The Dansk Folkesamfund. 
85 
they were usually discouraged in their first attempts and gave 
it up altogether. It is a rare thing to find in a Danish settle¬ 
ment a man who can carry on the ordinary business transactions 
in the English language. In fact such a man is sometimes king 
among his countrymen. They are absolutely dependent upon 
him in their intercourse with the world where the reading and 
writing of the English language is required. He may run their 
political caucuses, their township and school affairs to suit him¬ 
self, and this in spite of the fact that he is not acceptable to a 
majority of the voters, for they have no other choice. If it is 
a rare thing to find a man in a Danish settlement who can do 
business in the English language, it is a still rarer thing to find 
one qualified to teach a district school. Even in districts ex¬ 
clusively Danish, a Dane is seldom employed as teacher. 1 A 
superstition exists in some settlements that a Dane is incap¬ 
able of acquiring the accomplishments necessary to teach a 
country school; and that, if through unusual mental endowment 
and industry any one should actually succeed in this, then the 
“ Yankee county superintendent” would nevertheless deny him 
a certificate on account of his nationality. 
It is, however, not fair to lay the whole blame for this state of 
things on the Grundtvigian ministers; because there exists among 
the Danes, especially in this country, a very marked tendency 
to self-depreciation, a lack of confidence in themselves individu¬ 
ally and in their countrymen generally, for which the Grundtvig¬ 
ian ministers are not responsible. But these ministers were 
the natural leaders of their people, the only ones who had an op¬ 
portunity. There was need of such leadership, too, for the great 
mass of Danes who have emigrated belong to the laboring classes, 
who have had little or no training in the management of educa¬ 
tional affairs. They could not, though they had a fair idea of 
what they wanted, take the initiative in the matter themselves. 
And if the Grundtvigian ministers, instead of trying to force their 
own ideas through, had met the desire of their people for an Eng¬ 
lish education, they could have built up a system of schools which 
would have given them a hold on the most enterprising and 
1 Since the Elk Horn school began to prepare its students for the work 
of teaching, this state of affairs is somewhat modified. 
