Purkyne’s Pedagogical Ideas

The article written on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the death of John Evangelist Purkyně aims at evaluating how Purkyně’s pedagogical ideas have been studied in Czechoslovakia during the past fifty years. This summary review of the most important works published in book form and in magazines since 1918 is divided, for methodological reasons, into two parts. Biographies and miscellanies in which John E. Purkyně’s pedagogical ideas are recorded as part of all his scientific, research and cultural efforts are quoted first. Special works, dealing exclusively with pedagogical theses, are mentioned afterwards. In the first part, by analysing thirteen Publications the author has confirmed the conclusion that the whole of Purkyně’s scientific and creative intellectual work cannot be expertly evaluated by a single specialist because his professional knowledge alone, whether he be physician, biologist, philosopher, historian or literary historian, will not be sufficient to do it. Neither can this huge task be successfully carried out by a working group which does not include scientists, of all the branches that Purkyně tackled in his work. And this essential requirement will have to be met also as regards pedagogy. The existing Commission for the Study of Life and Work of John E. Purkyně has failed to meet this requirement Just in the field of pedagogical sciences. The second part of the article demonstrates that educationists, when working out Purkyně’s pedagogical ideas, proceed from his works (not so much from his correspondence) and naturally find in them a greater number of facts which are important for pedagogy than do experts in other scientific fields, but they stick too much to the narrow field of pedagogy. They make only little use (or none at all) of the works published in other fields to which Purkyng devoted himself in his scientific work. Educationists have so far almost ignored other sources which might have helped them to complete the picture of their research or to provide them with entirely new material. The conclusion drawn from the summary appraising review of Purkynfian literature with the intention of supplying information about Purkyně's relation to pedagogy and moral education is the following: The debt that the Czech educationists owe to Purkyně has not been fully repaid yet. The fact is that Purkyně’s ideas form a significant part of the Czech humanitarian national (not nationalist) progressive traditions, and within the framework of his entire scientific work they represent a contribution of a Czech scientist and thinker to the world's science and civilization.