Kathy Wilkes: Report On Academic Freedom in Czechoslovakia
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◆ článek, anglicky, vznik: srpen 1980
Strojový, zatím neredigovaný přepis
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1980-08 Kathy Wilkes - Report On Academic Freedom in Czechoslovakia_Stránka_1.jpg
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Corek K.K. PROCEEDINGS and ADDRESSES - of THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION August 1980 Volume 53 Number 6 The American Philosophical Association University of Delaware Newark, Delaware AINS PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
1980-08 Kathy Wilkes - Report On Academic Freedom in Czechoslovakia_Stránka_1.jpg
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Corek K.K. PROCEEDINGS and ADDRESSES - of THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION August 1980 Volume 53 Number 6 The American Philosophical Association University of Delaware Newark, Delaware AINS PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
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1980-08 Kathy Wilkes - Report On Academic Freedom in Czechoslovakia_Stránka_2.jpg
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ENVIRONMENTAL WOOD ETHICS AN INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL DEDICATED TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS E. REPORT ON ACADEMIC FREedom IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA VOLUME ONE SPRING 1979 Holmes Rolston, III: Can and Ought We to Follow Nature? John N. Martin: The Concept of the Irreplaceable Charles Hartshorne: The Rights of the Subhuman World Philip M. Smith and Richard A. Watson: New Wilderness Boundaries Donald C. Lee: Some Ethical Decision Criteria with Regard to Procreation J. Baird Callicott: Elements of an Environmental Ethic: Moral Considerability and the Biotic Community SUMMER 1979 Richard A. Watson: Self-Consciousness and the Rights of Nonhuman Animals and Nature Aldo Leopold: Some Fundamentals of Conservation in the Southwest Susan L. Flader: Leopold's Some Fundamentals of Conservation: A Commentary John Cobb, Jr.: Christian Existence in a World of Limits Don Howard: Commoner on Reductionism FALL 1979 Don E. Marietta, Jr.: The Interrelationship of Ecological Science and Environmental Ethics Eugene C. Hargrove: The Historical Foundations of American Environmental Attitudes R. V. Young, Jr.: A Conservative View of Environmental Affairs Kathleen M. Squadrito: Locke's View of Dominion R. J. Nelson: Ethics and Environmental Decision Making WINTER 1979 Klaus M. Meyer-Abich: Toward a Practical Philosophy of Nature William Godfrey-Smith: The Value of Wilderness Peter Heinegg: Ecology and Social Justice: Ethical Dilemmas and Revolutionary Hopes Robert C. Oelhaf: Environmental Ethics: Atomistic Abstraction or Holistic Affection? Edwin P. Pister: Endangered Species: Costs and Benefits Roland C. Clement: Watson's Reciprocity of Rights and Duties Eric Katz: Utilitarianism and Preservation Subscription Price, anywhere in the world: Individuals, $15; Institutions, Libraries, Private Organizations, Federal, State, and Local Offices and Agencies, $20; Single Copies, $5; Air Printed Matter to Other Countries, Four Issues, $6 extra. Send Remittance to: ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS, Department of Philosophy, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131 A Publication of The John Muir Institute for Environmental Studies and The University of New Mexico TO THE EDITOR: The chilling suppression of academic freedom in Czechoslovakia today, and the courageous response to it on the part of philosophers are described in the following report. I urge all members of the Association to read it. The report was prepared by Kathy Wilkes, a Princeton Ph.D. in philosophy who is Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at St. Hilda's College, Oxford, and who has recently returned from Czechoslovakia. Samuel Gorovitz University of Maryland REPORT ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA In March 1976 the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights and the International Pact on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights became legally binding in Czechoslovakia. Then in January 1977, a human rights. movement known as Charter 77 was formed, to monitor violations of the rights now guaranteed by the Constitution. These events at last made it possible for scholars to do something for the young people who, because of their own or their parents' views, had been denied education after the age of 14; and for those who had been expelled from colleges or high school in the aftermath of the Soviet incursion of 1968. Informal gatherings of scholars and students were now manifestly legal within the Constitution, and Charter 77 supported and defended the right to hold such meetings. Czechs and Slovaks alike have always placed the very highest value upon education: the most detested product of the Husak regime is illustrated in the bitter phrase, 'The children are hostages' --hostages for their parents' behaviour; if the parents do not conform, their child's education is forfeit. Hence the eager interest in, and support for, these seminars, even though all concerned realise that these classes can only compensate minimally for what has been stolen. 891
1980-08 Kathy Wilkes - Report On Academic Freedom in Czechoslovakia_Stránka_2.jpg
====================
ENVIRONMENTAL WOOD ETHICS AN INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL DEDICATED TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS E. REPORT ON ACADEMIC FREedom IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA VOLUME ONE SPRING 1979 Holmes Rolston, III: Can and Ought We to Follow Nature? John N. Martin: The Concept of the Irreplaceable Charles Hartshorne: The Rights of the Subhuman World Philip M. Smith and Richard A. Watson: New Wilderness Boundaries Donald C. Lee: Some Ethical Decision Criteria with Regard to Procreation J. Baird Callicott: Elements of an Environmental Ethic: Moral Considerability and the Biotic Community SUMMER 1979 Richard A. Watson: Self-Consciousness and the Rights of Nonhuman Animals and Nature Aldo Leopold: Some Fundamentals of Conservation in the Southwest Susan L. Flader: Leopold's Some Fundamentals of Conservation: A Commentary John Cobb, Jr.: Christian Existence in a World of Limits Don Howard: Commoner on Reductionism FALL 1979 Don E. Marietta, Jr.: The Interrelationship of Ecological Science and Environmental Ethics Eugene C. Hargrove: The Historical Foundations of American Environmental Attitudes R. V. Young, Jr.: A Conservative View of Environmental Affairs Kathleen M. Squadrito: Locke's View of Dominion R. J. Nelson: Ethics and Environmental Decision Making WINTER 1979 Klaus M. Meyer-Abich: Toward a Practical Philosophy of Nature William Godfrey-Smith: The Value of Wilderness Peter Heinegg: Ecology and Social Justice: Ethical Dilemmas and Revolutionary Hopes Robert C. Oelhaf: Environmental Ethics: Atomistic Abstraction or Holistic Affection? Edwin P. Pister: Endangered Species: Costs and Benefits Roland C. Clement: Watson's Reciprocity of Rights and Duties Eric Katz: Utilitarianism and Preservation Subscription Price, anywhere in the world: Individuals, $15; Institutions, Libraries, Private Organizations, Federal, State, and Local Offices and Agencies, $20; Single Copies, $5; Air Printed Matter to Other Countries, Four Issues, $6 extra. Send Remittance to: ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS, Department of Philosophy, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131 A Publication of The John Muir Institute for Environmental Studies and The University of New Mexico TO THE EDITOR: The chilling suppression of academic freedom in Czechoslovakia today, and the courageous response to it on the part of philosophers are described in the following report. I urge all members of the Association to read it. The report was prepared by Kathy Wilkes, a Princeton Ph.D. in philosophy who is Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at St. Hilda's College, Oxford, and who has recently returned from Czechoslovakia. Samuel Gorovitz University of Maryland REPORT ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA In March 1976 the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights and the International Pact on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights became legally binding in Czechoslovakia. Then in January 1977, a human rights. movement known as Charter 77 was formed, to monitor violations of the rights now guaranteed by the Constitution. These events at last made it possible for scholars to do something for the young people who, because of their own or their parents' views, had been denied education after the age of 14; and for those who had been expelled from colleges or high school in the aftermath of the Soviet incursion of 1968. Informal gatherings of scholars and students were now manifestly legal within the Constitution, and Charter 77 supported and defended the right to hold such meetings. Czechs and Slovaks alike have always placed the very highest value upon education: the most detested product of the Husak regime is illustrated in the bitter phrase, 'The children are hostages' --hostages for their parents' behaviour; if the parents do not conform, their child's education is forfeit. Hence the eager interest in, and support for, these seminars, even though all concerned realise that these classes can only compensate minimally for what has been stolen. 891
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1980-08 Kathy Wilkes - Report On Academic Freedom in Czechoslovakia_Stránka_3.jpg
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APA PROCEEDINGS Dr. Julius Tomin, a lecturer in philosophy at the Charles University in Prague, was a visiting fellow in philosophy at the University of Hawaii in Manoa. He returned to Czechoslovakia in 1969 to find that, along with many other philosophers, he had lost his academic job. In 1977, Dr. Tomin and many others throughout Czechoslovakia set up seminars to . discuss whatever topic it was in which the lecturer was competent (the massive purge of teaching staff in the universities between 1968 and 1971 ensured a large supply of trained and willing lecturers). Tomin's was one of the very few that was completely 'open': i.e., anyone could attend without an invitation, and no questions, not even names, were asked. Most lecturers more cautiously restricted the numbers, and attendance was by invitation only. But one way or another, throughout the country increasing numbers of people were enabled to study philosophy; history; the literature of Czechoslovakia, Russia, France, Germany, England, and America; theology; sociology; economics; linguistics; psychology; languages. This report concentrates upon Tomin's group because it is the one known best to the author, and because it is one of the very few to have been in existence for over three years. All these groups experienced, and still experience, persistent police harassment. Any 'open' course suffers the most, because by its very nature its successes become widely-known and eagerly reported. The experiences of Tomin's students can be taken as representative of what is happening throughout the country. One of his students was committed by the police for two weeks in a psychiatric institution. Four have been expelled from technical college for attending 'subversive' lectures - the lectures in question being on Heraclitus, by Tomin; on the Foundations of Language, by Charles Taylor (Chichele Professor at All Soul's College Oxford); and on Plato, by Dr. Wilkes of Oxford. These four find it very difficult to get even manual jobs so, together with other students who have lost their jobs because of attending the seminars, become vulnerable either to a charge of 'parasitism' or else to military conscription. The latter, in particular, is a dangerous possibility; few are able to force themselves. to accept service in an army which might soon (so persistent rumour has it) be compelled to assist the USSR in Afghanistan. However, since conscientious objection is punished by imprisonment, and renewed refusal by renewed imprisonment, indefinitely, expulsion from college or the inability to find even a manual job is a grave matter. More recently, students at Tomin's seminars have many times been arrested at the seminars and imprisoned for 48 hours, the maximum period that they can be held. without charge; and, increasingly, students have been very savagely beatenup as they are arrested. In the light of such treatment the minor harassments interrogations, threats, the loss of passports, driving licenses and telephones, or the withholding of mail is just the 'normal' background. ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA Just as his students have probably suffered more, on the whole, than those in other groups, so Tomin has been for three years the most persistently attacked of all the lecturers. He has been beaten-up numerous times, and could not count the number of 48-hour arrests and interrogations, unauthorised house-searches, or thefts of books and manuscripts. Twice the police have unsuccessfully attempted to get psychiatrists to declare him 'psychopathic paranoiac querulans'. For five months in 1979 the police sat outside his apartment door for 24 hours a day, refusing to allow in any but the immediate family; they threaten his family and often carry out their threats (his elder son Lukas has suffered considerably). Quite different attempts to stifle his lecturing include bribes and persuasion to make him leave the country. Some inside Czechoslovakia disagree with Tomin and those who offer 'open' classes; they argue that the circumstances require caution, secrecy, and thereby greater safety. It is not for anyone outside the country today to adjudicate this very real dispute; the pragmatic arguments for caution are self-evident and strong. On the other hand, though, over and over again we read (particularly in the samizdat publications) of the feeling that one of the most iniquitous features of the Husak regime is that it forces people to disguise their true beliefs and thoughts - - even from their own children, for fear that a casual remark is innocently repeated at school; and compels them to act in the way that is required of them, rather than in the way they think right. Therefore there must be a magnetic attraction for the young people in Tomin's insistence that, where nothing illegal is being done, there is nothing to hide. Those who give 'open' lectures do so as a matter of principle, not of provocativeness. Since April 1979, in response to an invitation from Tomin, philosophers have been visiting Prague to give talks to his group, and subsequently to two other groups which asked to be associated. Eight have visited from Oxford, but others have gone from other universities -- from London, Chicago, McGill, Sydney, the Australian National University, Uppsala, Paris, Bergen, Regensburg. In early 1980, Dr. William Newton-Smith (Senior Tutor, Balliol College) was interrupted by the police while reading a paper on The Rationality of Science. He was arrested, interrogated, searched, and deported. Some weeks later, A. J. P. Kenny (Master of Balliol College) received the same treatment for lecturing on Aristotle's ethics. All but these two lectures have been an unqualified success; and even after the deportations of the two Oxford lecturers, there have been three (at the time of writing) successful visits and lectures. Czechoslovak lecturers in other subjects are planning to extend invitations too to colleagues in the West. Everyone who has talked to Tomin's students has returned amazed. and impressed by the style and standard of the discussion. All their contributions are first-hand and original (partly, of course, because they have no access to the literature that would give them second-hand opinions). 892 893
1980-08 Kathy Wilkes - Report On Academic Freedom in Czechoslovakia_Stránka_3.jpg
====================
APA PROCEEDINGS Dr. Julius Tomin, a lecturer in philosophy at the Charles University in Prague, was a visiting fellow in philosophy at the University of Hawaii in Manoa. He returned to Czechoslovakia in 1969 to find that, along with many other philosophers, he had lost his academic job. In 1977, Dr. Tomin and many others throughout Czechoslovakia set up seminars to . discuss whatever topic it was in which the lecturer was competent (the massive purge of teaching staff in the universities between 1968 and 1971 ensured a large supply of trained and willing lecturers). Tomin's was one of the very few that was completely 'open': i.e., anyone could attend without an invitation, and no questions, not even names, were asked. Most lecturers more cautiously restricted the numbers, and attendance was by invitation only. But one way or another, throughout the country increasing numbers of people were enabled to study philosophy; history; the literature of Czechoslovakia, Russia, France, Germany, England, and America; theology; sociology; economics; linguistics; psychology; languages. This report concentrates upon Tomin's group because it is the one known best to the author, and because it is one of the very few to have been in existence for over three years. All these groups experienced, and still experience, persistent police harassment. Any 'open' course suffers the most, because by its very nature its successes become widely-known and eagerly reported. The experiences of Tomin's students can be taken as representative of what is happening throughout the country. One of his students was committed by the police for two weeks in a psychiatric institution. Four have been expelled from technical college for attending 'subversive' lectures - the lectures in question being on Heraclitus, by Tomin; on the Foundations of Language, by Charles Taylor (Chichele Professor at All Soul's College Oxford); and on Plato, by Dr. Wilkes of Oxford. These four find it very difficult to get even manual jobs so, together with other students who have lost their jobs because of attending the seminars, become vulnerable either to a charge of 'parasitism' or else to military conscription. The latter, in particular, is a dangerous possibility; few are able to force themselves. to accept service in an army which might soon (so persistent rumour has it) be compelled to assist the USSR in Afghanistan. However, since conscientious objection is punished by imprisonment, and renewed refusal by renewed imprisonment, indefinitely, expulsion from college or the inability to find even a manual job is a grave matter. More recently, students at Tomin's seminars have many times been arrested at the seminars and imprisoned for 48 hours, the maximum period that they can be held. without charge; and, increasingly, students have been very savagely beatenup as they are arrested. In the light of such treatment the minor harassments interrogations, threats, the loss of passports, driving licenses and telephones, or the withholding of mail is just the 'normal' background. ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA Just as his students have probably suffered more, on the whole, than those in other groups, so Tomin has been for three years the most persistently attacked of all the lecturers. He has been beaten-up numerous times, and could not count the number of 48-hour arrests and interrogations, unauthorised house-searches, or thefts of books and manuscripts. Twice the police have unsuccessfully attempted to get psychiatrists to declare him 'psychopathic paranoiac querulans'. For five months in 1979 the police sat outside his apartment door for 24 hours a day, refusing to allow in any but the immediate family; they threaten his family and often carry out their threats (his elder son Lukas has suffered considerably). Quite different attempts to stifle his lecturing include bribes and persuasion to make him leave the country. Some inside Czechoslovakia disagree with Tomin and those who offer 'open' classes; they argue that the circumstances require caution, secrecy, and thereby greater safety. It is not for anyone outside the country today to adjudicate this very real dispute; the pragmatic arguments for caution are self-evident and strong. On the other hand, though, over and over again we read (particularly in the samizdat publications) of the feeling that one of the most iniquitous features of the Husak regime is that it forces people to disguise their true beliefs and thoughts - - even from their own children, for fear that a casual remark is innocently repeated at school; and compels them to act in the way that is required of them, rather than in the way they think right. Therefore there must be a magnetic attraction for the young people in Tomin's insistence that, where nothing illegal is being done, there is nothing to hide. Those who give 'open' lectures do so as a matter of principle, not of provocativeness. Since April 1979, in response to an invitation from Tomin, philosophers have been visiting Prague to give talks to his group, and subsequently to two other groups which asked to be associated. Eight have visited from Oxford, but others have gone from other universities -- from London, Chicago, McGill, Sydney, the Australian National University, Uppsala, Paris, Bergen, Regensburg. In early 1980, Dr. William Newton-Smith (Senior Tutor, Balliol College) was interrupted by the police while reading a paper on The Rationality of Science. He was arrested, interrogated, searched, and deported. Some weeks later, A. J. P. Kenny (Master of Balliol College) received the same treatment for lecturing on Aristotle's ethics. All but these two lectures have been an unqualified success; and even after the deportations of the two Oxford lecturers, there have been three (at the time of writing) successful visits and lectures. Czechoslovak lecturers in other subjects are planning to extend invitations too to colleagues in the West. Everyone who has talked to Tomin's students has returned amazed. and impressed by the style and standard of the discussion. All their contributions are first-hand and original (partly, of course, because they have no access to the literature that would give them second-hand opinions). 892 893
====================
1980-08 Kathy Wilkes - Report On Academic Freedom in Czechoslovakia_Stránka_4.jpg
====================
B APA PROCEEDINGS The intense degree of concentration surprises each visitor, until he reflects that anyone who runs such risk to attend is unlikely to let his mind wander, even in sessions lasting up to 12 hours. Books and articles taken in circulate very rapidly, as do the copious lecture-notes taken by the students so that those prevented from attending may still get some benefit. Above all, the importance of education is manifest: indeed, it is often difficult to re-adjust to the average British student after the experience of discussions in Prague. Unfortunately, though, it would be a mistake to underestimate what the Security police can do: and this is where I turn to the urgent appeal for funds. There are even now several students whose chances in Czechoslovakia have become virtually non-existent. Some of these are children of VONS (The Committee to Defend the Unjustly Prosecuted) members sentenced last October; two of them are about to be conscripted, and since they will refuse conscription face an indefinite series of prison sentences. All have finally, after repeated and gallant attempts, been turneddown by the last secondary school, college, training college, or apprentice school; thus all hope of gaining an education inside the country has gone. A Trust Fund (to be called the Jan Hus Educational Trust, after a 14th century Czech martyr who was burned at the stake for his defense of freedom of scholarship) is being set up, with the aim of assisting in whatever way possible the education or research of Czechoslovak students and scholars. When recently in Prague I discussed the best use of such money with academics, writers, people engaged in the 'Living Room Theatre' or the musical underground, and Charter Spokesmen. There was unanimous agreement that at present the most pressing need for such money was abroad: to enable those unable to study inside Czechoslovakia to tain some education or training elsewhere--whether the subjects studied were academic or technological or film, theatre, music or journalism. Moreover, except for one or two really desperate cases, those who might benefit would be people determined to return to Czechoslovakia after two or three years abroad. Surprisingly, they thought that in most cases permission to leave and return would probably be granted there were several recent precedents. This admirable resolve to return eventually to their country will put a much greater strain upon the resources of the Trust than if the potential beneficiaries left as exiles or refugees, and hence would be able to support themselves eventually. Britain, for example, requires proof of complete funding for the duration of the period of study by foreign students; other countries have conditions that are almost as stringent. Hence we are looking for a really substantial endowment, from which there would be a respectable annual income. The money could evidently have other uses: to assist with the cost. of books (in, e.g., philosophy, history, psychology, theology, art history, economics, film and theatre, music, literature etc.); there is a man-made 894 ZECHOSLOV ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA book famine in Czechoslovakia. Further, the Trustees would hope to support with Research Fellowships scholars inside Czechoslovakia, sc that academics, writers or musicians can for a time concentrate entirely upon their work, rather than needing to spend each day in full-time, heavy manual labor. In the near future we hope to set up a branch of the Trust in the United States. Meanwhile, donations, advice, suggestions, and communi cations of all kinds should be sent to: EDITOR'S NOTE: The Secretary The Jan Hus Educational Trust P.O. Box 79 Oxford OX2 7EA ENGLAND In the New York Times of Friday, August 8, Flora Lewis reports from Prague the following news concerning Dr. Tomin: "Now, he is preparing to leave for England with his wife and two teen-age sons, who are denied higher education in Czechoslovakia because of their father's views. The regime has authorized him to go abroad for five years, no doubt hoping he will stay away. That is the policy now, to encourage emigration of those who speak out. But Tomin said he really wants to return because he feels that the spread of knowledge and communication among his people as well as with the West are the only way to break through the basic problems." 895
1980-08 Kathy Wilkes - Report On Academic Freedom in Czechoslovakia_Stránka_4.jpg
====================
B APA PROCEEDINGS The intense degree of concentration surprises each visitor, until he reflects that anyone who runs such risk to attend is unlikely to let his mind wander, even in sessions lasting up to 12 hours. Books and articles taken in circulate very rapidly, as do the copious lecture-notes taken by the students so that those prevented from attending may still get some benefit. Above all, the importance of education is manifest: indeed, it is often difficult to re-adjust to the average British student after the experience of discussions in Prague. Unfortunately, though, it would be a mistake to underestimate what the Security police can do: and this is where I turn to the urgent appeal for funds. There are even now several students whose chances in Czechoslovakia have become virtually non-existent. Some of these are children of VONS (The Committee to Defend the Unjustly Prosecuted) members sentenced last October; two of them are about to be conscripted, and since they will refuse conscription face an indefinite series of prison sentences. All have finally, after repeated and gallant attempts, been turneddown by the last secondary school, college, training college, or apprentice school; thus all hope of gaining an education inside the country has gone. A Trust Fund (to be called the Jan Hus Educational Trust, after a 14th century Czech martyr who was burned at the stake for his defense of freedom of scholarship) is being set up, with the aim of assisting in whatever way possible the education or research of Czechoslovak students and scholars. When recently in Prague I discussed the best use of such money with academics, writers, people engaged in the 'Living Room Theatre' or the musical underground, and Charter Spokesmen. There was unanimous agreement that at present the most pressing need for such money was abroad: to enable those unable to study inside Czechoslovakia to tain some education or training elsewhere--whether the subjects studied were academic or technological or film, theatre, music or journalism. Moreover, except for one or two really desperate cases, those who might benefit would be people determined to return to Czechoslovakia after two or three years abroad. Surprisingly, they thought that in most cases permission to leave and return would probably be granted there were several recent precedents. This admirable resolve to return eventually to their country will put a much greater strain upon the resources of the Trust than if the potential beneficiaries left as exiles or refugees, and hence would be able to support themselves eventually. Britain, for example, requires proof of complete funding for the duration of the period of study by foreign students; other countries have conditions that are almost as stringent. Hence we are looking for a really substantial endowment, from which there would be a respectable annual income. The money could evidently have other uses: to assist with the cost. of books (in, e.g., philosophy, history, psychology, theology, art history, economics, film and theatre, music, literature etc.); there is a man-made 894 ZECHOSLOV ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA book famine in Czechoslovakia. Further, the Trustees would hope to support with Research Fellowships scholars inside Czechoslovakia, sc that academics, writers or musicians can for a time concentrate entirely upon their work, rather than needing to spend each day in full-time, heavy manual labor. In the near future we hope to set up a branch of the Trust in the United States. Meanwhile, donations, advice, suggestions, and communi cations of all kinds should be sent to: EDITOR'S NOTE: The Secretary The Jan Hus Educational Trust P.O. Box 79 Oxford OX2 7EA ENGLAND In the New York Times of Friday, August 8, Flora Lewis reports from Prague the following news concerning Dr. Tomin: "Now, he is preparing to leave for England with his wife and two teen-age sons, who are denied higher education in Czechoslovakia because of their father's views. The regime has authorized him to go abroad for five years, no doubt hoping he will stay away. That is the policy now, to encourage emigration of those who speak out. But Tomin said he really wants to return because he feels that the spread of knowledge and communication among his people as well as with the West are the only way to break through the basic problems." 895