Children, and Their Education, 1911
It has been popularly conceded that, next to Japan, Norway is par excellence the children's paradise. Right up to the very day of the Confirmation ceremony the boy's life is…
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“Children, and Their Education” from Home Life in Norway by H. K. Daniels, 1911
It has been popularly conceded that, next to Japan, Norway is par excellence the children's paradise. Right up to the very day of the Confirmation ceremony the boy's life is one continuous round of riotous frolic. In winter time the rivers, lakes, and frozen seas swarm with him on skates, or on skis and hand-sleighs, flying down the narrow streets of his hilly town, to the terror of the elderly and obese. In summer he is in boats all over the neighbouring fjords, fishing, shooting, swimming, and in manifold other ways risking his life, as the death-column of the local paper frequently attests.
But his favourite place of rendezvous in all seasons, out of school hours, is the public sidewalk. There he is always to be seen at his best, or worst, as the passing grown-up may be prompted to enter judgment for or against him. Not that he cares in the least what anyone may think of him and his ways. For he is having the one great fling of his existence, and he is going to make the most of it while he can. Then on the day before mentioned, as though he had been exorcised by some malign fairy's wand, he lapses into a sober, almost depressing, quietude of demeanour that practically obtains throughout his life.
The same applies to his little sister, who is not one whit less noisy and venturesome than her brother; indeed, in the opinion of the native grown-up, she is infinitely worse. Yet there is this difference to be noted as an after-result of the ceremony which compels her to put her hair up and her skirts down: though considerably more subdued, as in the nature of things Norwegian she is bound to be, she is latently, as it were, the same bright, joyous, romantic creature, with the frank, open expression and winning smile that constitute her especial charm. For which reason I have put her by—even as children set apart the things that are sweet—for separate and exclusive dealing.
Among the peasantry the fairy's wand would seem to have had a more blighting effect on both sexes. The boy is, as often as not, transformed into a confirmed lout, and his sister into a stolid prig—with a priggishness, however, that will not be maintained for one second beyond the absolute needs of the occasion.
Who is there that has not been impressed on his first landing in Norway by the sight of these tumultuous swarms of children at play? They monopolize the side-walks as though to the pre-emption born, and always with that conscious air as of the town being wholly and solely theirs—which it virtually is, and the mere grown-ups so many hard-working stay-at-homes, designed by Providence for their special edification and patronage—which they actually are; and the clattering sound of their myriad feet, and their loud ringing laughter continue throughout the live-long day, until the eight o'clock curfew bell sends them scurrying off into their homes. It is good to be always on easy terms with them.
They are quick to appreciate sympathy, and to reward it in their many pretty and innocent ways. Are you fond of flowers? You will be presented with bouquets and wreaths of bloom on the most unexpected occasions. Have you, in an unguarded moment, confessed to a furtive regard for sweets? You may be stopped at any moment in the public street by a tiny hand offering you some variegated and sticky form of confection. These little people are not lightly to be contemned, and it would be a rash man indeed who would venture to draw down upon himself the vials of their puny wrath.
They are past-masters in the art of booing and the pibe concert (a species of whistling concerto, tutti, outside your windows of nights), and I have even known of a case of a man of the genus irritabile who had to sell up his house and home and vacate a town which their implacable attentions had rendered uninhabitable. Have a care as to that. You will get no sympathy from the parents should you present your grievances to them, for they will know that you are only as one in a million, who has wantonly brought it all upon himself.
Nor will it do to apply to the nearest policeman for redress. He will probably not go out of his way to catch the delinquents—and couldn't if he tried. Next to a dog they are the most faithful and affectionate of friends a lonely man could possibly possess. They will run your errands, row your boat, carry your fishing tackle and gun, and impart exclusive information, all in a dilettante, patronizing way (for you must remember they are your equals) that is very charming, if at times embarrassing. But before they will do all this they must know that you are truly one of themselves, and that you see and judge affairs as they do, otherwise you will have no spell to conjure them with, and they will rank you with their own country-men grown-ups, who simply look upon the small boy and girl as something beyond, or beneath their purview.
It is this kindly and complaisant indifference of the parents that attracts him to the sympathizing and fully-grown stranger. His little sister, less demonstrative in her advances, tacitly concurs in all he may say or do—but from a more respectful distance. This freemasonry of affection has mysterious and far-reaching ramifications, extending through their parents and acquaintances even to distant towns, where you will be pleasurably astonished to find your paths made as easy by their silent good offices as though you had been armed with a governmental passport.
They will never forget you, and should the day ever dawn when your destinies take you far away from their shores, they will be found in little sorrowful groups on railway platforms, piers, and even on distant promontories, waving their last farvels to the foreign grown-up who always saw, and appreciated, things from their point of view.
To look at the worthy Herr Grosserer, spectacled, portly, dignified, and so very correct in every particular, you could never bring the mind's eye to see him posting along on skates, skis, hand-sleighs, or any other contrivance designed for slippery surfaces; and to picture him in the act of waging bloody war upon the common enemy, the gade gut, or street arab, would correspond with an attempt to square the circle, or elucidate a theory of the fourth dimension. Yet he has done this thing in his boyhood's days, and the dear old Frue Grosserer his wife, dozing over her Hardanger embroidery in her saddleback chair, has probably yelled her plaudits at him from the safer vantage of her snow-fortress.
The average Norwegian boy of the better class is a little gentleman in that word's most natural sense, and his small sister is no less qualified to assume the title of lady. From a very early period they are taught to respect and obey their parents, to be especially considerate and tolerant to the servants, and to exhibit deference towards their elders. These are the fundamental moral laws that govern, or at least regulate, the pandemonium of high spirits before referred to. Then follow the discipline of the schools, with their inculcation of self-respect and love of country, and the daily example of tactful and well-bred teachers of either sex.
Their paternal Government takes them in hand at a very early period of their lives, and all children of whatsoever religious denomination or sect (the few Roman Catholics in the country have their separate schools) are compelled to attend the folke skoke, or free schools, at the age of six, and to continue in attendance for seven years. Of course, parents have the option of sending them to the so-called höiere (higher) or paying schools should they be disposed to do so. In these folke skoler the children are well grounded in the "three r's," the grammar of their language, the history of the nations—especially that of their own country—geography, natural science, religion, drawing, part-singing, Swedish gymnastics, and the more advanced pupils have the option of learning English. The boys are also taught the rudiments of practical carpentering, and the girls to sew and knit. Upper-form girls may attend the skole kjökken (cookery school), where they acquire a first-hand knowledge of the kitchen and its branches.
In addition to one holiday a month, they are given three weeks' holiday at Christmas, one week at Easter, and in the summer seven weeks; and special reductions—in many cases even free fares—are vouchsafed to them over railway and steamer routes during the space of these vacations.
Their time of attendance at school averages from four to five hours daily. They are provided with a warm bath every fortnight, and in the case of the poorer children one substantial hot dinner daily. In addition to these acts of educational grace they are supplied cost free with all their books and writing material; and if the school should be in the neighbourhood of the sea they are frequently taken out to bathe, and specially taught how to save life under circumstances of drowning. Particular attention is paid to the cleanliness and general tidiness of the little ones, and it is the duty of the schoolmistress to call on recalcitrant parents and administer a rousing homily to them on the peculiar virtues of soap when combined with water, a duty which is not infrequently attended with some amount of personal risk. Any neglect to send their children to school is visited on the parents by repeated fines, and even imprisonment.
Volumes would be required to deal exhaustively with the practical methods of teaching in force in these ideal folke skoler, all of which have been designed with the one object of affording the least possible excuse for shiftless amateurism in that stern after-struggle for existence with which the hard conditions of a poor country confront its youth. The well-designed, almost palatial folke skole, its systems and its numerous connecting institutions for the benefit of the children of the very poor, have long been the admiration of foreign visiting Commissions, and there are few countries who have not at one time or another taken a leaf out of Gamle Norges well-considered book. The pity of it all is that so much of these moneys should be expended for the benefit of other lands; yet in this connection, and on the personal initiative of a democratic and popular king, serious efforts are at present being made to check, by better home inducements, the flow of emigration, which is so deterrent to all national progress.
The höiere or middel schools are no less renowned for their systems of teaching. Indeed I have frequently heard Germans extol them to the disadvantage of their own admirable institutions. They are certainly ridiculously cheap. The curriculum includes and exceeds that of the folke skole. Latin and Greek are optional, but English, German, and French are a special feature, the first two languages being compulsory; and it should be noted that these idioms must be written and spoken with the necessary degree of fluency for all practical purposes of life. Thorough is the word which the Norwegian, equally with his German brother, has ever in mind, and it remains with him throughout his career, as some of the greatest feats of the engineering world bear ample witness.
The boys and girls of the higher schools are given the same holidays as those of the folke skole, and at sixteen years of age they take their exam. Having passed the latter, they enter either a mercantile academy or a technical school, or, if they are inclined to law, medicine, or theology, they can remain on another three years at the school and matriculate (Artium) for the University—a matriculation, by the way, which is considered to be far more difficult of acquirement than that for our own Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Finally, and as a sort of cap-stone to this fund of theoretical and practical teaching, the young man of the better class is sent to Germany, England, or France to study their languages and acquire for himself some better general knowledge of affairs.
Daniels, H. K. Home Life in Norway. The MacMillan Company, 1911.
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