Page:President of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, Thomas G. Masaryk.pdf/13

 and disciplinary nature, with the professors, but especially about religion. He refused to go to confession and called the principal of the school a contemptible wretch for admonishing him with the words: "To confession you must go. I do not believe in it either, but I am an official and must do my duty."

Thomas Masaryk had to seek his fortune elsewhere, in Vienna. There he graduated from gymnasium with honours and besides by that time knew Russian well enough to tutor the children of a Russian family in Russian. In Vienna he also graduated from the university, took his doctor's degree, and became a docent of the university. Between taking his degree and becoming a docent he spent a year in Leipzig, where he became acquainted with Miss Charlie Garigue, later his wife; to bring her back from her parents, he went over to America in 1878. When in 1882 the University of Prague was divided into two parts, a Czech and a German, Dr. T. G. Masaryk was called to be a professor of the former.

Such were the salient points in the life of the man who in 1882 at the University of Prague took up work as a teacher and the organizer of his younger colleagues, whom he mustered to work in the scientific review "Athenaeum". He began to lecture in the clubs and societies of Prague on unaccustomed subjects and to write astonishing books; he became a member and instructor of the „Sokol“ and captivated all with whom he came into contact as well with his manly and gracious appearance as with his deportment, at once natural and energetic.

The position of Masaryk in his nation about the year 1900, at the meeting-point of the centuries, could well surprise the stranger; however, it was nothing strange to anyone versed in our home affairs. Thomas G. Masaryk had already raised several generations of pupils, had written a number of remarkable works, and already had behind him a significant political and publicistic activity, but his name was notorious rather than famous. All three of the official powers that ruled over the nation's life took a stand against him: he was hated by the church, punished by the state, and all but expatriated by the national leaders, because he disquieted these powers. The works of Masaryk to the year 1900 are:

1. On Hypnotism (animal magnetism). A Psychological Treatise. Prague, 1880. 2. Suicide, An Epidemical Social Phenomenon of the Modern World. Vienna 1881. (German.) Czech translation published by Laichter. 3. The Ratio of Probability and Hume's Scepticism. A Historical 5