DENMARK AND THE DANES 



143 



Photograph by Maurice P. Dunlap 



FOUR FAIR DIANAS OF DENMARK 



The Danish girl is fond of sport and often excels in riding, bicycling, swimming, tennis, 

 and even boat-racing. A university "co-ed" has no trouble in keeping up with a crowd of 

 fellow-students on a twenty-five-mile walk across country. Until her recent marriage to 

 Prince Rene of Bourbon, Princess Margaret of Denmark, the only princess in Europe who 

 has received a university degree, might be seen merrily bicycling or driving her little car 

 on the roads between Copenhagen and her father's country house of Bernstorff. 



Kristen Kold was a son of a shoe- 

 maker, and of a not very prosperous 

 shoemaker. He early learned to detest 

 the traditional system of education, and 

 the directors of this formal system made 

 a cabal against him, and he was forced 

 to give up his intellectual ambitions and 

 to be content with the avocation of book- 

 binding. His book-binding, however, was 

 very thorough, and he respected, as most 

 Danes do, the art of the handicraftsman. 

 He became, by accident, acquainted with 

 the writings of Bishop Grundtvig, and, 

 thus inspired, he took courage and 

 founded at Redding, in 1844, the first 

 people's high school. 



It was impossible that such a cultural 

 school at that time could expect state aid. 

 In the first place, it was not to be merely 

 an academic or bookish school. It was 

 intended for all who could listen and 

 understand. Its whole power depended 

 on the personality of the teacher. Its 

 appeal must be solely through the spoken 



word. It was a courageous experiment, 

 for its success would depend entirely on 

 the support of the people. In a short 

 time a hundred men, old and young, ap- 

 plied for admission. 



But the women did not desire to be left 

 out. Coeducation was looked on, not only 

 in Denmark, but all through the Western 

 World, as a horrible and dangerous inno- 

 vation. 



The pupils of Kristen Kold's first 

 school were almost entirely farmers, and 

 these farmers could not attend his lec- 

 tures in the summer season, when they 

 were needed in the work of the soil; but 

 in the summer it was possible that some 

 of the women might be free, and so he 

 began by giving summer and spring 

 courses for the women. 



From this beginning grew the great 

 system of Danish high schools, which it 

 is said were the models on which our 

 Chautauquas were founded ; and also the 

 system of university extension in Eng- 



