The young men invigorated their sense for duty towards themselves and the nation and began to educate themselves earnestly for their work, because they grew up in a voluntary discipline founded on the conscience of a common aim, and because they always had in sight goal of the Sokol’s efforts.
The opinion a member has of his duties towards himself, his surroundings, and towards the entire world has its influence on his whole civil life, on his personal honour and worth; so the Sokol idea forms itself gradually into the conception of a perfect civil virtue founded on the soundness and steadiness of the body. This persuasion penetrates every effort, regulates the inner and exterior activity of the societies and individuals and essentially changes the former superficial conceptions of the aims of the Sokols, of this so called »nationally army« of which often the most fanciful tasks were demanded. The moral mission of the Sokols comes out clearer and advances them to the field of cultural strife, toward the progress and elevation of the Czech nation in harmonic symmetry with its physical and mental faculties.
It would be erroneous, to judge the Sokols, as it often happens, their significance and activity by their external unessential moments, of which several, for instance, even the dress, are an inheritance of the past, which cannot be discarded, as this would jeopardise confidence and the deeply rooted notions of the masses. The real essence of the cause rests in the inner activity and its execution, in the systematic unceasing pulsation which keeps everybody busy, the youth, as well as the men and women, show an indefatigable aim at perfection in the moral pressure on the thoughts and feelings of the whole camp, at the continuous concentration of all powers which manifest themselves from time to time in undertakings that rouse the whole nation and even foreign lands into admiration.
At present the Sokol institution is no more a mere favourite pastime of a special society; it pervades, although not extensively, all classes of the nation and asserts its influence over them.
It is its own charm which principally captivates the youth which finds the rethe opportunity and the ground for realizing their juvenile ideals and for manifesting the strength of their prime of life in brotherly companionship.
This beautiful trait in the characteristics of the Sokol camp, serving the whole nation without distinction of rank or profession, without differentiation of age’ sex, social aims or political persuasion, has saved it from disputes and dissensions, by which public life generally is agitated and renders it as yet an impregnable fortress, inaccessible to any party quarrels.
