Grammar school Minerva

In the close vicinity of the Church of St. Adalbert in New Town, you can find the Pštrossova Elementary Art School. Although the unassuming corner building has been used for teaching singing and dancing since the 1990s, its history is most commonly associated with the first girls’ gymnasium in Austria-Hungary, Gymnázium Minerva. Discussions about establishing a public girls’ school with secondary education leading to university education have been ongoing since the early years of the first half of the 19th century. However, the idea took concrete shape in 1890 with the so-called Petition of Czech Women to the Imperial Council, which included attachments on establishing a state girls’ gymnasium and women’s studies at the philosophical and medical faculties. Then, the publication of the Manifesto followed: For Czech Education, and in the same year, education at Minerva was launched, initially only in two rooms in the above building near the Church of St. Adalbert.