The Danes in Denmark. 
5 
great deal in a country with an area only one-fourth that of the 
state of Wisconsin, and a population of only two millions. 1 
These schools have all been built by private enterprise or 
public subscription, and they are patronized almost exclusively 
by the rural population. Religion, history, literature, and sing¬ 
ing are the main subjects of instruction, and the main aim is to 
develop the patriotic and religious spirit in the direction indi¬ 
cated by Grundtvig. Their tendency is to lay too much stress 
on the ideal and too little on the real, to cultivate the emotions 
rather than intellect. Nevertheless the effect of these schools, 
as indeed of the whole Grundtvigian agitation, has been to make 
the common people more patriotic, more appreciative of the 
higher sentiments, and less submissive to authority of any kind. 
Pastoral authority has especially suffered. Indeed it has al¬ 
most entirely disappeared; a fact which partly explains the very 
1 The methods adopted by the high schools are based on the supposition 
of an ideal instructor dealing with ideal pupils. Nearly all the instruction 
is given in the form of lectures, or by personal talks with the pupils. This 
is done on the theory that the living word of the teacher is much more im¬ 
pressive than the dead letter of any book. No qualifications for entering 
are required; no set lessons are given, no definite amount of work is as¬ 
signed, and there are no class recitations. The schools recognize no such 
things as examination, promotion or graduation. No other stimulus is re¬ 
lied upon than the personality of the teacher and the student’s love for the 
work in hand. As^might be expected, this method is not conducive to any 
very intense intellectual activity. In fact, there is such an apparent lack of 
effort and concentration on the part of the students in these schools that an 
American schoolmaster, even if he were a Herbartian, would be likely to 
pronounce the wholeTprocedure a farce. The following is a sample of the 
work as observed by the writer at the Rodkilde high school on the island 
of Moen, 1892: A class of about fifty were comfortably seated in a large, 
pleasant room, each one engaged in some work of knitting or crocheting. 
They were rattling needles and silently passing judgments upon their work 
and that of their neighbors; while the teacher was sitting at his desk, de¬ 
livering a lecture upon the geography of Denmark. In arithmetic these 
same young ladies were all working at their seats on slates, each one from 
some different part of the text book. If they succeeded in working the 
problem in hand to their own satisfaction, they took hold of the next; if 
unable to work it they went to the teachers, who were sitting at desks at 
one end of the room. The teacher showed them how to solve the problem 
and sent them to their.seats to work as .before. 
