Cultural facilities provide a significant section of extraclass education of young people as well as adults. The network of these institutions in Czechoslovakia is among the most extensive in Europe and in the world. These facilities fulfil a number of functions. Besides the educational function, which is becoming ever more important, they are responsible for the creation of cultural values, for their conservation, presentation and protection. Museums and galleries, libraries, theatres, cinemas and concert halls, objects of historical and artistic value, zoological and botanical gardens, observatories and planétariums as well as other cultural establishments create, by means of their funds, their presentations and all their activities, basic preconditions for the development of science, technology, art and the whole cultural life of our society.
The achievements of cultural establishfnents provide suitable conditions for effective educational work in the most varied forms and using all sorts of different rnethods. Values provided by their activities enrich people’s knowledge and their emotional experiences, stimulate their interests, satisfy their needs and, above all, form their world outlook, their moral and political profile and their way of life. The effectiveness of the educational influence of cultural establishments is increased by being organically connected with the activities of schools, social organizations and mass media. Diverse and richly differentiated educational activities are being increasingly coordinated and integrated under the guidance of the Ministries of Culture, local authorities at all levels, and especially by unified plans of cultural educational activities which become an obligatory programme for all the parties concerned with the aim of providing the optimum extraclass training and education of all our citizens — the youth as well as adults.