(CZ) Výchova a společenské vztahy
(EN) Education and Social Relationships

Education is known to have been originally an inseparable part of other activities and to have taken place spontaneously in the process of life and work. Once it is singled out as a specific activity, there also arise the “institutions” of educators and those who are being educated, and special relationships are formed among people, which cannot take shape or be realized in any other way than by educational activities. In the process of these educational activities people enter into certain relationships, which, once they have arisen, are developing as objectively necessary relationships. The new generations enter into them without being able to abolish them or change them arbitrarily. Their sphere is being progressively extended and their content is becoming more complex. In a certain age-group they are, besides family relationships, decisive for the development of the young person. One of the basic types of activities in the development of man corresponds to them. These relationships, which the author calls educational relationships cannot be joined to, or identified with, any other sphere of relationships. They do not exclude other social relationships, but are related with them and accompany them and are not sharply separated from them, either. They acquire a number of other aspects and are regulated by law. These relationships must be considered as a special, relatively independent component of social relationships, which is irreplaceable. As such they have their own specific features, which distinguish them from other spheres of relationships. These specific features, which the author clarifies, result from the fact that they can take shape and be realized only through special activities of their own, which are taking place according to certain aims and by specific forms, media and methods, by educational activities. The function of the educator in them is not only that of an ordinary social subject, but is a specific one with which he has been entrusted by society whose needs and interests he stands for. Also the object of education as a real social subject plays a special role in them, which is being realized by corresponding activities. He is not only the object but also the subject of education.