Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU) is a Prague university whose beginnings reach back to an engineering professorship of 1717. In its present form it continues the association of higher schools established in 1920.[1]
Engineering instruction in the 18th century
The fortification expert Christian Josef Willenberg asked Emperor Leopold for permission to teach the art of engineering to six persons of the lords' estate, four of the knights' estate and two of the townsmen's estate. Emperor Joseph I agreed with the proposal in a rescript of 18 January 1707. Because the Bohemian estates did not respond, Willenberg sent the request again in October 1716, to Emperor Charles VI and to the estates. By a decree of the estates of 9 November 1717 an engineering professorship was established and Willenberg was entrusted with running it; teaching began on 7 January 1718. Both the art of fortification and civil subjects were taught, for example land surveying, map drawing and drainage work.[1]
Willenberg's successor Jan František Schor, active from 1726 to 1767, added optics, perspective, drawing and geography to the curriculum. The next, third professor was Antonín Linhart Herget, during whose tenure the engineering professorship of the estates was transformed in 1787 into a regular professorship at the faculty of philosophy of the Prague university.[1]
The Polytechnic Institute
In 1798 František Josef Gerstner, professor of mathematics, submitted a proposal to found a technical university on the model of the École polytechnique in Paris, with regard to the industrialization of the Czech lands. Emperor Francis I signed the decree establishing the Bohemian estates' polytechnic institute in March 1803, and teaching there began on 10 November 1806. Gerstner was appointed director. From 8 September 1815 the institute no longer belonged to the university and had the status of an independent school.[1]
From the bilingual polytechnic to separate higher schools
On 23 November 1863 Emperor Franz Joseph I approved the Organic Statute of the Polytechnic Institute, and the short history of the bilingual polytechnic began. The monarch abolished it on 18 April 1869 and agreed to the creation of two schools, a Czech polytechnic institute and a German polytechnic institute of the Kingdom of Bohemia. In 1875 both were transferred to state administration, and in 1879 the Czech school received the name C. a k. česká vysoká škola technická v Praze, while the German one was called Deutsche Technische Hochschule in Prag, with the prefix K. k.[1]
An imperial law of 13 April 1901 granted the technical universities the right to confer doctorates in technical sciences and honorary doctorates. In 1902 the professorial body of the Czech school recommended to the ministry that women be allowed to enrol as regular students.[1]
Czech Technical University in Prague since 1920
By a decree of the Ministry of Education and National Enlightenment of 1 September 1920, Czech Technical University in Prague came into being as an association of seven technical universities. It comprised schools of civil engineering and of cultural engineering, of architecture and building engineering, of mechanical and electrical engineering, of chemical-technological engineering, of agricultural and forestry engineering, and a school of special sciences. In 1921 the school of cultural engineering was abolished and joined to the Vysoká škola inženýrského stavitelství. From 1929 the Vysoká škola obchodní also became an equal part of the university. The German technical university in Prague took the name Deutsche Technische Hochschule Prag in 1918.[1]
Chronology
- — Defence Minister Jaromír Zůna and Senator Jana Mračková Vildumetzová announced in Karlovy Vary a plan for a pilot course called Civil Protection for future reserve officers, to be taught in the Karlovy Vary Region by a military department in cooperation with the Czech Technical University in Prague. → Karlovarská Drbna Deník: Karlovarský kraj