Huntsville gazette., 1891-05-30
DANISH SCHOOLGIRLS.
They Learn Things that Are Worth While
and Learn Them Well.

They Learn Things that Are Worth While
and Learn Them Well.
The Danish girl is little known and
less understood in foreign countries.
Even the commonplace German girl is
much more frequently described and
analysed than she in the modern liter
ature of foreign countries. She is,
however, worthy of all the observation
which has been so freely bestowed OF
late years on her continental sisters.
For Americans especially her training
and ideas of girls duties in life should
be subjects of keen interest, as she
grows to womanhood with more Amer
leans characteristics than almost any
other girl between the Bay of Biscay
and the Asiatic border.
The Danish girl in her youth does not
learn so much soldier-like obedience
and reverence as the German girl. nor
so much imitation of knowledge as the
American and English girls. The OBJ
ject of the education of young girls in
Denmark is to render them really in
dependent for life. Every effort is
made to develop the reasoning powers
and to arouse originality. "Keyes"
and ''ponies" are consequently almost
unknown among Danish schoolgirls.
A term in metaphysics, just because it
smacks Of higher education, and gives
young woman an opportunity of say
ing: ''Oh, how / hated itr' is an un-
known institution. Everything, on the
contrary, is careful, solid, thorough.
Among the very young object lessons
are moro prevalent than in any other
country. Among the more mature the
same principle obtains, and all the nat
ural sciences, for instance, are taught
with the aid Of sufficient apparatus,
specimens and charts. The Danish girl
gets the same manual training as the
boys with whom she is allowed to as
sociate in school hours.
The consequence of this early train
ing is that most Danish girls leave
school with all sorts of un-European
ideas of their independence. Probably
no continental country has, in proper
ton to its size, as many women gradu-
ates in medicine, philology and juris-
prudence, and the number of girls in
professional and learned courses of
study is increasing yearly. Daughters
of rich tradespeople devote themselves
after having served their apprentice
ships in the concerns of strangers where
only the value of their services deter
mines the rapidity of their Advance
ment.
The trade of the goldsmith has within
the last fifteen years gained popularity
steadily among the daughters of the
better class of Danes, SO that to-day
all the goldsmiths of Copenhagen have
young women as apprentices as well as
assistants often enough in their most
elaborate styles ofwork. Young women
of lower aspirations become bakers OF
confectioners, and are slowly bat sure
ly crowding out from the tradan the
men to whom such occupations never
properly belonged.
Not few girls in Denmark study the
art of gardening. Scores annually be-
come professional dairymaids. Young
woman of the peasant class devote
themselves mostly to learning all about
vegetable gardening, and to encourage
them in learning to do their work thor
oughly numerous agricultural associa-
tions and local authorities give prizes
for the greatest skill shown in trans
forming ugly and unfruitful spots into
model beds of beets, peas, and the like.
High and low, rich and poor" said a
German educator in recent article on
Danish women, teach their daughters
to support themselves in case of need
without being obliged to stife their
lives in the crowded rooms of great fac
tories and workshops. IN. Y. Sun.