provincialism or making frequent mis- | takes in grammar?

Shall I find you taking a thoughtful interest in my school, or interested only in yourself and your pinnacle?

Shall I find that you know good school decoration when you see it?

Shall I find you so devoted to one method that you fail to see good results that are accomplished without it?

Shall I find that you wish the teacher's energy spent in teaching or in unnecessary report work?

Shall I find you, in good manners, a model for my boys?

Shall I look forward to your next visit with pleasure or dread?

for home use, and keep their best voice for those whom they meet elsewhere.

We would say to all girls and boys: "Use your best voice at home. Watch it by day as a pearl of great price, for it will be worth more to you in the days to come than the best pearl hid in the sea. A kind voice is a lark's song to heart and home. It is to the heart what light is to the eye."

THE "PEASANT UNIVERSITIES" OF DENMARK.

BY J. CHRISTIAN BAY.

ENMARK is the land of the _sunny

sional or political?

But this is the time when a sharp voice is more apt to be acquired. You often hear boys and girls say words at play with a quick, sharp voice, almost like the snap of a whip. If any of them get vexed, you hear a voice which sounds as if it were made up of a snarl, a whine, and a bark. Such a voice often speaks | worse than the heart feels. It shows more ill will in tone than in words. It is often in youth that one gets a voice or a tone which is sharp, and which sticks to one through life and stirs up ill will and grief, and falls like a drop of gall on the listener. Some people have a sharp voice

plains. According to John Carr, a gentleman traveler, who visited the Scandinavian countries in 1803, her population "possesses a good-natured, laborious character," and is "fond of spirits, but rarely intoxicated." Probably the latter trait accounts for the fact that the Dane has permitted his country to become the play-ground of nearly every spiritual experiment carried out by modern Scandinavian writers. However this may be, notably enough the little kingdom of Denmark is the place where such authors as Björnson, Ibsen, Lie, Kielland and Garborg-all of these being Norwegians-first won fame and recognition, and through Danish critical filters their masterpieces have been slowly sifted down in the great world-cauldron of ideas. ideas. Denmark, indeed, has offered a fruitful soil, besides, to the transplantation of numerous essentially foreign æsthetic flowers, scented or otherwise;and yet the nation has not become unduly intoxicated. As every other community on the face of the earth, she possesses a certain measure of "young blood," which may at times run so wild as to profess a love of things foreign and strange, instead of warming to the old, recognized ideals. Owing to the powerful influence of Brandes, young Denmark carries a strong "European" rather than a national trait. Yet, below the cosmopolitan varnish, the national heart beats full, soft and strong.

The contemporary Danish national type is that which does not only make excellent butter, but knows that any country is, unless loved, doomed to fade into oblivion. It is identical with the peasant type.

Björnson some years ago certified that the education of the rural population in Denmark is on average above what other European countries have attained. Instances of illiteracy are practically unknown. Alert minds and active spirits dwell within the stout, perhaps over-fed bodies, and guide the hands that turn out one tub of most excellent butter after another, to the envy and the astonishment of the dairymen of other countries. And it is true that the same hands have managed to catch a firm hold of the reins of the government. Speaking in dialect has become quite common in the "Rigsdag" during the last few decennia; and this is of some significance in a constitutional kingdom.

Em

Such a harmonious development is worthy of notice, and invites an explanation of the main factors thereof. inent among these are the people's high schools, or, in the language of Sonya Kovalevsky, the "peasant universities."

The father of the social-æsthetic-religious movement that culminated in the establishment of more than seventy uniform educational institutions among a population of scarcely more than 2,000,000, is N. F. S. Grundtvig, bishop, poet and historian; one of the most remarkable men in modern Scandinavian history. He was born in 1783, and received a clergyman's education. In 1810, when ordained as a minister in the state church, he produced a violent commotion in the Danish theological circles by preaching a sermon over the question: Why has the word of God fled from His house?— a powerful word addressed to the rationalistic clergy, exhorting ministers to preach the word of God instead of lecturing from the church pulpit on such themes as the construction of suitable apiaries, the cultivation of carrots, the rotation of crops, etc. Significantly enough, when the clergymen in pleno defied him, only one declared that he "did not feel the hit."

In Grundtvig's numerous writings produced through a period of nearly sixty years of toil and trouble-he published more than any other Danish author of the past or present-we find numerous allusions to a reform of the schools for the young. He, himself, having witnessed the practices of the old form of classical schools, and seeing what young men must endure, could never grow tired of advocating a school reform in favor of

live matter and live languages. We hear him assert that the real prime of life is "the creative age of the spirit, when the great views which give us joy and benefit in years after, and the love which lends impulse to a desire of active participation of life, will manifest themselves."

This period occurs, said Grundtvig, as young men and women begin to realize their hopes and desires-at the age of seventeen to twenty. Then is the time when they need light o'er life; when they want words of advice and guidance, and not dry forms; when the living word of live men should penetrate their minds and give impulse to every good and noble seed hidden there.

There should be an audience of craving young minds and souls, and teachers to guide them for good. The audience had been as long as Denmark had been in existence; but the teachers had been blind to what their pupils had a right to demand: a helping hand in making their start in the world. Every one, high or low, rich and poor, should imbibe a knowledge of the world in and about him. Every one, regardless of caste or craft, should realize his right to lead a noble life, a life of ideals. The history of mankind and the poetry of great ages were to be the basis, "the school for life."

Times came, when Grundtvig's name was a banner, but even if it had never reached the climax of popularity it at length enjoyed, the manner in which Danish educators realized the people's high school idea, would preserve the fame of the system.

As an educational idea, Grundtvig's view is entirely original and Northern in character. Socrates, Rousseau and Pestalozzi planned like systems, and yet there is a vast difference. The contemplation of youth as the sunny age, upon which a rich or poor harvest is dependent, is rather universal; but a school for the young, aiming at life rather than certificates, degrees and examinations, and adapted to the many instead of the comparatively few gifted ones, was remarkable at that time when Latin and Greek grammar ruled arbitrarily the growing generation. As things were, thousands of young men and women might hunger for light and food for their minds, but without ever having an opportunity to claim what they wanted. If the "lower" classes were to gain anything through their emancipation from privileged yokes,

it was a right to idealize life within and about their spheres.

Grundtvig's high school idea aims at the same double end that nearly all other educational systems have in view, namely, the intellectual development of the individual and of the people through the individual. But it was a pronounced departure from accepted standards, when he placed all the stress upon the living word on the teacher's tongue, claiming its superior power, as compared with the dead letter. The practice of leaving young men and women alone to fight or cherish, without guidance, the many views and aspirations of budding manhood or womanhood, appeared to Grundtvig most ridiculous. When the July When the July revolution had infused into many progressive minds new perspectives of liberty and republicanism, he renewed his efforts to call into existence high schools where the maturing generation could absorb well-founded ideas of whatever pertained to the welfare of their country, and avoid the detestable fate of playing the role of "ballot cattle."

The conservative government was loth to accept Grundtvig's suggestions, although these won the favor of more than one member of the Royal family. Indeed, Christian VIII., the only scientist who ever graced the throne of Denmark, took steps to reform the famous Academy of Soer, which Ludvig Holberg, Denmark's Voltaire, had founded; but the king's death, in 1839, put a stop to the realization of the plan.

Five years later, Christian Flor, formerly professor of Danish literature in the University of Kiel, succeeded in raising the funds necessary to the establishment of a genuine people's high school. The institution was established on a large country estate in Rödding, Jutland, and was a success from the beginning. Flor was thoroughly in sympathy with Grundtvig's ideas, and found occasion to express this in reply to an inquiry from Russia, thus: "In the people's high schools we do not aim to impart what is generally termed 'knowledge.' We endeavor to educate and enlighten the student's mind, and to warm up and enlarge his heart. Therefore, young people must seek our school as grown up men and women, at a time when their minds are ripe and their hearts susceptible."

Denmark's unfortunate war with Ger

many, in 1864, made Rödding a part of a Prussian province. The buildings remain yet, and are those of a typical Danish farm, with its four wings arranged in a square, its spacious garden abundant in old fruit trees and gooseberry bushes, and its hawthorn hedges fancifully trimmed. But the school was moved across the border line, to the village of Vejen, where "Askov High School since developed into a veritable Mecca for the young generation of Danish peasants.

While Rödding and Askov maintained certain "academic" features, there was a young teacher, Kristen Kold, who attempted another interpretation of Grundtvig's ideas. He resolved to establish a high school from which any and all traces of classicism and formality were removed. Having rented a few rooms in a farm-house, he gathered about him a number of young men-plain children of equally plain Fuenlander families— and proposed to awaken them. He never professed imparting to his pupils. any definite amount of positive knowl edge, but endeavored merely to stimulate their energies and to create a desire for spiritual activity. In accordance with this purpose he wasted no time upon trifling details, which might be useful to others, but lectured on subjects of general importance to every-day people. His address was that of a brother or a friend, and even though he employed no text-books, times came when the boys had learned to love heaven and earth well enough to ask for details.

In spite of much opposition among the sceptic rural classes, Kold's high school prospered, and little by little the farmers permitted their daughters to seek the institution-still not without some misgivings respecting woman's emancipation. and the like.

Many of the men and women who took part in the movement during the first years of struggle, have long been asleep. But through their children the peasant university plan has been realized, and over the sunny plains, the idyl of which every traveler from John Carr to Edmund Gosse has vaunted, dwells an echo of enthusiasm over the school for life," and six thousand young men and women are every year added to the army of workers whose agricultural art is well nigh foremost among all competing fraternities, and whose butter has long. astonished our English friends.

In 1864 only seven high schools existed | in Denmark. Seven years thence the number had been increased by twentytwo, and at present about seventy schools of this character dot the country, which occupies only fifteen thousand square miles. The fact that nearly one hundred and fifty thousand men and women among a total population of two millions have visited some high school, is indicative of the importance of these institutions for the development of national intelligence.

Nearly all Danish people's high schools are located in or about small towns and villages. They usually occupy one or more houses of the same type: On the lower floor several lecture rooms, a gymnasium, dining rooms, and, usually, the private apartments of the director and his family. On the upper floors are dormitories for the pupils, reading and conversation rooms, etc. The calendar year embraces two school terms.

Very little special teaching takes place in these institutions, but pupils listen to five, sometimes six or seven lectures every day, and take part, besides, in such special courses in dairy book-keeping, horticulture, cattle-feeding, fishing, etc., as may be offered. Weaving, sewing and cooking pertain to the girls' department. The practice of sloyd is very much indulged in by the young men. Subjects for the lectures are taken from civic history mainly; besides, Bible subjects and themes from the fields of natural history, geography, mathematics and hygiene, political and social economy, mythology, and every-day life, afford a basis of talks and discussions. On the whole, the pupils are required to listen rather than to read, a method intimately connected with Grundtvig's idea of "the living possessing an eminent advantage over the dead letter." To awaken the spiritual activities and to render the young minds susceptible, are the main objects of the teachers. Hence, nearly all high school pupils are excellent listeners and the teachers admirable lecturers. It is quite remarkable how rapidly a dull young person will, under proper guidance, acquire a faculty of readily making use of even a small store of knowledge.

word "

The absence of examinations makes the pupils free and easy in their movements. Each school term closes with a commencement exercise of several days'

duration, during which a number of addresses are given by prominent men or women from far and near, by the teaching force and others, whereupon the pupils return home to pursue their divers trades, thus putting their attainments to practical tests.

The effect of the healthy, happy school life upon the young people is highly beneficial. True, there are certain rules which everybody is expected to observe, but the maintenance of order is no difficult matter in an institution where the teachers' homes are thrown open to every student; where the dining hall is the common refectory of teachers and pupils alike, and where the welfare of the school is a matter of mutual interest.

It is truly wonderful to witness how a skillful teacher may attach himself to some individual pupil, and chatting merrily with him in a sofa corner, find the key of the pupil's very heart. Such faculties enable the teachers to mould characters and train the feelings of the young. "Break-downs" from overwork are practically unknown, as the schools will be sought only by the class of young people whose minds are fresh and recep tive, and whose bodies have, through constant work, attained strength and endurance.

The recognition of these high schools is now universal in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany and Austria. County and state appropriations support them, and of late they have become identified with the university extension movement throughout Scandinavia.

Among the men who devote their energies to the promotion of the peasant universities--a term coined by the late Madame Kovalevsky-are some of the most influential teachers in Denmark. The name of Paul la Cour will never be forgotten, as long as the tiled roofs of Askov are visible from the German frontiers. His important discoveries in the field of electricity and his great work on the transmission of sounds have caused the universities of Copenhagen and Vienna to seek his service, but in vain. Ludvig Schroeder, the historian, and Ernst Trier, are household names in Danish educational circles.

In our own country, four high schools of the Grundtvigian type are now established. Their aims and methods have been modified to a considerable extent, as the English language and American

history must be cultivated by our foreign contingent, if the same shall be of value to our national cause.-Education.

OUR STATE GOVERNMENT.

SYLLABUS OF CONSTITUTION OF STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA.

BY J. D. PYOTT.

COME months ago we reprinted an excellent syllabus of the Constitution of the United States which many of our readers have found useful. The following is an essay in the same direction, compressing the State Constitution into comparatively small compass, but preserving the points most likely to be needed. We give it place in the hope that it also may be helpful to those readers who under the new law must be examined upon our State Constitution:

DECLARATION OF RIGHTS.

All men equally free and independent, with right to life, liberty, property and pursuit of happiness. i, 1.

All power inherent in the people; government founded on their authority, to be altered or abolished at their will. i, 2.

Worship a matter of conscience, no compulsion or interference or legal preference. No disqualification for office of one who acknowledges God and future rewards and punishments. Equality of suffrage and no civil or military interference therewith. i, 3, 4, 5.

Trial by jury to be inviolate. i, 6.

Freedom of press to examine proceedings of public officers, no law may restrain; no conviction for publication of matter proper for public information if jury find no malice or negligence.

Unreasonable seizures and searches forbidden, and no warrant issued without probable cause duly sworn to. No one compelled to testify against himself, nor deprived of speedy trial by his peers. i, 7, 8, 9.

No proceeding by information for indictable offense, except in military service in time of public danger. i, 10.

No one to be put in jeopardy of life or limb twice for same offense. i, 10.

Property not taken for public use without previous just compensation. i, 10.

Courts to be open and justice administered without sale, denial or delay i, 11.

Suits against Commonwealth as Legislature may provide. i, II.

No law suspended but by authority of Legislature. i, 12.

No excessive bail or fines, no cruel punishments. i, 13.

All prisoners bailable, except for capital offenses where proof direct or presumption great; habeas corpus not suspended except in case of rebellion or invasion. i, 14.

No commission of Oyer and Terminer or General Jail Delivery to issue. i, 15.

No imprisonment for debt unless presumption of fraud, after estate delivered to creditors. No ex post facto law, no impairment of contracts, no irrevocable grant of special privileges.

No attainder of treason or felony by legisla ture; no corruption of blood, nor forfeiture of estate beyond lifetime of offender. i, 17, 18, 19. Right of peaceable assembly for common good, petition and remonstrance, guaranteed. Right to bear arms not to be questioned. No standing army in time of peace; military always subordinate to civil power; troops not quartered upon citizens except by law. i, 22, 23. No title of nobility or hereditary distinction to be granted. i, 24.

No office held for longer than good behavior. Emigration from State not to be prohibited. Everything thus far noted is excepted from general powers of government, and to be forever inviolate. i, 24, 25, 26.

LEGISLATIve departMENT.

General Assembly consisting of Senate and House of Representatives. ii, 1. Chosen every second year, vacancies filled on writ of presiding officer. ii, 2. Senators elected for 4 years, Representatives for 2 years. ii, 3. Assembly meets at noon 1st Tuesday of January every second year, in extra session at call of Governor, but no adjourned annual session. When vacancy of United States Senator during recess, Governor shall convene Assembly by proclama tion on not more than 60 days' notice to fill same. ii, 4.

21.

Senators to be 25 years old, Representatives Both to be citizens of State 4 years and of their districts I year before election, and to reside therein during term. ii, 5.

No member of Assembly shall during his term hold any civil office, and no member of Congress or other public officer (except in militia) shall be members of Assembly. îì, 6.

No person convicted of embezzlement of public money, bribery or infamous crime, eligible to Assembly. ii, 7.

Salary and mileage to be fixed by law, no other compensation; no increase of salary during term. ii, S.

Senate elects its President at beginning and close of term, who acts as Lieutenant-Governor in case of absence or disability. House elects its Speaker. Each chooses its other officers, and is judge of qualification of members. ii, 9.

Majority of each House necessary to a quorum; minority may compel attendance of absentees. ii, 10.

Each House to make its own rules, punish contempt and disorder, enforce its process, protect its members from violence or bribery, and expel by two-thirds vote. One expelled for corruption to be ineligible to Assembly. ii, 11.

Each House to keep and publish a journal; two members may require yeas and nays to be entered. ii, 12. Sessions to be open except secrecy is necessary. ii, 13. Neither House to adjourn for more than 3 days without consent of other, nor to another place. ii, 14.

Members privileged from arrest during session, going and returning, except for treason, felony, violating oath of office, or breach of