Education, 1914
Cooking is a part of the curriculum at this garden-school, and little children of six years old, both boys and girls, learn to cook, for “They must learn to cook…
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
“Education” from Finland, A Little Land That is True to Itself, by Helen Gray, 1914.
Our next day's journey was long and tedious, but it was golden at the end and it was rosy in the middle. When the train stopped at Uleaborg for lunch a messenger came in with a bunch of rich red roses and a pretty birch-bark basket full of currants,—a gift to me from a stranger who wrote that she had seen by the papers that I was to pass through Uleaborg that day.
After several more hours, and then a twenty-two mile ride in a Finnish conveyance, the most uncomfortable that man ever made, an ideal little village came in sight; and then we saw a wonderful garden with a pure gold border on either side of the long walk that led to a model home. This is "Haapavesi," Finland's first garden-school, started twenty years ago. What a wealth of flowers there was, and of every imaginable color! Yet in one night, sometimes in August, the frost king will come and lay it all low.
Cooking is a part of the curriculum at this garden-school, and little children of six years old, both boys and girls, learn to cook, for “They must learn to cook what they grow," said a little teacher, as we stood in the kitchen garden admiring the purple cabbages, and the largest cucumbers I have ever seen. And there were also quantities of peas and beans and potatoes and onions—and berry-bushes galore.
The teachers as well as the pupils go bare-footed in the summer, for people are not ashamed of their skin in Finland. "We like so to let the air get to our bodies; it is so healthy," one said—it was bathing time and we were down at the lake. ''It is so foolish to be ashamed of your body when God made it!" and she expanded her arms and sped, Diana-like, down a little hill, clothed only in her beautiful skin.
There are three garden-schools in Finland, from which teachers are sent out to lecture in various parts of that country. There are two courses, one of seven months and the other of nine months. The State helps toward the support of the schools, and there is a society in Helsingfors that raises money to send young women to foreign lands to learn the methods of other countries. Well-to-do people also give stipendiums for this purpose. When I was there they were thinking of establishing a garden-school for Lapland.
Oh, these schools of Finland! I wish I could take you to some of them that I visited. Especially interesting are the Folk Schools,—Elementary and Higher,—corresponding somewhat to our public schools, but with bathing, cooking, manual training, needlework, and perhaps other features that we have not. The pupils drink from little fountains, to which they put their lips, and teachers see to it that each child has proper nourishment. Indeed, they are very careful as to hygiene. On the walls of the rooms and corridors are generally to be seen pictures representing some scene from Finnish history, and each school has a little Zoological Museum.
There are also schools for training teachers, lyceums, forestry schools, navigation schools, agricultural schools, dairy schools, music schools, and art schools. The State gives stipendiums, and there are private funds also for enabling students to travel and study other lands. The Finlanders are great believers in traveling in order to study. But Finland is no imitator. Note her architecture when you visit her,—individual, if anything ever was. It is said that she shows traces of Mongolian descent in her art and in her architecture, and there is certainly a gruesome element in them both that makes one wonder.
Europeans think well of Finnish art, as they also do of Finnish literature. Of her music Mr. Young writes:
“It will be found on examination that the distinctive character of popular music of a truly national character is largely a question of climate and geographical situation. These affect the history of a people and mainly determine their customs and occupations, and hence are responsible for just those features which make it possible to identify various folk-songs as Norwegian, Spanish, or Russian. Now Finland is a land of poetry and song of a meditative and often a melancholy type. It expresses the result of the influence of the wide and lonely forests, the placid expanses of silver water, and the fierce wrestling with the soil for subsistence upon the emotions of the heart. The mood of the Finnish folk-song is not merely melancholy, it is despondent. The national cast of mind, influenced by external circumstances, has given the Finnish song this character, and from the beginning of time joy and sorrow have entered into the life of the Finnish people in about the same proportion as warmth and cold in the bleak climate."
Finland is maintaining her individuality, and in doing so she is setting an example to the world. The Russification or New Englandization of the world would either of them be a calamity. When the whole of America shall be made to conform to Yankee ways, when the beautiful ideals of the Old South and the freshness and generosity of the West shall succumb to the dominion of our Northern Huns, then the boat-builders of Europe will have to work betimes that there may be sufficient vessels to carry the people of America to the more interesting shores of the Old World.
After having passed a few days in pleasant “Haapavesi” I was on my way to Vilppula, with a pretty picture in my mind. I could not forget the bright-hued flowers I had seen nor the garden-maidens, their voices raised in song, trooping behind the carriage to the gate, and in their midst, with a gift of flowers, the founder of Finland's first garden-school.
Vilppula and Dr. Lybeck's Sanatorium are synonymous. You may possibly have heard of Dr. Lybeck in London. He has the back-to-nature idea, and carries his antagonism to hats to such an extent that in London he has become known as ''the doctor who doesn't wear a hat." You may possibly have heard, too, that Dr. Lybeck sleeps up in a tree—in the summer time.
A slow, dreamy-eyed Finnish boy came forward after the train had shrieked away and answered, ''Eu, eu," to my properly phrased inquiry.
An eight-mile drive was before me,—something that I hadn't expected. As the road began to get lonelier and lonelier the thought occurred to me that there might possibly be a mistake,—perhaps I was not traveling toward Dr. Lybeck 's Sanatorium. But there was no way of finding out, so I felt apprehensive for what seemed an interminable time, and then some houses came in view, set high on a hill, and I thought that probably, after all, I would soon reach the Sanatorium. The road wound round and round, which gave me time for reflection.
Coming nearer, I could see, standing above me, before a cottage, a beautiful man, clad in white, and with flowing hair. He wore no shoes, and he held in his hand what seemed to be a sun instrument, which he was describing to a lad who wore no clothes from his neck to his waist. There were no other people about.
The man didn't notice me until I called out ''Dr. Lybeck," when he came forward with a pleasant greeting.
After a brief survey of the immediate quarters we went in to lunch. Spread upon a table was a meal quite different from any I had ever eaten before. There were eggs and milk and brown bread made of wheat, cheese made of goat's milk, lettuce, cranberries, several varieties of nuts, and other edibles. As a finish, Dr. Lybeck helped himself to pine kernels, mixed them thoroughly with honey, and seemed to enjoy them.
Before we arose from the table, a young girl about fifteen years old entered the room,—a young girl whom I shall call Thelma, because she reminded me of Thelma. Her complexion was milk-white; she wore sandals, and her spun-gold hair streamed down her back. She was becomingly dressed, and she spoke English fluently. Dr. Lybeck told her to take me to my quarters, which were at least a quarter of a mile away. We had to ascend a very steep hill, which, like the other, was dramatic in appearance. When we were half-way up Thelma pointed out her father's tree-home, which was set high in a group of pine trees that were close together. How transporting to ponder upon the glories of the firmament from such an aerie! I thought: moon riding high in the heavens, stars glimmering through the pine-tops, feathery cloudlets swiftly moving, moaning music. But when the wind doth blow, and the rain doth descend—
Thelma, of the spun-gold hair, told me she had never tasted meat in her life; and I learned that in this establishment everybody lived on vegetables.
We reached the top of the hill in the course of time, and then we saw small substantially built houses of logs and boards.
My neighbor, on one side, was a Russian baroness, with hair cut short and a nice face; in the room next to her there was a little English lecturer on theosophy. In order to get to his nest the man whose home was above had to climb a ladder, which he did as agilely as if he were born to it.
Supper was served al fresco. First there was blue-berry soup, and then there were several nice-looking dishes the names of which I did not know and others that I was familiar with, but I was dieting, so I ate only eggs, filbunke,—a sort of clabber,—and bread and butter. I suffered the whole time I was at the Sanatorium because of the doctor's antagonism to tea.
Some of the guests wore their hair down the back, and I think they all went bare-footed.
The young woman who waited on the table was also a daughter of the house. Her hair was short, she dressed in blue cotton bloomers, and she could run like the deer of the forest. After having seen her, I was quite convinced why woman's gait resembles a cow's,—she doesn't wear bloomers.
All sorts of sun baths and air baths can be taken in this Sanatorium, and I heard that one man had starved himself for sixty days. It costs very little to stay at the Sanatorium and people come sometimes just for the rest.
Before I left Vilppula I had the opportunity of testing a Finnish chimney. There was one in my room, and on a day when I tried to imagine it was cold I called for a fire. Wonderful things, these Finnish chimneys! I think the fireless cooker idea must have originated from them. Put on two small armfuls of wood and the chimney will be as warm as toast the next morning. I wish I could explain the principle upon which they work, for they must save a great deal of wood.
Gray, Helen. Finland, A Little Land That is True to Itself. Neale Publishing, 1914.
About TOTA
TOTA.world provides cultural information and sharing across the world to help you explore your Family’s Cultural History and create deep connections with the lives and cultures of your ancestors.
