W.E.A.

Evening Star, Issue 20194, 6 June 1929, Page 3

W.E.A.

THE SECRET OF DANISH BUTTER in the early years of the nineteenth century the Danish peasant was unprogressive, sullen, and suspicious, averse from experiment, and incapable of ass ociatcd enterprise. To-day he is forward looking, cheerful, scientifically minded, resourceful, co-operative. To what causes is due the remarkable change in tone and temper of a large rural population? Ju the ’seventies and early ’eighties of the last century, Danish agriculture was hard hit by foreign competition in the grain markets of Europe. The Danish peasantry turned for a remedy to technical improvements, not to protection. It. changed over from the export of wheat to butter and bacon. It proved itself mobile, intelligent. heartily co-operative. Whence did it get the fertile, imaginative, and adaptable outlook that made this possible? For some years before there had been extending through the country the Danish Volk Schools. Started as a method of resisting German encroachments on the border counties, they were extended with the ideal of raising the manliness of the people. Said their founder, N. S. F. Grundtvig, pastor, poet, historian, educational reformer, and social prophet; “ It is my highest wish as a citizen that soon there may be opened a Danish high school accessible to young people all over the land, where they may become better acquainted with human nature and human life in general, and with themselves in particular, and where they will receive guidance in all civic duties and relationships, getting to know their country’s read needs. Their love of their country shall be nourished by the mother tongue, their nation’s history, an’d by Danish song. Such schools will be a well of healing for our people.” It is the practice to despise literature and history. The emphasis is placed on education being practical. It is usual to place a cultural education as the last requirement of a child or adult. The belief is that the successful farmer is the man who sticks to his farming. The people’s high schools founded by Grundtvig and his disciples gave the essence of a liberal education to fanners’ sons and daughters. The humanities, history and literature, did not breed inelfectuals. Between 1860 and 1880 they worked a miracle of culture in the Danish countryside. The peasantry was transformed. The farmer became a better farmer because he was a little of a poet, 100. It is universally admitted that the agricultural papulation of Denmark could not, but for the work of the people’s high schools, have shown adaptability so great, open-mindedness so intelligent, such resourcefulness that enabled it to make a virtue of necessity. Grundtvig’s policy bad found the issue be predicted. Corporate life in an atmosphere of liberal education bad given practical culture. Often do there appear such signs as “ Practical Chimney Sweep,'’ “ Practical Bootmaker,” or “ Practical Carpenter.” We have often wondered what a theoretical chimney sweep, bootmaker, or carpenter would be. The answer inspired by Danish history would be a chimney sweep who had studied poetry ! The new leaders of the peasantry, tiie organisers of the new and effective eo-operation were for the most part high school men. The co-operative dairies rose like magic. Butter and bacon saved Danish agriculture. Behind the new and swift reorganisation of one of the most conservative and individualistic ol industries were brains, leadership, and unselfish public spirit. 'The people’s high schools inspired their pupils with energy and idealised labour. “Wo clenched our lists as we listened to the lectures, and yearned to go out and set to work,” writes one of the students. in the schools the young men learnt to trust one another. In co-operative enterprise they translated that trust into terms of associated credit. The schools gave them a wide outlook, opening in the pupils’ minds new windows through which they looked out on the world. With this effective culture, and with the faith which went with it, tlie young men and young women saved Danish farming. The aim of the folk high schools was, through the medium of history and poetry, let it be emphasised, to bring about that social and human awakening which stimulated the growth of spiritual powers. It was comparatively simple, once the spirit was aroused, to translate this into terms of material improvement. THE NEED FOB. EXPRESSION. There is no more important result of education than the power to express one’s meaning clearly and intelligibly, and there is no respect in which a man or a woman can feel himself more cruelly handicapped. Because of his want of education he is inarticulate; not necessarily that he lacks words, but that he or she cannot find the right words with any certainty or nicety. He is like a baby growing into a child. He can understand more than he can utter. He wants to do something, to obtain something, and bo lacks the power to tell the parent or his administrators. The baby, cries or screams. The man is exasperated. The man or woman has convictions which have some basis in experience. But he or she is unable to formulate at all precisely, even to himself, ivliot he thinks and why he thinks. He lias a perpetual stutter. Thus he cannot support his own ideas which he feels within him. He is thwarted as a mountain stream is held hack by an artificial barrier. He sutlers or he breaks out in sonic other direction. tie cheers at a football match. Ho 6 swears at his wife. He growls at his employer. lie is illtempered on a crowded tram ear. He must do something. He is aware of his inferiority in ability to express his ideas or feelings. He"is “ the dumb and the blind” of Haiold Chapin’s play. When he has coble into contact with education he finds some satisfaction to his needs. He gets scope for Ins creative energies. He learns to express himself He becomes free. It is inr, cresting that one of the subjects desired by the students at the Palmerston Sanatorium is ‘ The Art of Public Speaking.’ DRAMA CLASS. Students are keeping up their interest, as evidenced not merely by the good attendances, but by the "increasing numbers who are willing to spend their leisure in rehearsing the plays. Augustus has found his father, the foundations of English society have been preserved by a decision to retain the censorship of plays and films, the museum has been visited under the guidance of Mr Skinner; Mr Ambrose Applojohn has had his adventure and settled down to a peaceful marriage; Mr Pym has passed by. The ideal is to have all the students taking an active part before the year is over. The heroine will stoop to conquer, Elizabeth will refuse, and there are a dozen Joans prepared to meet martyrdom. And so it moves.