Speech at the congregation of Czechoslovak teachers.
In Zlín, on August 5, 1938.
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Speech at the congregation of Czechoslovak teachers.
In Zlin, on August 5, 1938.
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Gentlemen!
I warmly welcome you to Zlin for your congress. If I wasn't an entrepreneur, I would want to be a teacher. Why? Because I don't know of any other profession - besides my own - from which I can build as much as I could from being a teacher. You teachers have in your hands the most precious thing in the world – young people. When we put into numbers, you have in your hands 1,800,000 children from schools and 550,000 middle-school children. You and your children will be the future of the republic. Every nation is basically built up by its teachers.
About 90 years ago, Denmark was lucky enough to find the right teacher. He happened to be a pastor. He organized agricultural schools for them. In less than three generations, the Danes had become the best farmers in the world. They won through the power of their education. It is a naturally rich country that it feeds millions of Englishmen with its ham, eggs, butter and cheese, while paying the Danes who are some of the most honest and cultural people in the world.
After all - how do you want to demonstrate honesty and culture differently than through good performances? Behold the work of teachers! Switzerland has found teachers who have made the Swiss education system a national export industry. Students are being sent from all over Europe – and from around the world. Parents bring their children to Switzerland and also to England when they want to have students become educated and well behaved. And, they are paid well for it. There is a huge economic compensation for teachers imported into these countries. However, their work creates even greater moral value, because people always maintain respect for the people and the places where they were educated.
And for our state, Czechoslovakia? One teacher created it and, another controls it - Masaryk and Benes. Good teachers and good guys. They are examples. But - let's be careful - by example - not by a transparent receptacle. In one example when the teacher works a lot, works hard, and works responsible as time requires.
What does our point in time require from Czechoslovakia, teachers? Our nation and our state are now under enormous pressure from the north. We can disguise this circumstance, despise it, ridicule it, or close our eyes to it, but it's here. The great German nation, which before 1914 was claimed to be the result of the work of its teachers, is gathering strength for a new onslaught.
Its closest neighbors are us. I think you will be interested in the principles that are used in the upbringing of the German youth with which our youth will struggle. Even though it may not be a weapons match, it will always be an economic and cultural match with which, as in any competition, the better, i.e., those who are better prepared and educated, will win. I had the opportunity to hear these principles last week in Berlin at the International Congress of the Society for Business and Technical Education. Behold, what Professor Arnhold, head of German youth education, lectured there:
"We have to get people at the center of things and surround them with the best machines and tools, apparatus and equipment that will control, and which they will master."
"We must bring the spiritual forces to work even the simplest: pride, ambition, enthusiasm, reason and emotion, will and discipline. On the contrary, to eradicate what delays work and age: her guilt, dissatisfaction, proletarianism, hunger, worries about the Budoucnost.[1]"
“Churches and monuments, bridges and castles are more than iron or stone. It is the human spirit materialized, transformed into iron or stone."
"We have to take away from the life of today's society the derogatory view that work is a punishment. We must support this, whether the Bible or the guidelines tell us it is political. Work is not a punishment; it is an earthly deliverance from nothingness"
"We need to take care of the person at work, always confront him in his eyes, ladder his ascent, and allow him to continue training to allow him to developed into a great working personality."
"We have to show him, to shed light on him, to set work goals and show him the ways of work. We need to show him what the whole game of power looks like in the business and allow him to take part in it with a full understanding."
"You can think about what you want, but just a short trip through Germany is enough to make you worry that we are in danger of losing competition with this country, which is setting the pace in education."
"The main component of the education of the German youth and the German people is - work. Work under the best or even the most primitive conditions. But work that teaches young and old the realities of life. Which gives them the confidence and pride of "Herrenfolk[2].”
Our teacher Masaryk spent most of his life forcing the Czechs to face the truth. There were times when he was thrown out of the nation for it. I don't think we've changed much now. Anyone who has been following our magazines, lectures, public speeches, etc. for many years will find that we have arranged only to receive truths that sound pleasant to our ears. We are willing to throw out of the nation anyone who holds an unpleasant fact before our eyes. The growth of Germany is uncomfortable, but is true. It affects us with the same force as it did in Bohemia in the 14th and 15th centuries. It affects us with such force as it did in Bohemia in the 14th and 15th centuries. It is not the most serious question of how we deal with them politically, because the political form of coexistence is always found, for better or worse. The most important question is how to educate the Czechoslovak man to withstand competition with a much stronger neighbor.
I repeat: in my opinion, the only real human educator is work, entrepreneurial, responsible and efficient work. Due to the necessity of time, our foundations were formed for teaching and raising our children. We must therefore understand the needs of today and make them the new basis for modern education. It is necessary to learn from the examples of the time of Charles IV: Finding new opportunities and livelihoods for our people. Charles did it with vines, poultry farming, construction and crafts, building roads in Europe, organizing international trade, and concentrated his efforts in Prague.
Today, in the age of machines, we have the opportunity to build livelihoods for people by penetrating the depths of the earth, the secrets of chemistry, industrial organization, the use of natural resources, wind, water gradient, water quality, exploiting the beauties of our country through international tourism, motoring and aviation, transport, telephone and radio. But none of this will come to us for free. Nothing will fall from the sky. On the contrary, it will take a lot of purposeful effort in the spirit of the nation's revivalists from the last century. What kind of spirit is that? Neruda[3] said: "If each of us is made of quartz, the whole nation will be made of blocks." More importantly, I know nothing better and more successful than spirit and nature of our people than this program, without this, our journey can never be successful. Quartz individuals - a nation of blocks, like the path of the crowds commanded from above. There are few of us in the crowd and the small crowd is always trampled by the larger crowd. Our journey is mainly and especially meant to form individuals from quartz. This is so that they have the discipline that unites them as a strong group. Bread binds the hardest - and I consider farming to be the foundation of everything. I do not agree with the conclusions reached today, which place party politics above the general economic interests, by saying: "What is not politically tolerable, we must not do economically." The opposite is true: "What is not economically viable must not be done politically." Only in this way can we create new entrepreneurs that are missing today.
In economic terms, I see the need to educate new and better entrepreneurs. Who is an entrepreneur? An entrepreneur is a person who has an innate and educated ability to act proactively, responsibly and turn ideas into action. I said he was the person with whom these abilities are an essential characteristic. Could you argue with me as to why we don't have entrepreneurs? I don’t need to explain to you, as teachers, that every innate ability needs to be cultivated. There are no musicians when there is no music education, but especially a love of music, an understanding of music, and respect for the people who have become great musicians.
This is similar with every kind of art. These activities, which cannot be done on command and that develop only when they are intentionally cultivated, and in an environment that has love and respect for them. And believe me, entrepreneurship is much more an art, with all the joy and suffering of a work of art and the risk that goes with it. So, I wonder why we don't have entrepreneurs! It reminds me of that old verse from school reading books: "Do not stone the prophets, for the singers are like birds that have thrown a stone at them, they do not return!”
As teachers, you are getting into the life of men whose soul and life conditions have not yet carved out any traces. The innate qualities of this person lies before you as if in the palm of your hand. You could identify a boy in your class to a born businessman. They are not exactly the most suitable. But willingness and ideas sparkle in their eyes. They disagree so that they can serve you. They are ambitious and begging for bigger tasks. It burns with enthusiasm when you tell them about the examples of people who have accomplished something. They can turn ideas into reality. There are always a minority of these young men. But they are, as the Bible says, "the salt of the earth." We can recite the biblical question: "If the salt is ruined, what will it be salted with?" I think we need to introduce a new classification subject in all of the schools and certificates. This subject is called "entrepreneurship". You classify moral and physical training, singing, in addition to a number of science subjects. Have you ever thought that entrepreneurship is such a rare trait that the teacher spotlights the need to focus on it?
Do you know that nothing can be worked out in the future that you don’t focus on? The question is: "how to educate entrepreneurs to do business, to use their skills for the widest general benefit?" I believe that whole world today and all the great nations are struggling to solve this question, in various ways. Don't you think it should be the ambition of a Czechoslovak teacher to look for the Czechoslovak way? Until now, the vast majority of our teachers poured water from the bathtub with the child. This accepted this as proven, the claim that the entrepreneur is a "rogue" and that the business is "wicked" and that it must therefore be eliminated. That, instead of an entrepreneur, a state or a party or a collective should come, or something vague that no one knows about and didn’t know what it was supposed to be.
Even highly educated teachers have said that entrepreneurship is a matter for the committee. The situation we are in is a simple consequence of these views. We have 300,000 unemployed in our country, its larger in the winter at around 500,000 unemployed. The earnings of working people are lousy when compared to countries with large businesses. State revenues, despite huge taxes, are far from enough for the tasks of a growing state. We are drowning below average in every respect.
We have one of the most beautiful countries in the world. I have spent years and millions exploring the wealth of this country, where possible. I have calculated that it can feed 40,000,000 people much more than today's 15 million. I've written a compete book about it and they make fun of me for it - like it’s unbelievable. Where did I get these opinions from? Who taught me? My teachers! I will not forget old Hradil was half rebel, half builder, but a much bigger builder, and every bit a serious person who did his duty in building up young men. This whole generation of men who lead our people today has been brought up by this man in such a way that to this day none of us has forgotten a single piece of his advice. On one hand, you could count the cases where you got slapped for taking advice. Yet, the authority this man persists to this day in how he taught us to understand discipline and freedom. How did this man teach history? The devil of old cared about the dates: when, which king killed the subjects of another king. In return, he was able to bring Jan and Karel Lucemburka, Hus and Zizka, Jirik and Palacky closer to us in such a way that we cried or laughed, but we always burned with the desire to give our best, to get closer to their example.
I read my children's reading books and histories and look for this spirit in vain. I still see it in front of us that even the very good readers of Zlin schools do not have it. Where is the enthusiasm in them - not for the murderers of the people but for the breadwinners of the people, such as Edison, the Veverkove, James Watt, Stephenson or the founders of our textiles - the Bartons? What you sow in a child's soul will grow from it. I deeply and firmly believe in the happy future of our nation and republic.
I see our path clearly in front of me. It leads in two directions: the first - immediate - means building the state through by the public’s hand - building state unity by technical means and employment. We are like one family, living in a six-room apartment in which there is no front door where the members could meet. Roads and railways, traffic canals, catching water with dams, that's the beginning. I wrote a hundred details about it in my book. The second path, which must also be taken immediately, is your path. It is the education of entrepreneurs. Black thorns will not grow on a withered thorn. We have a better future is our children. However, we and you are all responsible to these children for their future and for the future of the republic. We must choose entrepreneurs among children.
We need to awaken in all our children's soul’s enthusiasm and determination for a hard business life. We need to cultivate the qualities needed for this life: ingenuity, perseverance, balance and courage, dedication, the art of enduring to the end, accepting defeat but not being defeated, and start again, the art of working together and acting honestly. You will have great success with your Czechoslovak children. In our own work and upbringing, where we tried to instill in young people these qualities, those young people of Czechoslovak origin won in competition with members of all nations of the world.
You, the teachers, are shaping the future of our state. You do not have the right to form it without thinking, as you do not have the right to form it according to the order of the party, political thinking, as a soldier you have no right to look at party politics and as a doctor you have no right to treat according to politics. I ask you to think about these issues without political suspicion. I know of only one policy, and that is: "the good and happiness of our people." This is an opportunity for everyone to capture, sustain and multiply the greatest part of their happiness in life. I consider children to be the first piece of happiness in life. And they will turn out the way you raise them. I believe you, the young people. And I believe in young people most of all.
I believe that you will be able to educate our current youngest children as honest, brave and faithful citizens of our state, not only in oaths and assurances, but in their deeds. We in Zlin do not believe in the wealth of money, shoes, factories and gems. We believe in the richness of human ability, discipline, diligence and loyalty. We believe in the richness of human happiness at work and to educate the republic of men and women capable of creating jobs from their entrepreneurs.
I wish you good luck in shaping a better Czechoslovak person – a Czechoslovak businessman - a faithful breadwinner for our beautiful Czechoslovak people.
Jan Antonín Baťa
[1] Budoucnost: The theoretical definition and nature of strategic management, a procedure for conducting the strategic analysis and methods that facilitate a formulation and choice of a strategy.
[2] Herrenfolk: The superior race, and the other races e.g., Jews, Slavs and people from Eastern Europe, who the Nazis felt were not incapable of contributing to Germany.
[3] Pablo Neruda was a widely known Chilean born poet. He was one of the most widely known poets of the 20th-century poets in the Americas.
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Original in Czech: Education for entrepreneurship.
J.Š.
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