(CZ) K současnému stavu teorie mravní výchovy
(EN) The Present State of the Theory of Moral Education

The theory of moral education is one of the least studied fields of our pedagogy. This state has been brought about, among other things by a certain stagnation of ethics, temporary stagnation of sociology, psychology of personality and social psychology, with which the theory of moral education is closely connected. Another factor that has contributed to the stagnation of the theory of moral education was its inadequately elaborated concept scheme. But the most serious shortcoming in moral education, as I see it, consists in the fact that in laying down its aims no attempt was made to make a concrete analysis of the social conditions of education in our times and that it was only made to correspond to the contemporary economic and political requirements of our society. Moral education was therefore focused on shaping an idealized attitude to idealized work, on bringing up people in the spirit of socialist patriotism and proletarian internationalism and in the right attitude to socialist ownership. In this concept of education the problems of man and his relationships to other people and to himself were not handled satisfactorily because they were regarded as secondary. The aim of moral education in a socialist society ought to be the shaping of a productive, human orientation of character, and the suppression of the consumer Education society orientation, which prevails in the highly developed capitalist countries and some elements of which can also be seen in our country, even though in a weakened form due to the economic possibilities of our society. The foundations of personal qualities, attitudes and relationships of each man are laid by the family. Competent family education, based on solid theoretical principles and provided for materially and organizationally, should underlie a healthy mental development of all people under socialism. The society should help parents in bringing up their children by providing, among other things, a network of competent consulting centres whose work would not be confined to handling only serious educational defects. It should also help children handicapped by incompetent, emotionally poor morally detective family care. Pedagogical theory still lacks a scientific analysis of family education at the present time; pedagogical theory seems to be underestimating this basic component of education. If we take into account that up to now no detailed analysis has been made of morally educational practice at the Basic Nine-Year School, either, we come to the conclusion that all our morally educational theories suffer from lack of connection with concrete educational environment. The role of the school in shaping moral relationships, attitudes and qualities is different, for the educational aims of the present-day school are intellectual rather than moral. But here, too, it is absolutely essential to pay due regard to that part of the educational process which is taking place in the course of personal contact between adults and children at school, and which has a positive as well as a negative influence on their mutual appraisal of one another and their mutual relationships, but also on their relationships to oneself and on the awareness of one’s own human value. At school, whose task it is to provide education in all its forms, it is even more necessary than at all the other social intuitions, to respect the emotional needs of all children in the same way as it has already become customary to respect their basic material needs.