3io NIEPODLEGLOSC
school-year of 1928/9, 96 per cent of children of school age between 7 and 14
years were attending school. By the end of the inter-war period, global illiteracy
had been substantially reduced. In the 1930s reforms initiated by Minister
Janusz Jedrzejewicz (1889-1951), and by his successor and brother Waciaw
Jedrzejewicz, encouraged the development of secondary education. Inevitably,
in a developing society where resources were scarce, educational supply lagged
far behind popular demand. Only the most exceptional peasant children could
hope to obtain higher education. The national minorities were largely left to
their own devices. Although few active attempts were made to suppress minor-
ity schools, the authorities made no secret of the fact that state funds would be
used to favour the Polish sector. In the late 1930s an official numerus clausus
sought to restrict Jewish pupils in selected schools and faculties to numbers
proportionate to their position in the population at large. Humiliating
'Jew-benches' made their appearance. At the same time, the number of
Ukrainian schools fell dramatically, from 2,500 in 1911 in Austrian Galicia, to
461 in 1938. In this respect, the Polish Republic proved less tolerant, and less
successful than Galicia, and laid itself open to charges of cultural chauvinism.^23
The role of the Polish Army extended far beyond the military sphere. It was a
principal instrument for forging social and national unity. It rose above class
and minority interests, and enjoyed great social prestige. In the 1920s it resisted
close parliamentary control, and from 1926 was used by Pilsudski to manipulate
the constitutional system. After Pitsudski's death in 1935, its activities in con-
nection with the OZoN movement became overtly political. The personalities
of Marshal Smigty-Rydz and Col. Jozef Beck dominated the so-called
'Goverment of the Colonels'. Throughout the inter-war period, compulsory
male conscription was in force. In the war years, in 1919—21 and again in 1939,
well over one million men were mobilized. The peacetime establishment rose
from 266,000 in 1923, to 350,000 in 1935 with 30 Infantry Divisions and 10
Cavalry Brigades. Under Pilsudski's personal management, a General
Inspectorate of the Armed Forces (GISZ) assumed control of the 'Tor wojenny'
(War Track), whilst the Ministry of Military Affairs was left to supervise the ten
military regions together with the normal running of the army's peacetime
duties, the Tor pokojowy (Peace Track). By the outbreak of war in 1939, one of
two motorized Armoured Brigades was still in the process of formation. Both
the Air Force and the Navy were small by contemporary European standards.^24
Unlike the army, the Roman Catholic Church did not possess any formal link
with the State. In the March Constitution, it was awarded no more than 'the
leading place among other religious denominations enjoying equal rights'. The
ruling class, both before and after 1926, was decidedly anticlerical in tone.
The Chadecja (Christian Democratic Party) enjoyed only one doubtful moment
of power, when in 1923 it entered a brief coalition government together with
Witos's PSL Party. Its right-wing rival, Dmowski's National Democratic move-
ment, with whom in their mutual distress a tactical alliance might have been
possible, never gained power. In 1925, the Concordat signed by the government