(CZ) Domácí kořeny základních rysů Komenského pojetí univerzálního vzdělávání
(EN) The Czech Roots of Some Basic Features in Comenius’ Conception of Universal Education

The aim of this study is an attempt to solve some of the questions connected with the problem of integrating the logical and the historical methods of investigation, the author using, as a concrete example, an investigation into the traditions of education in the Czech lands in the 15th and 16th centuries, particularly along the line of the development of the principle of the democratization of education, the concept of education as a lifelong process and the conception of work as an element integrating the relationships between individual and society. The study points out some theoretical lines of the problem of the formation of the man in the historical development on the basis of conceiving culture as a specific manner of activity in the dialectical unity of its material and spiritual aspects and as an objectified result of this activity, which finds expression in its various products (E. S. Makaryan). From this point of view, what is underlined is the necessity of studying more profoundly the meaning of creative human activity in correlation with its socio-economic as well as ideological manifestations and results. Since the general basis of culture in each social formation is given by the structure of relationships people find themselves in as a result of their work, the functional approach both from the historical viewpoint and from the viewpoint of comprehensive approach to the development of man and mankind in different epochs makes it possible to determine the roots of the problems of the world today, where they are and what their development has been, in which epoch and why a certain culture made a specific contribution. Attention is focussed in this study on the conception of relationship of mental and manual work in connection with the social possibilities of raising all people to a higher level. The study deals with a concrete historical type of older Czech culture in the 15th and 16th centuries, i. e. from the Hussite movement to J. A. Comenius. The reason is to point out the Czech roots of some of the fundamental features in the pedagogical work of J. A. Comenius, in other words the fact that this type demonstrates the beginnings of a fuller solution — both theoretical and practical — to the problem of democratization of the educational process with a dynamic conception of the significance of the creative activity, work, for the lifelong formation of man and society. The early Hussite movement, through its revolutionary practice, laid the social foundation, for the first time in history, to the implementation of broad democratization in education, not only in Bohemia but in Europe as a whole. Permanent results of this unity of revolutionary theory and practice made themselves felt, too, in the subsequent development of the Czech Reformation up to the year 1620, even though in a modified form developed from the second half of the 15th century mainly by the Unity of the Czech Brethren: mot social revolution, but peaceful cultural and educational practice. In spite of a number of contradictions in its development and in the confrontation with contemporary development the Unity of Brethren gradually arrived at the conception of lifelong education and at the conception of the unity of mental and manual work as a pre-condition for the positive lifelong perfection of everyone, i. e. the principle which became typical of the Unity and which was subsequently developed philosophically by its foremost representative in the 17th century, J. A. Comenius.