Danish Parochial Schools. 
25 
in which the Danish language, history and traditions should be 
taught in connection with Lutheran doctrines, as interpreted 
by Grundtvig, while the English branches were to be relegated 
to the position of incidental studies. The common arguments 
used in favor of this plan were, that since the public school did 
not give religious instruction, it omitted one of the most essen¬ 
tial objects of education; besides, in the public school most of 
the teachers were either “infidels” or “sectarians” who were 
prone to poison the children’s mental food with doubts and 
false doctrine. Furthermore, the discipline and the whole 
moral atmosphere of the public school destroyed the innocence 
and sweetness of childhood, and the reverence for parental au¬ 
thority. Several plans for obtaining men and means for these 
schools were brought forward. One of the earliest and most 
feasible of all was to make the high school something of a 
teachers’ seminary, and then organize a society whose aim should 
be to agitate the question among the people and raise the 
necessary funds. This plan failed,.partly because few students 
stayed at the high school long enough to qualify themselves for 
the work of teaching, but mostly because the people in general 
refused to give it any substantial support. The society which 
was to prepare the way lived only one year, 1879-80, having 
accomplished nothing beyond the collecting of about one hundred 
and fifty dollars. When disbanded, it was admitted by its 
founders to be a failure. Another plan proposed was to get 
control of the public school in districts where Danes were in the 
majority, engage a Danish teacher qualified to teach both public 
and parochial schools, and give him a good salary for teaching 
the public school, so he could afford to teach the parochial school 
at a small salary, during the vacation of the former, which was 
to be as long as the law would allow. This plan, like the first 
one, came to nothing. No Danes could be found qualified to do 
the work required; and the high schools, which might have 
done something along this line, neglected to adapt themselves 
to the work. Besides this, there were but few districts in 
which the Danes were in the majority, and in these districts 
they were usually unable to agree on any scheme of education. 
In fact, nothing whatever of a practical nature has been done 
