(CZ) Pedagogické úsilí podkrkonošských buditelů v prvé polovině 19. století
(EN) Educational Efforts in the Krkonoše Foothills in the Middle of the 19th Century

One of the areas that played the most prominent part in the Czech national revival in Bohemia in the 1840s was that of the Krkonoše (Giant Mountains) foothills in northern Bohemia. Many Czech patriots in the national revival period saw in the „national“ adult education work the only sense of their lives. Taking the then state of the national school system as a background, this study depicts the pedagogical and educational enthusiasm of some people, to which they often sacrificed their own personal happiness. The best known of them is the Dean of Libuň and school supervisor of Tumov, Antonin Marek. As early as the 1840s he organized the first teachers’ conferences in Bohemia. At these conferences teachers discussed subjects, especially writing and grammar, but also the latest developments in pedagogical life. Different emphasis on pedagogical conferences was laid by the Dean of Kopidlno, Alois Vacek, who, together with teacher and musician Antonin Hilmar concentrated on the problems of teacher-pupil relationships and on improving the theoretical training of teachers. Vacek’s articles were often published in the then pedagogical journals, which he recommended teachers to subscribe to. The theoretical suggestions were successfully used by Vacek’s friend, teacher A. Hilmar, who strove to inculcate in children the love of the Czech language and of music.
The Dean of Sobotka, František Vetešník, made great efforts to improve the material school conditions at Sobotka. In his recommendations to improve the quality of the curriculum he paid greatest attention to history, where he strove to lay stress on the glorious periods of Czech history and on the great Czech figures of the past.
These efforts, often misunderstood by the authorities, resulted from the endeavour to improve children’s education by improving the quality of teaching, which presupposed better trained teachers. Thanks to the work of clergymen in the two deaneries the whole of the Jičín area became one of the educationally most progressive ones in Bohemia and practically in all the Hapsburg monarchy.