COMPARATIVE OBSERVATIONS AND 

 SUGGESTIONS 



Education 



The Popular High Schools, which are the distinctive feature of 

 Denmark's educational system, are the growth of Danish conditions. 

 No country could easily imitate them ; at the same time the 

 concensus of testimony to the leading share they have borne in the 

 industrial evolution of the country is so strong that the Commission 

 desire to emphasise their general aim. It is the formation of 

 character by bringing young persons under the play of literary, 

 moral, religious, and personal influences, rather than the acquisition 

 of knowledge in subjects usually regarded as of more direct practical 

 value. The experience of the Commission, and particularly their 

 observation of what co-operation has done to vivify all forms of 

 Danish life, leads them to think that the rural schools of Scotland 

 might be used to prepare the minds of the young for the better 

 reception of the idea of associated effort. The principle of co- 

 operation in agriculture is already at work, and its extension is 

 generally viewed as a good. Without weakening the value of the 

 individualism which, in the Scottish character, is strong enough to 

 take care of itself, the curricula of the rural schools might with 

 advantage be made to include lessons inculcating the importance of 

 sympathetic, voluntary combination. The efi'ect upon character of 

 numbers working together for a common end warrants this use of 

 school opportunity. At present, efforts to introduce co-operation 

 among farmers, and other persons of the rural class, suffer from the 

 settled predisposition, perhaps not so much to distrust and suspect, 

 as to believe that personal acuteness, operating in a competitive 

 atmosphere, will always count for more than joint exertion. The 

 Co-operative Distribution Societies of the towns have asked that 

 the principle they are constituted upon should have a recognition 

 in the schools not less marked than that accorded to thrift and 

 temperance, and the promotion of a similar object in the country 

 districts is thought worthy of the consideration of the. Scotch 

 Education Department. 



In regard to agricultural education the Commission cannot too 

 strongly impress upon the sons of farmers, and all others contem- 

 plating a farmer's life, the necessity of taking a regular course of 

 tuition at one of the Scottish Agricultural Colleges. To make the 

 fullest use of the resources of the soil, and to contend successfully 

 with rivals in all parts of the world, it is increasingly necessary 

 that practice should go hand in hand with the scientific knowledge 

 these Colleges are fitted to impart. 



