Oszkár's mother, Roza Liebermann (1853–1931), was the widowed doctor's second wife. Oszkár attended "the local Piarist grammar school—the same establishment attended by Endre Ady, two years younger and later to become the supreme poet of their generation (though the two became friends, this dated from their adult years)." Having done very well academically, he graduated a year early at seventeen, in 1892, and studied political science at the University of Budapest under Ágost Pulszky; he was also strongly influenced by Gyula Pikler, though he would later reject the latter's "doctrinaire, anti-historical positivism." At this point he admired figures like József Eötvös and Pál Gyulai, thus aligning himself with "the principled European strand of Hungarian liberalism that stood against clericalism and the blustering nationalism of those who sought independence from Austria." He was awarded his diploma as Doctor of Political Science on July 2, 1896.