The history of the higher education in Estonia begins in the year 1632, when the Swedish king Gustav II
Adolf established the university in Tartu (Dorpat). Higher education was given in Latin, German or Swedish, as
in Estonian territory the upper class minority spoke different language from the lower class majority. The
history of popular education is connected to reformation. At the end of the 17th century we can for the first time
speak about system of rural schools for native people on Estonian territory. In 1807 the first newspaper for rural
people was printed and in 1893 the first daily newspaper in Estonian appeared. At that time Estonians were
nearly 100% literate.The success-story of education belongs to Estonian national narrative. How is it reflected in our
museums? We have one special museum dedicated to higher education (University of Tartu History Museum)
and one museum, dedicated specially to the 19-th century rural school. The last one is inspired from a very
popular book about school-life, written by a very popular writer (Oskar Luts, “Kevade”). In other museums
there is everywhere something, connected to education, but the picture is not at all systematic. The most popular
periods in exhibitions are the old classroom (like in 19th century) or the soviet time. In last case the point is
usually the pioneers and other ideological stuff. There is nearby nothing about very important period in history
of education in Estonia –the period between two world wars. The museum expositions like to speak about very
old rural schools, almost neglected is the school in city, catholic period, and professional education. As different
powers have established different schools, we speak only about these schools, which are living now. In
presentation I will illustrate the picture, which we give in Estonian museums about history of education in
Estonia.