The Bohemian Sokols
that the energy of the individual must be raised and his character strengthened, that the practical efficiency of the Bohemian people must be increased so that the entire race may better withstand external attacks. All that, however, presupposes the physical well-being and strength of every component element. And how to reach such a desirable state of affairs, how to cultivate the nation’s energy, how to raise the health of a people?
To this question Tyrš found an answer in physical training, based on the model of ancient Greece. He was convinced that Greece owed its unparalelled excellence to the passionate cultivation of the physical training of her children, and that the bodily vigor created by athletic exercises was the cause of the devoted patriotism which preserved the nation’s liberty. And so Tyrš boldly went back to the classical era for the means to strengthen his own race that he might train the youth of his beloved Czech nation into a similar harmony of physical and mental faculties and instill into it an ardent patriotism—the desires of the individual to be subordinate to the interests of the nation.
The Sokol idea is the realization of this philosophy. Sokol—the falcon—is the bird that by his swiftness and energy best symbolizes the active, vigorous life which is the ideal of Sokol societies; the falcon who flies high in the free skies is also the symbol of freedom—and every Czech is born with a devotion to freedom. The ideas of Tyrš found many followers. The Sokol Unions gathered in them the best elements of Bohemia, and in a surprisingly brief time this organization became the pride of the nation, as the personification of the nation’s yearning after a more vigorous and untrammeled life. The Sokols came to be the first national institution, awakening Czech consciousness in weak and indifferent breasts and arousing the desire for a more distinctive racial life. In every great popular demonstration and manifestation the Sokols had the place of honor.
There was soon apparent a danger that such a sudden success might turn the heads of the membership and dissipate its strength in superficial parading of patriotism. Tyrš the founder was also the instructor and leader of
