In the peasant community, children were assimilated into a work-oriented peasant society through play and the tasks they were given. Step by step, they acquired the knowledge and social skills they would need in later life. Work was not only the field of creating value, but also an important value measure. From the age of six, young children were put to work. At first, they were given the task of herding geese. The girls worked as nursemaids, they looked after the young children of the larger farmers.

Young children made their own simple toys, rarely with the help of adults. For example, girls’ dolls made of corncobs and rags, boys’ toy farms: cattle, carts, rakes, harrows, wells, troughs made of chaffs. These toys were used to imitate the work of adults.

In the period followed the reconquest of the country from the Turks, at the end of the 17th century, the first ecclesiastical schools were established in our region. The Education Bill of 1868 (elaborated by Eötvös József) introduced compulsory education for children aged 6-12. In village schools, education was provided by a single teacher in a single room, who taught all age groups at the same time. Elementary education included reading and writing, arithmetic, but children were also taught religion and ethics, and were given marks for singing, drawing and physical exercise. In Berettyóújfalu, Brózik Dezső founded the Municipal Independent Agricultural Community College in 1905 to educate children who had left elementary schools. It was followed a few years later by the establishment of an educational institution in Derecske. In the 1910s, the organisation of civil schools for boys and girls began in the larger settlements (Berettyóújfalu, Derecske). After the loss of Hungary’s territories in consequence of the Treaty of Trianon, a Hungarian Royal Winter Agricultural School was established for the young farmers of the region. After the loss of Hungary’s territory at Trianon, a Hungarian Royal Winter Economic School was established for the farmers of the area. The Levente movement was a characteristic youth organization of Hungary in the interwar era and the Scout movement also flourished at this time.