Bernard Bolzano-Pedagogue Essay -- Biography Biographies

Bernard Bolzano-Pedagogue ABSTRACT: Bernard Bolzano (1781-1848), the famous logician and mathematician, worked from 1805-1819 as a religious professor at the Prague University. His studies focused on three main themes: (1) ethical education, including a rather liberal sexual education as well as the problems of the coexistence of Czechs and Germans in one country (with foresight into some of these matters before the rise of extreme nationalism); (2) social problems, where he formulated for the first time his social-utopian vision of human society based on the fundamental equality of people, ideas later gathered in his book, Von dem besten Staate; and (3) philosophy and religion, of which his lectures concentrate on the social function(s) of the Church and the social mission of the priesthood. Because of his opinions, he was disqualified from his professorship, resulting in a Church investigation against him. He was unable to return to the university, denied the right to publish in Austria, and relegated to li ve out his life as a private research worker. Bolzano's fate is similar to that of another pedagogue from Bohemia-Jan Patocka. Bernard Bolzano (1781-1848), presently a logician and mathematician of international repute, worked from 1805-1819 as a theological professor at the Prague University. This post he received immediately after he ended his mathematics and theology studies. In this period he had already published his first scientific study Betrachtungen à ¼ber einige Gegenstà ¤nde der Elementargeometrie (A reflection on some elementary geometry questions), which was his final dissertation study. In the study Lebensbeschreibung des Dr. B. Bolzano (Biography of Dr. B. Bolzano), he remembers, that it was not easy to dec... ...he pseudonym Charles Seasfield or the painter during the Biedermaier period - Frantiek Tkadlà ­k. He also cultivated many less well-known teachers, priests, doctors and lawyers, who concentrated on spreading culture and improving the general public education. Mostly through Bolzano, the future development of Czech education has been influenced by the Enlightenment. We can say it through the words of the Czech philosopher Jan Patoà £ka, whose life and status as a professor was very similar to Bolzano's: "Enlightenment, which does not only mean the intellectualism of man to things and the world, but the attempt to save man from enslavement, confusion and lies everywhere, where the intellect can save them entirely, not to ridicule with the depths of human existence - it is a part of the Czech destiny". (1) Notes Jan Patoà £ka: Our national program. Prague 1990. p.9