The Dansk Folkesamfund . 
31 
prevent them from becoming Americanized; for the maintaining 
of the Danish tongue is as far from being the greatest blessing 
as the getting of the English is the greatest curse. Even if the 
Danish language is lost to our posterity, they might still retain 
all that is good and true in the Danish character; for just as a 
man can take his material inheritance into a foreign country, so 
he can take his spiritual inheritance into a foreign tongue. 
We older people must remember that we can hardly imagine 
ourselves in our children’s places. They have a fatherland 
which is not ours. In a measure it is impossible for them to be 
Danes; for they lack the Danish environments, and in a measure 
the Danish tongue must always be a foreign tongue to them. 
To keep the children born in this country from coming in con¬ 
tact with its language and life is a violation of nature which 
will at last revenge itself. ” 
This sentiment was promptly attacked by F. L. G-rundtvig 
and other G-rundtvigians. They did not, however, stop at this, 
but made the subject a personal one, thereby arousing a personal 
animosity which did much to intensify the subsequent quarrel. 
The Grundtvigians continued to push their high schools, 
poems are decidedly prosy, a large share of them being argumentative, 
written to prove his own theories, or to disprove those of his opponent. 
He is very prone to the use of sarcasm and bitter personal attacks; though 
he sometimes apologizes for his harsh expressions, he usually repeats the 
offense when the next opportunity offers itself, and through this unfor¬ 
tunate trait of character he has made more enemies than through the ad¬ 
vocacy of his peculiar religious and social theories. 
But whatever may be the faults of his character and theories, it can¬ 
not be denied that he is honest, fearless, and unselfish in his labors for the 
cause he considers right. He has never in all his labors in this country 
considered his own advantage in the matter of money or position. He 
might have stayed in Denmark and been sure of an easy, paying position; 
and he might have gone back in 1894, as pastor of the Marble Church in 
Copenhagen, one of the most honorable clerical positions in Denmark, and 
one in which he could have been at perfect liberty to preach just what he 
believed. But he has chosen to stay with his American congregation on a 
salary scarcely sufficient to support him, with a record of defeat behind 
him and almost certain failure before him; and that, too, though he con¬ 
siders himself as an exile here, and feels at home nowhere but in Den¬ 
mark. 
