EN
What are intellectual's tasks and possibilities in a local community of a small town? In this draft the authoress considers the example of Jan Szczepański, a sociologist of world-wide fame, born in Ustroń in 1913. It presents his opinions as a researcher of education on intellectual's functions as well as his conception of individuality which can be explored by every human in him - or herself and which can limit the social evil. It also shows the life's path of Szczepański himself, his aims as a scholar and how he could fulfill them in realities of the Polish People's Republic. The draft portrays ambivalence towards educated persons in local community and the burden of choices which they have to make. It turns out that intellectual's responsibility to a community is not always possible to make real on place, but the most important is approach to one's work and remembrance about where does one come from. Szczepański in his life executed the determinants of peasant and Protestant reliable approach to work as a duty towards others (both the closest persons, the society and future generations) and towards the higher order, which maintains this world.