This study on Alois Klar (1763-1833) focuses mainly on his achievements as a pedagogue and his work for the visually impaired. Methodologically, it draws on Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Michel Foucault, enabling us to view the evolution of social care as a concomitant of the emerging modern state and integral to its structure. The study presents an analysis of the beginnings of Klar’s Prague institute for the visually impaired against a background of rapid changes in medicine, the scope of the state, and educational thinking. At a time of compulsory school attendance and new approaches to education, when the state demanded the active participation of its subjects/citizens in propagating its aims and the values of society as a whole, the blind and partially sighted were given access to a full and systematic education. We also present data concerning Klar’s educational work and thinking (he taught in Litoměřice and at Prague University), and examine the internal workings of the newly established institute - one of the first of its kind in Europe - and its contacts with the medical discourse of the emerging science of ophthalmology., Marek Fapšo., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
In the independent Czechoslovak Republic, President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk played a profound role in influencing Musil´s important decisions and subsequent actions, even though their political and social opinions differed. Musil, at that time a student of theology, met Masaryk in 1889 in Turčiansky Sväty Martin in Slovakia. He recalled Masaryk´s emphasis on the necessity of having strong personal convictions when studying. Musil gave an inaugural lecture, How did I get to know the Orient, on 11th February 1920.In the auditorium, journalists and politicians were present, headed by Minister of Foreign Affairs, Edvard Beneš. Musil´s plans for Czech Oriental studies were not only scientific and cultural, but also political and economic. Musil believed that for the newborn Czechoslovakian state the Orient could act as a substitues for colonies, since it could supply the country with raw materials in exchange for various products, and it could also offer its countrymen profitable employment opportunities. According to him, the government needed to systematically arouse interest in the Orient in Czechoslovakia and vice-versa, and also to use cultural links as the starting point for the establishment of active economic relations. Therefore, he believed it should be a national aim to establish an Oriental library, a school of living languages and a large Oriental institute. In 1920, based on Masaryk´s wishes, Musil began preparations for a great journey leading from Northern Africa to Southwest Asia, where he hoped to promote the political and economic interests of Czechoslovakia. The journey was postponed on several occasions and, in the end, never took place., Pavel Žďárský., and Obsahuje seznam literatury