PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN RURAL DENMARK

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CCORDING to a statement made at a meeting of the Royal Commission on Agriculture in India last year, the farming class in Denmark, unlike farmers in most other countries in the world, does not complain that the children in the country districts are drawn away from agriculture by the teaching in the schools. It was considered remarkable that such should be the case in a country like Denmark where agriculture plays so important a part in the national life, and it was suggested that perhaps the explanation might be that, owing to the political influence of the farming class, the system of education in the rural schools had been shaped to suit the farming interest. In reality the principle, that the system of school teaching in the country districts should not interfere with the interest of the farmers, or peasants, was formulated long before they had acquired the influence on legislation which they now undoubtedly have. It was in fact formulated by a Royal Commission appointed by an absolute king, long before Denmark became, in 1849, a democratic and constitutional country. Under the authority of that report the direction of the rural schools was left, and is still left to a great extent, in the hands of local school boards on which the peasants are largely represented.

That this feature of Danish education has been widely appreciated may be inferred from the fact that at a meeting of the Imperial Education Conference last July, at which the Duchess of Atholl presided, when the question of rural education was under discussion, Mr. Monro, representing Nova Scotia, said that :

Something could perhaps be learnt from the Danish system of rural schools, which concentrated on a few essential subjects and taught these subjects thoroughly. It was interesting to note, for example, that in Denmark there was no attempt to teach agriculture in the elementary school-this in one of the most successful agricultural countries in the world. An agricultural bias was not introduced until after the elementary school stage; and then only for those pupils who proceeded to higher institutions with the special object of obtaining agricultural instruction. (The Times, July 7, 1927.)

While agreeing with most of what Mr. Monro is reported to have said, I still think it might be improved upon in some respects. It is correct that agriculture is not taught in the Danish elementary schools. Agriculture is considered too advanced a subject for children. Properly understood, agriculture comprises chemistry and physiology; the study of the soil with its chemical and mechanical properties, its teeming life of microbes and animalculæ ; the application of manures; the use of machinery; the diseases of plants and animals; and a study of the principles of heredity involved in breeds of domestic animals and strains of agricultural plants. But some of the subjects connected with agriculture, such as botany and zoology, are often taught in elementary schools.

The really important point however is that in Denmark the elementary school is linked with agriculture by the fact that the children are left free to take part in practical agricultural work as soon as they are old enough, but while still of school age. By working for and with their parents or others they learn many useful lessons and develop an interest in one or other of the many various branches of agriculture.

In a country like Denmark, where only 30 per cent. of the population are actually employed in purely agricultural pursuits, and where the land, although greatly sub-divided and with a large and gradually increasing number of small holdings, cannot possibly absorb the increasing rural population, many-but happily not necessarily the most intelligent-children must find employment in other professions. Those children who stay on the land are employed in practical agricultural work, and thereby get a leaning towards agriculture. But they do not "proceed to higher institutions" when leaving school. It is a principle of agricultural education in Denmark that agriculture, being a collection of many applied sciences, cannot be taught in elementary schools nor to anybody who has not first acquired a thorough practical training. Therefore a young agricultural worker, be he a humble labourer or the son of a farmer with many acres, whose farm he may be called upon to take over, will not attempt to proceed to higher institutions; nor would he be accepted by any Danish agricultural school or college before he has reached the age of 18, and has had a sufficient practical training. The Royal Agricultural College in Copenhagen will accept no agri

cultural pupil who has not worked for at least three years on the land.

The many agricultural schools in the country, all private undertakings, are evolved out of the People's High School, and it is undoubtedly due to these latter that young men, and women too, have learnt to value adult education so that they will flock to the agricultural schools at the age of 18 to 25, and often even later, when they have been duly prepared by practical work. And they are then very keen on absorbing the scientific teaching which explains to them many problems they have met during their work. The agricultural school may be open for as much as nine months, but especially concentrates on the winter, leaving the pupils free to earn their living during the summer months by practical farm work. In this way it comes about that Danish farmers, and also farm labourers, may be looked upon as ever studying, ever interested in the progress of the science of agriculture, and this may be taken as one of the reasons why they are not drawn away from the land. Indeed, one would be perfectly justified in saying that there are many more fully trained young agriculturists in Denmark than can be accommodated with land or find employment with farmers.

To revert however to the specific subject of primary schools in rural Denmark, it is worth while to note at how early a date primary education was established in the Danish kingdom. As early as 1683, by the code of King Christian V, it was made compulsory for all children in the towns to go to school from their sixth year. A generation later, King Frederik IV, in 1721, had 240 schools built in country districts, and several of these buildings are still in existence. In 1739, King Christian VI made it compulsory for all parishes in country districts to build schools for those children who were not taught at home. The cost of keeping these schools was partly defrayed by taxes, and partly by the parents paying the teachers for each child attending school. But these bold efforts did not produce perfection. An investigation made in the year 1784 showed that the school buildings were often very inferior, and the teachers in many cases ignorant and in other respects unsuitable. In 1789 a Royal Commission was appointed to investigate what ought to be done to improve the system of primary education. Before the enquiry was completed, the first seminary or college for the education of a better class

of teachers was opened in 1791 in Copenhagen in a royal castle, Blaagaard, and later on others were erected, partly by the State, partly privately. In 1799 the Royal Commission submitted their report, which recommended that all children should be taught free of charge in proper schools, but with the very important condition, that necessary precautions should be taken to avoid depriving the peasants of the help which the children were accustomed to give in carrying on the work on the farms. There is no doubt that this important provision was proposed, not in the interest of the children, but rather as a limitation of what was due to the children, and proposed in order to make the compulsory schooling of the children less burdensome and objectionable from the point of view of the farmers. A similar consideration, tending to confirm the opinion that the schools should not draw the children of peasants away from the peasantry, found expression during a deliberation of the Royal Commission concerning the seminaries, when in 1800 it was declared that "the school teachers should be educated to be sensible peasants among the peasants."

In 1814, royal decrees were issued dealing with education in towns and country districts. Confining our attention to the latter, the important points to note are that education was made compulsory for all children from their seventh to their fourteenth year, but they might enter the school a year earlier. The children were to be examined by the teacher twice every year in the presence of the school board, and they could not leave the school before they had proved, by the final examination, that they had acquired the necessary proficiency in the different subjects. Children might be taught at home when the school board was satisfied that they were properly taught by a competent teacher. In other words, compulsory tuition in schools, as prescribed in the law of 1739, was replaced by compulsory education in schools or at home, but in the latter case under some supervision. Boys and girls were, and still are, taught together in these schools.

In each parish there was to be a school board elected by the parish council, and it was required to provide so many schools that the children had no greater distance to go to the school than one mile, and that a teacher had no more children than he could properly manage and teach. The duty of the teacher was not restricted to merely teaching the children. He had to see

that no children with a contagious rash or other illness came to the school, and to admonish the parents to have the children properly cared for and cured; when the parents omitted to do so they could be fined. The children of poor parents were treated at the expense of the poor fund. The teacher had also to see that the children were kept clean; if they came dirty from their homes the parents could be fined. The children were to be instructed in religion, reading, writing and arithmetic, and also in the history and geography of their country; singing and gymnastics were also taught and the necessary apparatus for gymnastics was to be provided out of the school fund. The teacher was not to punish the children, but to encourage the clever and well-behaved.

The children were examined twice a year in the presence of the school board, and no child could leave the school unless it was found to have acquired the necessary efficiency. For those children who had left school and had been confirmed, but who wished to extend their education, continuation classes were kept during the winter two days a week, in the evening for boys, in the daytime for girls.

All tuition in the schools was free, including that given in the continuation classes. The teacher, in addition to his salary, had a free house and fuel and enough land to keep two cows and six sheep. Provision was also made for supervising the schools in the different parishes, both by civil servants appointed by the king and by the clergy, who were required to send reports annually to the King's Department.

To this point was the educational system of Denmark carried by the absolute monarchs through their officers. It was in 1849 that Denmark first obtained a popular constitution, and control of education then passed to the legislature. The system of 1814 has since been gradually developed and modified without any alteration of its fundamental principles. Children whose parents cannot afford to pay for their education are still educated free in the public schools. Also the principle laid down in 1814, that parents who provide at home an education equal to that of the school shall be under no obligation to send their children to these schools, is maintained.

An important characteristic of the Danish system is the principle of decentralization. The local school boards, one in