TEACHER TRAINING SEMINARIES IN BALTIC COUNTRIES I N THE EARLY 20<sup>TH</sup> CENTURY
The article studies the structure and activities of teacher training seminaries in the Baltic countries at the beginning of the 20<sup>th</sup> century. The end of the 19<sup>th</sup> - beginning of the 20<sup>th</sup> centuries was marked by an intensive development of the education system in the Russian Empire. It was most developed in the Western outskirts, where, according to the census of 1897, the highest percentage of literacy of the local population was observed. Teacher training seminaries in the Baltic countries already had a certain tradition in line with the Prussian models. They were funded by the local nobility. The lessons were in the German, Latvian, and Estonian languages. In 1870, the ﬁ rst government-run Baltic-region teacher training seminary was estabslished, with Russian as a language of instruction. Prior to World War I, teachers’ seminaries with Russian a language of instruction operated in three Baltic provinces, i.e. two in Courland (Kuldīga, founded in 1870 and Ilūkste, 1910), two in Livland (Tartu, 1878, and Valmiera, 1894) and one in Estland (Rakvere, 1912). They trained 449 persons; 100 students completed the full course with a degree of primary school teacher, and 117 were accepted as students. There was a plan to open a teachers’ seminary for women in Võru. In connection with the evacuation of educational institutions from the occupied Western territories, the network of local teachers’ seminaries ceased to fulﬁl its primary function of providing personnel for local government-run schools. In Estonia and Latvia, teaching seminaries with the Russian language of instruction ceased to function after 1918.