THE EDUCATIONALIST. 69 



success. The ideas and principles on which these High Schools 

 are established were conceived in the brain of one of Denmark's 

 many great sons Bishop Grundtvig born 1783, died 1872. He 

 was a Goliath amongst the makers of modern Denmark. He 

 admired England greatly, and owed much of his inspiration to 

 her. .4 



As Roussau fought for childhood, so Grundtvig fought for 

 youth. He pleaded for the recognition of the value of youth as 

 of intrinsic value in itself. Education, he pleaded, should not 

 confine itself to books. It should develop executive power, and 

 create that right public opinion which is the most potent factor 

 in the proper solution of all political and social questions. He 

 recognised that book-learning was important up to a point, but 

 it was by no means everything ; that a nation would never 

 get the right ideas of education until it definitely understood 

 that a man may be well trained in book-learning and yet in the 

 proper sense of the word, and for all practical purposes, be 

 utterly uneducated, while a man of comparatively little book- 

 learning may, nevertheless, in essentials have a good education. 

 He was, however, as he puts it, far from being a " book-learned " 

 man. He both loved and hated books ; loved them because they 

 built a bridge over to the life of the past, hated them because they 

 built a barrier between the reader and the life of the present. We 

 never find him either claiming to be a master in his profession, 

 or aspiring towards perfection in form. Poetry to him was the 

 language of the heart, and through it he expressed the enthusiasm 

 and idealism of his life. It is truly said of him that out of his 

 dreams a world arose, and this world was the People's High 

 School movement. 



Underlying the High School idea are the following great prin- 

 ciples, viz., that the transition years between childhood and man- 

 hood and womanhood are the least favourable for intellectual 

 influences and indeed for intellectual activity, and that the years 

 from 18 to 25 cover the period when young people are most 

 receptive to intellectual influences. Grundtvig held that child- 

 hood should be regarded as one stage of development, and that 

 the education given during that period should be allowed to 

 ripen during the years of adolescence until the child had become 

 a man or woman, and had passed through a time of practical 

 experience, and then should begin a new period of preparation 

 for life. This preparation should be not book-learning, but 

 instruction that would bring inspiration into the daily lives of 

 the common people and make them worth more to themselves 

 and to their country. In other words, to drive home the old, 

 old fact that " man does not live by bread alone." 



These schools are of a voluntary character and are for young 

 men and women between the ages of 18 and 25, who generally 



