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Nikola Tesla's schooling in Croatia lecture at the Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in Paris 2020
Here is Tesla's description of Martin Sekulić, his professor of Physics at the Higher Real School in Rakovac:
I had become intensely interested in electricity under the stimulating influence of my Professor of Physics, who was an ingenious man and often demonstrated the principles by apparatus of his own invention. Among these I recall a device in the shape of a freely rotatable bulb, with tinfoil coatings, which was made to spin rapidly when connected to a static machine. It is impossible for me to convey an adequate idea of the intensity of feeling I experienced in witnessing his exhibitions of these mysterious phenomena. Every impression produced a thousand echoes in my mind. I wanted to know more of this wonderful force; I longed for experiment and investigation and resigned myself to the inevitable with aching heart.
Electrical Experimenter April 1919, p. 865, left column, on the left of the photo
The name of Martin Sekulić has been almost entirely left out in the contemporary literature about Nikola Tesla, and there is hardly any book in which his name is at least mentioned. This represents a grave injustice to Nikola Tesla.
Martin Sekulić directed a physical laboratory in the Higher Real School in Rakovac, which was equipped with of as many as 579 instruments! (see Statistika nastave u kraljevini Hrvatskoj i Slavoniji i hrvatsko-slavonskoj Vojnoj krajini školske godine 1871-72., Zagreb 1873.)
Among his basic school subjects in Rakovac, Tesla had Croatian Language (Kroatische Sprache) as his mother tongue.
Mr. Ante Glibota, second from the right, was also among the listeners.
In 1871 (when Tesla was at the age of 15), the Higher Real School in Rakovac added the seventh grade, by interpolating an additional grade between three lower and three higher grades. For this reason, Nikola Tesla skipped the fifth grade, and jumped from the fourth grade immediately to the sixth grade.
All the school subjects apearing in the Yearbook of the Imperial and Royal Higher Real School in Rakovac (Godišnje izvješće Carske i kraljevske velike realke u Rakovcu) for the period of 1872-1874, are described not only in German, but also in Croatian language.
Let us see the content of the subject Croatian Language in Tesla's school in Rakovac (three hours weekly):
Let us see the school subject called prirodoslovje (i.e., Physics; four school hours weekly):
Let us also see mathematika, i.e., Mathematics (five school hours weekly):
In time when Nikola Tesla was a secondary school student at the Higher Real School in Rakovac (at the age of 14-17), there was an elective school subject called pjevanje (gesang), i.e. Singing:
The above information about singing can be found in the Yearbook (Godišnje izvješće) published in Zagreb (Agram) in 1871/1872.