ⁵⁶

Yet it would be an exaggeration to suggest that Sonnenfels was fortunate to have only talented pupils. As he himself had only been employed at the University of Vienna in 1763 after a stringent examination, held by a special commission, he demanded the same competitive and meritocratic procedure for those of his pupils who were to teach his courses elsewhere.Footnote ⁵⁷ But the demand for talented teachers was higher than the supply of graduates. From 1765 to 1768 candidates for these positions were given eight days to write an essay, in which they were asked to address three questions of the professor's choice. If Butschek or Barics belonged to those who were highly esteemed by their professor,Footnote ⁵⁸ Schultz and Krobath, in Sonnenfels's own words, simply copied parts of his lecture and only received their appointments due to the lack of better applicants.Footnote ⁵⁹ Sonnenfels always insisted that the examination include an oral part similar to the one he himself had undergone. By 1768 the written examination was formally complemented by an oral one.

Robert Kann was skeptical about the outcome of Sonennfels's pedagogical activities: “None of his students, with the possible exception of Ignaz de Luca, rose above the level of well-trained efficiency to standards of independent thinking and action. None of them even tried to withstand the pressing of advancing reaction…. He must take part of the blame for having failed to comprehend that the bureaucratic system, supported and reformed by him with so much sincere zeal, was outdated in a far deeper sense than he ever realized.”Footnote ⁶⁰ It is certainly true that Sonnenfels was often confronted with poorly educated, intellectually immature, mediocre individuals incapable of profiting very much from his courses. But if one looks beyond the borders of the Hereditary Lands, where Kann's focus lay, his conclusion underestimates, if not the intellectual potential of particular students, then their role as transmitters of the new knowledge and the system of values associated with it in the more remote corners of the monarchy.

The case of Adalbert Barics provides an example of both the felicity of Sonnenfels's choice and his pupil's commitment. A Hungarian nobleman of Slavic descent born in southern Hungary, Barics was recommended to head the recently founded Political-Economic College in Warasdin in 1769 (most likely due to his language proficiency in the Southern Slavic vernacular). The young man travelled to Croatia, which was completely alien to him, assumed the chair and succeeded in educating a dozen students annually despite their poor German, insufficient academic qualifications, low motivation, and, last but not least, insufficient and irregular financing.Footnote ⁶¹ And yet he did not miss any opportunity to render support to talented youngsters, always recommending those who showed a real commitment to learning for transfer to Zagreb, “where there is a university and they might profit from lectures on different sciences.”Footnote ⁶² Barics translated Sonnenfels's textbook into Latin, although the manuscript has not survived. In 1773 he moved to the University of Zagreb, where he continued to teach Polizey- und Cameralwissenschaften as well as work on his treatise, Statistica Europae.Footnote ⁶³ In 1777 he was invited to Buda University (recently moved from Tyrnau to the ancient capital of Hungary). The great respect he enjoyed among his colleagues there is illustrated by a revealing anecdote. When, due to some bureaucratic formalities, his annual salary turned out to be 200 fl. less than that of other professors in the law faculty, the royal school district director, Anton Vörös, covered the difference from his own income.Footnote ⁶⁴ In 1786 Barics was appointed the rector of Pest University and held this position till 1804.

The career of another of Sonnenfels's pupils, Theodor Jankovics (1741–1814), is equally instructive. He was a commoner by birth. His father was a notary in Neusatz (Novi Sad/Új-Vidék), but as one learns from the father's petition for a noble title, he was also related to the Greek-Orthodox bishop of Temeswar (Timişoara/Temesvár), Vikentije Jovanović Vidak (1730–80).Footnote ⁶⁵ The cleric had noticed the boy's inclination to the sciences and languages and saw to Theodor's early education. Most likely it was Vidak, who, having learned about the introduction of the Transylvanian quota in 1767, helped the young man get to Vienna. At the end of the academic year Sonnenfels evaluated the young Serb as the best in the group and drew the attention of the authorities to his talent for languages.Footnote ⁶⁶ However, four of Jankovics's fellows submitted a petition to the empress, complaining that a non-Transylvanian had deprived them and their compatriots of modest material support and a possible means of social ascent.Footnote ⁶⁷ The only skillful student among them was Daniel Lazarini, whom Sonnenfels had ranked second (after Jankovics). Lazarini had already graduated from the Jesuit Academy in Klausenburg; attended courses on natural, civil, canon, and imperial law at the University of Vienna; and reported proficiency in five languages (Hungarian, Walachian, Illyrian, Latin, and German).Footnote ⁶⁸ As to the co-signatories of the petition, Sonnenfels stated: “[Anton] Dobokay and [Ignaz] Engedi simply do not know the German language and I cannot report about any profit whatsoever [they gained] from my lectures, consequently I see no reason to pay them a stipend, unless they make themselves familiar with this language.”Footnote ⁶⁹

Jankovics, feeling his stay at the university and future career in danger, turned to Maria Theresa with a petition composed in stylistically perfect German and begged the empress to let him finish the course: “In fact, with regard to my forefathers and my origin, I am neither a Transylvanian, nor a Hungarian, and have no claims to the graces reserved for these nations, but I am an Illyrian, a most faithful Illyrian of Your Royal-Imperial Apostolic Majesty, who has already enjoyed the highest grace for one year as a recipient of a stipend of the Transylvanian Chancellery. I am the first Illyrian, since the Illyrian people have sworn alliegence to the House of Austria, who has attended academic lecutres in Vienna and has learned juridical and cameralist sciences in order to serve the state and turn into a useful subject and citizen.”Footnote ⁷⁰

Maria Theresa, relying on Sonnenfels's judgment, let Jankovics finish the course, and the young Illyrian later proved to be worthy of the high esteem he thus enjoyed. In 1774 he was ennobled for his prominent role in elementary school reform among the Greek Orthodox Serbs of the Austrian monarchy. Furthermore, when the St. Petersburg court was looking for education experts of preferably Slavic origin and possibly Greek Orthodox faith in the neighboring Habsburg Lands, the Hungarian Chancellor Count Francis Esterházy recommended Jankovics to Ambassador Dimitrij Golitzin (1721–93) as a consultant for the ongoing elementary school reform in Russia.Footnote ⁷¹ In 1782 Jankovics proudly reported to the Hungarian Vice Chancellor Count Charles Pálffy (1735–1816): “My project of how to organize the elementary schools has been approved by the [Russian] court and consequently I have nothing to wish, but to do the duties of my profession.”Footnote ⁷²

It is noteworthy that while in Hungary and Croatia stress was laid on the incorporation of Cameralwissenschaften into the framework of “national” university curricula, the Transylvanian Chancellery preferred to continue educating future civil servants in Vienna: “The youth from Transylvania … in this city apart from this course have an opportunity to practice themselves in other useful sciences (which are missing in the Principality) and at the same time learn the German language and the Viennese way of life.”Footnote ⁷³ The case of the young Transylvanian Anton Dobokay (one of those who had complained about Jankovics's abuse of the quota reserved for the principality) is a case in point. He arrived in Vienna in 1767 without sufficient knowledge of German and after a year in the imperial capital was entitled to only half of the scholarship. Yet his diligence and, not least, the goodwill of the Transylvanian Court Chancellery, which allowed him to spend five more years in Vienna at the expense of the chamber, finally yielded positive results. Slowly progressing in Cameralwissenschaften, Dobokay eventually became Sonnenfels's assistant, helping his teacher educate other ill-prepared Transylvanian youth. His salary was in fact paid by one of the scholarships, and his primary task was to summarize Sonnenfels's lectures in Latin to make their essence clear to the newcomers. Later, he returned to Klausenburg, and at the turn of the nineteenth century still taught the Polizey- und Cameralwissenschaften there.

Among those who attended Sonnenfels's lectures in the 1780s was Mihály (Mikhail) Balugyánszky (1769–1847), who later had a spectacular career in the Russian Empire. An ethnic Ruthenian born in a village at the eastern border of the Kingdom of Hungary, he studied first in Kaschau (Košice/Kassa) and then at the University of Vienna. Later, Balugyánszky held the law chair at the Royal Academy in Grossvardein (Oradea Mare/Nagyvárad) and in 1796 held one of the chairs at the law faculty of Pest University. In 1803 he was invited to St. Petersburg, where a year later he received a professorship at the Pedagogical Institute (the forerunner of St. Petersburg University). Alongside his teaching activities he was an active member of the legislative commission created to codify the Russian legislation. A highly respected jurist, Balugyánszky taught law to Emperor Alexander I's younger brothers, grand dukes Nikolai (future Emperor Nicholas I, r. 1825–55) and Mikhail. For his diverse and highly professional activities he was awarded a Russian title and died a senate member and privy councillor.Footnote ⁷⁴