page_title: N. F. S. Grundtvig
section_title: Thought on education
hierarchical_section_title: N. F. S. Grundtvig / Thought on education
caption_attribution_description: Sculpture of Grundtvig in Vartov, Copenhagen, Denmark. By Niels Skovgaard (1858-1938).
context_page_description: Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig, most often referred to as N. F. S. Grundtvig, was a Danish pastor, author, poet, philosopher, historian, teacher and politician. He was one of the most influential people in Danish history, as his philosophy gave rise to a new form of nationalism in the last half of the 19th century. It was steeped in the national literature and supported by deep spirituality.
  Grundtvig holds a unique position in the cultural history of his country. Grundtvig and his followers are credited with being very influential in the formulation of modern Danish national consciousness. He was active during the Danish Golden Age, but his style of writing and fields of reference are not immediately accessible to a foreigner, thus his international importance does not match that of his contemporaries Hans Christian Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard.
context_section_description: Grundtvig is the ideological father of the folk high school, though his own ideas on education had another focus. He advocated reforming the ailing Sorø Academy into a popular school aiming at another form of higher education than what was common at the university. Rather than educating learned scholars, he believed the university should educate its students for active participation in society and popular life. Thus practical skills as well as national poetry and history should form an essential part of the instruction.  This idea came very close to implementation during the reign of King Christian VIII, whose wife Caroline Amalie was an ardent supporter of Grundtvig.  The death of the monarch in 1848 and the dramatic political development in Denmark during this and the following years put an end to these plans.  However, by that time,  one of Grundtvig's supporters, Kristen Kold, had already established the first folk high school.
  Grundtvig's ambitions for school reform were not limited to the popular folk high school. He also dreamed of forming a Great Nordic University (the School for Passion) to be situated at the symbolic point of intersection between the three Scandinavian countries in Gothenburg, Sweden. The two pillars of his school program, the School for Life (folk high school) and the School for Passion (university) were aimed at quite different horizons of life. The popular education should mainly be taught within a national and patriotic horizon of understanding, yet always keeping an open mind towards a broader cultural and intercultural outlook, while the university should work from a strictly universal, i.e. humane and scientific, outlook.
  The common denominator of all Grundtvig's pedagogical efforts was to promote a spirit of freedom, poetry and disciplined creativity, within all branches of educational life. He promoted values such as wisdom, compassion, identification and equality.  He opposed all compulsion, including exams, as deadening to the human soul.  Instead Grundtvig advocated unleashing human creativity according to the universally creative order of life. Only willing hands make light work. Therefore, a spirit of freedom, cooperation and discovery was to be kindled in individuals, in science, and in the civil society as a whole.
caption: Sculpture of Grundtvig in Vartov  (Grundtvigsk Forum)  by Niels Skovgaard
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