This study of T. G. Masaryk deals with his pre-1914 career as a professor and persistent dissenter. For three decades he was a constant and unrelenting critic of conventional wisdom, established institutions, and customary practices in Bohemia and Austria-Hungary.

At every stage he was a radical dissident in all questions of public life as well as in private matters: religion, the nationality problem, the place of women, labor and the social question, parliament and government in the Monarchy, its foreign affairs and foreign policy institutions, education, the courts and legal system, the Catholic Church and clericalism, the university establishment, Czech politics and Czech political parties, the interpretations of Czech history, and anti-Semitism.

Never afraid to speak his mind and attack the evils of public life and society, Masaryk often found himself alone and suffered the blows of a hostile public opinion and official wrath. He displayed a rare example of civic courage.

Although he did not openly advocate full state independence for the Czechs and Slovaks, he was a severe critic of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and prepared the minds of his fellow citizens for the struggle for national freedom in World War I and for a democratic life after 1918.