Page:Dr. Miroslav Tyrš, the founder of the Sokol Union (1920).pdf/11

 and convinced of the equality of all. In his words, „the Sokol-union has been founded for all classes.“

If the physical education of the working-classes is well organised, so that the leisure hours are employed in rational gymnastic exercises, even national economy profits by it. Physical and intellectual ability to work suffers by every illness; it decreases by want of vigour. „lf in individuals this decrease is negligeable, it is nevertheless very considerable in the mass. It amounts to thousands or millions of men and constituesconstitutes [sic] a great and irreparable loss in national economy. This economical side of the question is so serious and commonly acknowledged that it is able to resist all prejudices.“ (1877.) Tyrš always laid stress upon the equality of all men – as far as they deserve it as moral beings. – His endeavours in the Sokol-union also aimed at the reconciliation of social contrasts.

He desired to introduce beauty and harmony into education. Greece had furnished him with models of physical beauty. He surely thought of Greek gymnastical education when he wrote: „There is an inner connexion between the elegance of movements and a good structure of the body. Every harmonious movement requires control of the whole body, not only of the one part by which the movement is being executed. As each control of the body is connected with the activity of the muscles, and as each harmonious movement requires constant control, therefore constant exertion of the muscles, it results that strength, perseverance and an elastic dexterity are built up without which strength resembles to brute force. Beauty, strength, grace and usefulness do not preclude one another (the Greeks can serve as models); on the contrary, usefulness and strength profit by beauty and grace.“ Mere exercises on the bar do not content the artistic taste. The Sokol-idea means much more than mastership in gymnastic exhibitions. Calling gymnastics a spacious art, Tyrš shows that every movement must have its aesthetic value, Dress instruments and buildings must be estimated by the same standard. In his article „Gymnastic exercises and Aesthetics“ (1873), he laid stress upon aesthetic education and uttered the hope that the Sokol-idea would animate artistic creation.

According to Tyrš gymnastic halls have to be centres of national education. This programme assures to the Sokol-organisation an honourable place in Czech social life. Its responsibility grows from day to day. The Czech people have to keep to – dayto-day [sic] their freedom and become a nation that is just to itself and unto others. Tyrš desired to see all Slavs united in the struggle for a sublime cause.