Gábor Bethlen Reformed High School

The Grammar School – connected to the Debrecen boarding-school – became a nonstop active latin school in 1723. In 1822 on the place of the old school the new Reformed Old Grammar School was built. In 1883 they extended it with a new wing, the building that is used today was built between 1896 and 1897. It was rearranged to classical scholar grammar school in 1924. The school took the name of Gabor Bethlen (1580-1629) in 1930. In 1948 the school was nationalized.

The building has three floors and it was built by the plans of Gyula Sándy. It’s style combines the early renaissance and Hungarian folk motives. The school’s library has two parts. The “teacher’s library” is on the ground floor and has 45 thousand books and on the first floor there is the juvenile library which has 25 thousand books. This two and a half century old library is the pride of the city. The book collection grow bigger from 1758 by the books of Sámuel Széll, Ferenc Nagy and Elek Baranyi. The library has a lot of rare and exceptional books such as: Sermones Pomeri by Pelbárt Temesvári, Rerum Ungaricarum decades by Bonfini, an 11 language dictionary by Abrosius Calepinus. In 1957 László Németh offered his Kossuth pize to help the library grow and prosper. The „Radnoti-door” of the juvenile library is similar to the Porta de Paradiso in Firenze. The Patheon on the ground floor and on the first floor commemorate the great characters of the grammar school and Hódmezővásárhely.