ercises, full of exuberant strength, proper to his temperament and full of the courage belonging to a sound and well developed body.
To this age is offered an opportunity of making full use of its physical capacities and of attaining that virile vigour, defensive power and bravery which are necessary to a people living in unceasing strife and hard struggle for national self—preservation.
To a juvenile, noble minded emulation there is assigned an open, wide field, always pointing to the final aim and the patriotic duties of every effort suitable to a Sokol.
The combined principle of a free training which begins with simple elements and strives to attain the highest points of gymnastics with the consciousness that it is everybody’s duty to sacrifice himself for the common national weal roused naturally sense for the interests of the whole union and for discipline and devotion to the cause, which fitted the character of the pupils also for their other duties in public life. Herein lies the whole charm and the principal substantiation of the Sokol method in contrast to the egoistical methods and systems which pursue only individual advantages and gains, as well as one sided, excentric, sportive training, acrobatism etc.
Of the Sokol system was to effect its extensive national mission, it was obliged to adapt itself to the social conditions in which we live and which present the majority of grown—up in workshops, industrial or commercial establishments, or in offices, from devoting any time during the day to their training, it was obliged to democratise itself and to become accessible to the broadest classes. It was, therefore, necessary to abstain from daywork and to give up the sunny playground in favour of the gymnastic halls and there to offer to the pupils in a comparatively short time, during the hours of rest, a condensed instruction which would serve its all round training. Besides free exercises without apparels there were prepared exercises with and on apparatus which in their complicated combinations set every part of the muscular system in activity and, following the rules of the art, systematically develop the whole body, although the exercies and plays in the fresh air always remain the ideal of the invigeration of the body.
The common identical aim steadily incited to an association and organisation of all work and to its common adaptation, therefore, from the begining every energy was directed to the organisation of a union in which every activity would be concentrated. The opposition of the government frustrated this intention, the petitions to permit the forming of a union were returned with the stereotyped answer that the pursuit of physical exercise had nothing in com-
