om country school is
an institution which in itself cannot be made to minister to modern
community life. It is simple and modern life is complete. It is casual
and irregular while the forces with which it has to deal are
steady-going and cumulative in their power. It is inexpert and served by
no specialized professional class, while modern life calls for the
service of experts in every direction. It has no social value, while
modern life is always social in its forms of action and requires social
interpretation for its best effects.

A closing word should be said for a type of schools which has been
perfected in Denmark. They are known as the "Folk High Schools." These
are popular schools, adapted to the teaching of adults to get a living.
Denmark has an adequate supply of technical schools, and these latter
are not established to train scholars or scientists. Their use is to fit
men and women to meet the issues of life, at home, hand in hand, with
skill and enthusiasm. They use few text-books and have no examinations,
and six months are sufficient for a course of study. The schools are
religious and their foundation was the work of Rev. N. F. S. Grundtvig.
In songs and in patriotic exercises, all their own, they idealize
country life and the work of the mechanic.

The academies of earlier days in rural America were centers of a similar
influence. But with the growth of the public-school system these have
been generally abandoned. It is a question whether some of them would
not serve a need which is felt today, if only they would train men for
modern country life with the same success which they once had in
training leaders for a former period.

Then all the people lived in the country. Now only a third of the people
are concerned with the farm. So that the education of the modern country
boy or girl would require to be carried on in a different manner, in
order to retain the best of them in the country. The example of the
"Folk Schools" offers an analogy to what might be done in American
country life, if the academy could be transformed into an institution
for the education of the young in the country.

All observers testify that the "Folk High Schools" have been the first
influence in transforming Denmark in the past forty years, from a nation
economically inferior to a nation rich and prosperous. This change has
been wrought through the betterment of the farmers and other country
people, by means of education in