Lietuvos istorijos institutas

This article uses the last wills and testaments of 18th-century Vilnius burghers to analyse the degree of attention they paid to the education of their children, presenting their attitudes to this issue prior to the establishment of the Commission of National Education and after 1773. The author attempts to gain insight to the changes that occurred and to assess whether Enlightenment ideas and the founding of the Commission of National Education had an influence on the attitudes of Vilnius’ inhabitants on the education of their offspring, and whether the last wills and testaments from the last quarter of the 18th century dedicated more attention to children’s education.

International ideas about education and development, promoted in Cambodia by financial donors such as the World Bank, influence how the second and third generations of Cambodian genocide survivors interpret their reality and history. They believe that the destruction of the education system and the almost total massacre of educated people during the genocide (1975 to 1979) slowed down the country’s development. Young people often perceive the loss of human life as a loss of resources. In this article, I argue that this perception of people as resources is what bridges development, education and the history of Democratic Kampuchea. The historical interpretations among young people are similar to the interpretations advocated by Cambodian politicians, and resonate with the World Bank’s ideas on development.