School Days

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 It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.

“School-Days” from When I Was A Girl in Sweden by Anna-Mia Hertzman, 1926.

In Sweden the free public schools consist of the Primary School, with two grades; the Folk School, with four grades; and the High School, with from four to six years.

I did not attend the Primary School. When I entered the Folk School, I was at once put into the third grade. My schooling at home had been so well directed that at the age of ten, I knew as much as the thirteen- and fourteen-year-old boys and girls.

The reason why I had not been sent to school any sooner was that my parents wanted to send me to a private school, but this they had been unable to do so far. Looking back on my two years in the Folk School, I can truthfully say that they were happy years. We had compulsory religious training—two hours a day, sometimes, were spent on Catechism and Bible History. Our singing lessons were devoted to learning a number of psalms, and each day began with prayer and reading from the Bible. We were expected to be familiar with events described in both the New and the Old Testament and many a long and lofty Biblical passage had to be memorized. So, early in life, I learned to love the simple and stately language of the Bible.

I liked zoology and botany. In our drawing lessons we were given Greek meanders to copy, and those of us who were clever and swift were permitted to do more intricate designs. But we had no talks about art appreciation or the meaning of the Moorish or Romanesque patterns in our drawing-books.

Much of our reading was from Swedish-history text-books, and we were taught to look upon our warrior kings as wonderful heroes, even when they plunged the country into futile wars with such powerful enemies as Russia.

We were given a mere smattering of chemistry and physics, but were carefully drilled in grammar and spelling, while mathematics and geometry were given due attention. But wonderful were the lessons in gymnastics; our drill hours were always eagerly anticipated. Setting-up exercises took place out-of-doors in the school yard, winter and summer.

Our school closed early in the summer. On the final day, our parents attended the exercises and quizzes conducted by the school superintendent of the district or by some prominent member of the school board. Then the graduates were presented with their certificates, and afterwards we had coffee and doppa in the school garden under the trees. We all partook of refreshments, our parents, the board members, and the teachers; the superintendent himself became human and mingled with us youngsters, asking the graduates what they intended to make of their lives.

The autumn after I graduated from the Folk School, the Hydbom School for Girls, an inexpensive private school, was opened in our city, and I was enrolled with about thirty other girls.

The eldest Fröken Hydbom was our Postmistress. Her three sisters, Anna, Margit, and Thorborg with two elderly Fröknar conducted the classes in literature, languages, music, art, and manners, and, of course, fine needlework and lace-making.

The Hydbom house was a rambling, two-story structure close to the park, one of the oldest houses in the city. The school was conducted on more or less informal lines, but we had to perform each given task as well as we knew how; praise and blame were not spared, partiality never shown. Our instructors wanted us to go forth from their school well equipped to meet life.

Fröken Anna and Fröken Margit, who were twins, had one dominant fear in common—thunder and lightning. A few months before they were born, the Hydbom house had been struck during a severe electrical storm, and the fainting Fru Hydbom had to be carried from the burning house. It was said that the twin sisters, every time a thunder-storm came up, sped to their room and buried themselves under huge feather beds, first closing the shutters and stuffing their ears with cotton.

One day we girls, with the thoughtlessness of youth, took advantage of our gentle teachers’ dread of thunder-storms. The launching of a great three-masted ship, built in our splendid ship-building yard, was to take place in a few days; and, of course, such an event was the talk of every one.

As my own grandfather had been a designer and builder of swift and wonderful sailing vessels, I felt entitled to be present at every ship-launching that took place in our town. When we girls tactfully asked to be excused during the afternoon of the great day, Fröken Anna told us that she frankly disapproved of our going down to the launching where we would hear swearing and much uncouth language, mingle with sailors and stevedores, and drunken people. “Furthermore,” Froken Margit added, “your education is the important thing in your life at present.”

From the attitude of our teachers, we knew that only something miraculous would set us free for the launching. How we all racked our brains for a plan that would be both safe and practical! I, more than any one else, wanted to see the ship released, glide from its bed in slow, stately grace, and with a gentle dip slip into the water while the band played and all the spectators shouted and hurrahed and waved hats and handkerchiefs.

We were a gloomy group of girls doing our gymnastics up in the airy, roomy Hydbom attic one afternoon two days before the ship launching. The attic was a nice, clean place, shady and cool, with a smooth plank floor and a few gymnastic appliances. Suddenly Blenda Nyholm gave me a gentle nudge. An idea had come to her whereby she felt sure things would shape themselves so that we might be allowed to see the launching.

Blenda’s plan was quite simple, not at all dangerous, and would harm no one. Only the twin fröknar would be forced to spend part of the afternoon of the great day under their feather beds. On the way home from school, Blenda revealed her plan. Arvid, her brother, would be glad to help us, if we could find a crown in money to give him for his mother’s birthday gift; Fru Nyholm’s birthday came the day after the launching. Of course, Sigge Nilson, his boy chum, would be glad to help, just to play a little trick on the Hydbom fröknar because they were always so fussy about Sigge’s muddy shoes when he brought them groceries.

On the day of the ship launching early in the afternoon, while Fröken Thorborg conducted the music class, Fröken Margit supervised our painting, and Fröken Anna struggled with the French class, there came a soft rumble of thunder. Again and again it came, increasing gradually. We paid no attention, for we were seemingly busy with our lessons. No flashes of lightning, so far. The house stood among tall trees, and only overhead could the sky be seen in summer.

“Is that thunder?” Froken Anna asked us after the third rumble had ceased. We all saw her turn white, but we said we hoped it would not rain, although it sounded as if a thunder-storm was coming up. We had come to school without our umbrellas, we admitted.

A sudden loud crash caused Blenda to look towards the ceiling. Then followed a low dull rumble. Furtively I watched Froken Margit who was helping Gerda Oberg with a study of water-lilies. The teacher rose and went to her room; soon she was followed by her twin sister. In a few minutes Fröken Thorborg also rose and joined the other two. Boldly Blenda began to clean her brushes. I did likewise.

Froken Thorborg returned and told us that we were excused for the afternoon, as a severe storm undoubtedly would break very soon and she could not allow us to get wet; so would we please hurry home? It was evident that the ship-launching was far from Fröken Thorborg’s mind this minute. Never had we rushed out from the Hydbom school with the mad haste of this day. Off to the shipbuilding yard we tore, thirty laughing, thoughtless girls.

Blenda was the genius who had planned our release. I had, as we say here in America, merely “financed the undertaking.” Arvid and Sigge had sneaked up to the Hydbom garret when the two boys brought the grocery to the Hydboms. In a covered basket Arvid carried four large wooden balls belonging to the bowling-alley of the Idrott Club . Both boys were barefooted, so their footfalls on the bare attic floor were not heard while they amused themselves by rolling these wooden balls back and forth. The rumble was a very good imitation of distant thunder, as we heard it from the rooms below. But in the midst of Arvid’s maneuvering of two of the balls across the planked floor, Sigge had carelessly dropped the other two, causing the fearsome crash at which Blenda had raised her head. But after this mishap, the two thunder-makers produced only the regular rumbles of an approaching storm which resulted in our being let out in time to see the ship-launching.

And it was a sight worth remembering, when the stately three-master with a mighty surge of the water about its virgin keel dipped and, for a thrilling moment, veered first to one side then to the other before it slid safely into deeper water.

How we all held our breath in fear something would go wrong and there would be a delay or even an accident! But there were no reasons to fear disaster, for the blue-and-gold pennant with the ship’s name, Prins Karl , suddenly waved in the summer breeze, and an ear-splitting “hurrah” broke from five thousand throats, while the Sharpshooters Band struck up a jolly march. On deck stood the Master Builder, the Captain who was to sail the ship, and special guests.

In my pocket, tied in a corner of my handkerchief, was a one-crown silver coin which I had borrowed from Lotta. For Arvid and Sigge were not to be paid unless their “thunder performance” was successfully carried out according to Blenda’s carefully pencilled instructions to the two boys. Arvid found us in the crowd, and I slid over to his side and smuggled the precious silver piece into his hand. Off he dashed to spend it for his mother’s birthday gift.

Hertzman, Anna-Mia. When I Was a Girl in Sweden. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1926.

Anna-Mia Hertzman

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