Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1915-03-31
Scandinavian Foundation Sends Sec
rotary to Western Colleges. He
VIII Visit Norwegian, Swe-
dish and Danish
Institutions.
WEDNESDAY
WELL RECEIVED
Lectures Are Illustrated by Numer-
GUS Slides. THE Voyages of the
Vikings" is an Exceptionally
Interesting One.


series of lectures on Scandinavian
subjects by it's Secretary, DR.. Henry
Goddard Leach. He will visit the
Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish col
leges, the state universities in strong
Scandinavian centers, and few So
cieties having literary interests. lie
appeared at Luther College in Decor
ah Wednesday evening.
Dr.. Leach, though a native Ameri-
can of Mayflower ancestry, and trac-
ing his Northern blood no nearer
than the Norman invaders OF Eng
land, has been interested in Scandin-
avian subjects ever since his boy
hood, when he first took d .igh. in
the winter Sborts of the North At
ter graduating from Princet Eri-
verSity, he took graduate wolk al
Harvard and rlere received his doe
tors degree in 1908, and a travelling
fellowship Cor study in Scandinavia.
He is one of the five men who have
won the Travelling Fellowship at
Harvard for Scandinavian study
the first being Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow, the second w. II. Scho-
field.-now professor at Harvard and
a trus ee of the American-Scandin-
avian Foundation, the third H. G.
Leach, the fourth Professor o. j.
Campbell Of the University of Wis
consin, and the fifth Bernhard $.
Hustvedt of DEBORAH, Iowa.
In Scandinavia DR.. Leach visited
many places not usually seen by the
tourist, and when he returned 10
America, he announced, to his friends
that he meant to deyote his life to
making Scandinavian culture known
in the United States. He was in
structor in Morse and English at
Harvard for two years, and at the
same time contributed many articles
on Scandinavian subjects to the mag
azines. His book entitled "Scandin-
avia of the Scandinavians" will be
published in England this year.
The opportunity to devote him
self completely to the Scandinavian
movement came in 1912, when lie
accepted the position as Secretary
of The Observation-Disclosures Foun-
dation. He has been active II
the official organ Of the
Foundation, the American-Scandin-
avian Review, of which he is Manag-
ing Editor, and more recently the
two series of books, the Scandinavia
an Classics and the Scandinavian
to be issued regularly
by the Foundation.
In the early part of 1913, when
the Art Exhibition organized by the
Observation-Disclosures Society and
subsidized by the Foundation was
shown in the Chicago Art Institute,
DR.. Leach made lecture tour in nu-
merous cities of the Middle West
and was received with the utmost
and kindness at many of
the institutions which he will now
revisit. He was deeply impressed
with the desirability of cooperation
between the Foundation and the &C
tive workers in the Scandinavian in
of the West.
On the present trip he will cover
a wider circuit of colleges and uni
versities and will enlist the services
CT students as Field Secretaries. The
Foundation has for one of it's main
objects the distribution of scholar
ships to Scandinavian students. The
of free scholarships have
been limited to twelve each year, six
in Scandinavia and six in the United
States. In addition, the Review
wishes to give other scholarships as
a reward to students who will under
take to aid the educational propa-
ganda of the Foundation.
DR.. Leach's special field as a schol-
ar is the period of which he will
treat in his illustrated lecture TIE
Voyages OF the Vikings He will
speak not only of the discovery of
but of the expeditions to
Russia, Constantinople, Normandy,
and England; he will endeavor to
show how far-flung was the line Of
scandinavian conquest, and how
great its influence upon the civiliza-
ton OF the time.
During his visits to Scandinavia
DR.. Leach was very much impressed
with the forces-education and
which are moulding the
Northern countries into some of the
most progressive states in the world.
lie will deal with the first of these
phases in an address on the Danish
High Schools, which in a few de-
cades have transformed rural Den
mark, and with the second phase in