Download The Danish Folk High Schools. Bulletin, 1914, No. 22. Whole Number 595 Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
This bulletin contains the third section of Harold W. Foght's report on the rural schools of Denmark. This section of the report pertains almost wholly to the folk high schools, which have by common consent been the most important factor in the transformation in the rural life of Denmark and in the phenomenal economic and social development of that country. In the 30 years from 1881 to 1912 the value of the exports of standard agricultural products--bacon, eggs, and butter--increased from $12,000,000 to $125,000,000. Waste and worn-out lands have been reclaimed and renewed. Cooperation in production and marketing has become more common than in any other country. Landlordism and farm tenantry have almost disappeared. Only 2 per cent of Danish farmers are now tenants or leaseholders. Rural social life has become intelligent, organic, and attractive. A high type of idealism has been diffused among the masses of the people. A real democracy has been established. This is the outgrowth of an educational system, universal, practical, and democratic. Any agency so simple, modest, and inexpensive as the Danish folk high school that can be considered even as one of the important factors in such a result, or rather in such a combination of results, is well worth careful study by the people of the United States. That the Danish folk high school may be successfully transplanted is abundantly shown by the success of such schools in other Scandinavian countries--Norway, Sweden, Finland. That the form of the school must be modified for successful transplanting to English-speaking countries is not only shown by the attempts to establish schools of this kind in England and America, but is inherent in the very nature of the schools and in the principles and ideals out of which they have grown. The purpose of this bulletin is to tell in as simple a manner as possible the story of the Danish schools, emphasizing what they have accomplished for the nation at large and for rural folk as individuals, in the hope of lending some assistance to the earnest men and women who are at this time hard at work to bring about an awakening in some of the retarded byways of our own American rural life. Individual sections contain footnotes. (Contains 5 tables and 6 plates.) [Best copy available has been provided.].