Czacki was born in Poryck in Volhynia, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, now Pavlivka in Ukraine. When Prince Adam Czartoryski was placed at the head of the educational district of Vilnius, Czacki was appointed school inspector of Volhynia, Podolia, and the Ukraine. An opponent of the Jesuits, he combated their work in the field of pedagogy, and on one occasion raised by public subscription the sum of two millions of Polish florins to insure the existence of the gymnasiums in Vinnitsa and Kiev. In 1805 he founded the high school in Kremenetz, Volhynia (the Liceum Krzemienieckie). After Czacki's death his heart was deposited in one of the halls of this Volhynian school, under the inscription "Ubi thesaurus tuus, ibi est cor tuum" (Where your treasury lies, there lies your heart). He discovered what was thought at the time to be the grave of Copernicus; however, controversy over its location continued long afterwards. He also was a panel member of the Komisja Edukacji Narodowej, founded by Stanisław August Poniatowski in 1773 and considered to be the world's first ministry of education.