The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 4/Professor Zmrhal goes to Prague

PROFESSOR ZMRHAL GOES TO PRAGUE.

Jaroslav J. Zmrhal, principal of the Herzl school in Chicago, is going this month to Czechoslovakia at the invitation of the ministry of education to look over the system of public education in the Republic and suggest improvements on the basis of methods which made good in the United States. Bohemian schools taken as a whole are fully up to the American standard, in fact are more efficient, as there are practically no illiterates in Bohemia or Moravia. But while the Bohemian public school gives the child good general education and equips it with a larger fund of knowledge than the child receives even in a good city school in America, the system over there emphasizes the three R’s too much at the expense of bringing out those traits of character that make for self-reliance, practical adaptability and success in life.

Professor Zmrhal is particularly well equipped for his task. He is aware of the good points of the Bohemian school system and will not antagonize the teachers by urging any wholesale change in methods and courses. But as a practical pedagogue of long experience he will set forth the advantages of such reforms as have proved their worth in the experience of American public schools.

On the same ship with Mr. Zmrhal will go Dr. Adolph Mach, a Chicago dentist, who served with the Czechoslovak legions and after his discharge accepted appointment as professor of dentistry in the new University of Bratislava in Slovakia.