Að glæða sálargáfurnar og auka þekkinguna

REJUVENATING THE SOUL AND ENHANCING KNOWLEDGE | THE BEGINNING OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IN HAFNARFJÖRÐUR
15
It may be said that the foundations of public education in Hafnarfjörður can be traced to a pledge which
the Reverend Þórarinn Böðvarsson of Garðar on Álftanes and his wife Þórunn Jónsdóttir signed in the
year 1877 to commemorate their son Böðvar, who had died in 1869. This pledge was used to found a
public school in Hafnarfjörður, which was primarily intended as an elementary school for the parish of
Garðar and, circumstances permitting, was also a school for general education, where it was possible for
any self-respecting member of the public to gain learning as was considered appropriate.
There was certainly a need for this since there was no school in the parish at the time, and Rev. Þórarinn
was particularly interested in matters concerning child-rearing and education. At this time it was also one
of the tasks of priests to supervise educational matters in their parishes. The situation in the parish of
Garðar was poor when Rev. Þórarinn took office and in a letter to the authorities for the diocese in 1860
he said among other things:
“more than a third of children aged 10-14 years in the
parish are illiterate and the situation is particularly
bad in Hafnarfjörður.”
The state of education was considerably different in the other Nordic countries compared to Iceland. It
may be said that before the year 1870 there were actually very few elementary schools in operation in
the country. This was the situation despite the fact that Iceland was part of the Kingdom of Denmark,
where a law had been enacted in 1814 whereby children who were not taught at home were required to
go to a school that was publicly funded.