nce had devised
for the production of the finished article. He at first concluded that
this success in a highly technical industry by bodies of farmers
indicated a very perfect system of technical education. But he soon
found another cause. As one of the leading educators and agriculturists
of the country put it to him: 'It's not technical instruction, it's the
humanities.' I would like to add that it is also, if I may coin a term,
the 'nationalities,' for nothing is more evident to the student of
Danish education or, I might add, of the excellent system of the
Christian Brothers in Ireland, than that one of the secrets of their
success is to be found in their national basis and their foundation upon
the history and literature of the country."

Every observer of these Danish Folk High Schools testifies to their
religious enthusiasm, their patriotism and above all to the songs with
which their lecture hours are begun and ended. A graduate of these
schools living for years in America, the mother of children then
entering college, said, "Those songs helped me over the hardest period
of my life. I can always sing myself happy with them." The spirit which
pervades the schools was influential in Danish agriculture, as
expressed in the title of Grundtvig's best known hymn, "The Country
Church Bells." Under such an influence as this has the agricultural life
of Denmark taken the lead over its urban and manufacturing life.

The modifying influence of husbandry upon the church and its teaching is
illustrated in the following incident. A farmer in Missouri had a good
stand of corn which promised all through the summer to produce an
excellent crop. Abundance of sun and rain favored the farmer's hope that
his returns would be large, but in the fall the crop proved a failure.
The farmer at once cast about for the cause of this disappointment. He
had his soil analyzed by a scientist and discovered that it was
deficient in nitrogen. The next year he devoted to supplying this lack
in the soil and in the year following had an abundant return in corn.
"Now that experience turned me away," said he, "from the country church,
because the teaching of the country church as I had been accustomed to
it was out of harmony with the study of the situation and the conquest
over nature. I had been taught in the country church to surrender under
such conditions to the will of Providence." The country church of the
husbandman must therefore be a churc