4 Bille—A History of the Danes in America. 
He himself was indefatigable in his efforts to arouse and 
strengthen the patriotic sentiment of his countrymen. He 
translated into plain modern Danish many of the old Scandina¬ 
vian myths, stories and ballads, and celebrated both in poetry 
and prose the deeds and prowess of the old gods and heroes. 
He addressed himself to the common people, especially to the 
peasants, for he believed that the upper classes had been so in¬ 
fluenced and warped by foreign, especially German, culture and 
ideas that they had almost lost their Danish character. It was 
not, however, till 1848-’49 that he began to exert any decided 
influence on the common people. The war carried on at that 
time against the rebel duchies, Schleswig and Holstein, and the 
granting of the constitution, thoroughly aroused the patriotic 
spirit of the Danes. Grundtvig and his picturesque religion 
with its poetry, myth, saga, and patriotism, which he still 
claimed was old-fashioned Lutheranism, pure and simple, gained 
many adherents. A spirit of religious enthusiasm was aroused. 
Laymen began to preach and exhort, something hitherto un¬ 
heard-of. Home missionary societies were organized, and re¬ 
ligious meetings of the revival type were the order of the day. 
But the most important feature of this agitation was the estab¬ 
lishment of so-called peasant high schools. From the very be¬ 
ginning of his career Grundtvig had been strongly opposed to 
the schools of his day, with their “ learning by rote of dead and 
useless facts. ” He advocated the establishment of schools, the 
chief functions of which should be to inculcate religious and 
patriotic sentiment and give instruction in the practical affairs 
of life. He first tried to interest the government in his ideal. 
Failing in this, his friends raised sufficient money to enable him 
to carry out his plan independently, and in 1856 the first peasant 
high school was established in Denmark proper. Since then the 
number of these schools has steadily increased till at the pres¬ 
ent time they number about seventy, with an annual attendance 
of between three and four thousand students. This means a 
mental utterances,— things which he has said or written under great 
emotional pressure. His work, “ Kirke-Spejl,” a series of church histori¬ 
cal lectures given in 1863, undoubtedly gives the fairest representation of 
his views on the subject of nationality and religion. 
