(CZ) Tendencie v ponímaní výchovnej funkcie Univerzity Komenského a súčasné problémy
(EN) Development Trends in the Character-Training Function of the Comenius University and Its Present-Day Problems

On the basis of an inquiry into the fifty years of development of the Comenius University in Bratislava the author shows that character training in the university is not systematic enough, is too fortuitous, is understood too narrowly and, in fact, is not organized at all. In the formation of the concept of the university in its beginnings stress was laid on the education of a permanently harmonious and elastic personality. The student was to become not only a good expert, but also a universally cultured man. A pre-requisite for such education is that the university should simultaneously fulfil all its basic tasks: to carry on scientific and research work, to teach, and to organize extension activities (Professor Miloš Weingart). The University academic community was to “serve the people”, but it felt itself to be above the people. It did not analyse social contradictions, nor did it seek its class roots. It was to “improve democracy by the aristocracy of the mind”. But in its educational concepts there are also distinctly progressive elements. In the period of the coming of fascism in the thirties educational influences outside the university had more and more weight. The names of many progressive students of that period are met with again later on in the Slovak national uprising and in important posts in the People’s Democratic and Socialist Czechoslovak Republic. In the process of the fundamental change of our universities into socialist universities in connection with the implementation of the University Act of 1950, there appeared the problem of the relationship between scientific and pedagogical work. The handling of this problem consisted in alternately preferring the scientific function or the educational function. After the failures connected with indiscriminate introduction of productive work practice into all universities in the fifties and early sixties the principle of bringing school close to life got into the background and so did character-training problems together with it. Recently the dialectical unity of the two basic functions of the university has at last begun to be emphasized. The author draws attention to the following four out of a number of contemporary problems, the solution of which influences the educational work of the university: shortages in space and material facilities of the university beyond a certain limit create crisis situations in the field of science and education, the quality of education is negatively affected by the growing disintegrating tendencies at the university — an equally negative influence is exerted by the insufficient knowledge of the student and the outstanding questions regarding the relationships of the university student and teacher — raising the quality of education is linked with the modernization of the university. In conclusion it is pointed out that the complexity of educational processes in such dynamic times as ours are demands that the forces of the most diverse scientific fields be joined. A successful attempt in this direction at the all-university conference at Stara Tura has shown how socialist education may become one of the most important unifying elements in our university.