The article explores and documents the originn and development of the field in this country by focusing on the activities of the two main academic centres of pedagogical discussion at the time in the Pedagogical Seminar of the Philosophical Faculty of Charles University in Prague, and the Pedagogical Seminar of MAsaryk University in Brno. The study basis on the study of original pedagogical documents in the archives of the academic institutions concerned. The article consides the quewstion of the position and grounding of theory of education in the lectures and lecture series giuven by Prague and Brno professors and docents (readers) in education and also traces conceptions of the field as the emerge from the fundamental work published in the relevant period - the Pedagogical Encyklopeaedia.