Hogere Burgerschool

The HBS is a mid-19th-century creation by the liberal politician Johan Rudolph Thorbecke, and resulted from the law on secondary education enacted in May 1863.

Along with the creation of burgerscholen in each city of more than 10,000 inhabitants, the HBS was intended as a practically oriented education for higher functions in industry and trade.

A private letter from Thorbecke demanding the buildings be offered to the HBS was made public, leading to public outcry: at its heart, the conflict touched the special status of denominational education, and an additional source of anger was the government's raising of taxes in the province to bring it in line with taxes in other provinces.

[1][2] Part of the innovative character of the HBS was that it offered a higher level of education without training in the classical languages (Latin and Greek).

There was one in Batavia (founded in 1864, named for William III of the Netherlands[6]), one in Semarang,[6] and one in Surabaya; the latter is where the later Indonesian president Sukarno received his education and his introduction to Marxism.