By Thue Kjærhus
The cradle of the folk high school is to be found in Southern Denmark. The idea of the folk in Denmark cannot be understood without understanding the reality of Southern Denmark. Between 1844 and 1920, the principal concern of folk high schools was the issue of Southern Denmark. In the 19th century, language, consciousness and the folk became linked together. This is why language and geography belong together and why there had to be a physical border where there was a language border. Grundtvig puts it like this:
“The fact is, then, … that the country of Denmark extends at its absolute furthest as far as people speak Danish, and basically no further than the point at which they will continue speaking Danish, in other words to a point, no one knows where, in the middle of the Duchy of Schleswig.”
This is a story that we unfold at Rønshoved Folk High School. It is the way to understand what a folk is. And what is involved in being folk-like. We cannot understand the essence of the folk high school without considering Southern Denmark.
In contrast to the commonalty, a folk is aware of its history and culture. Taken at random, a population is not a folk. It is not enough simply to possess a citizen’s rights to belong to a folk. A passport is not a marker of nationhood.
Every folk is different and special. Every folk, for Grundtvig, is divinely ordained. This is why every folk must continue to retain its difference.
Thue Kjærhus
Nor is the Grundtvigian concept of folk ethnically or biologically determined. Its relation is more spiritual. Every folk is different and special. Every folk, for Grundtvig, is divinely ordained. This is why every folk must continue to retain its difference.
We only become human-like in communities of togetherness. In togetherness, we discover ourselves and others. This is where our individuality and our personality are born. This is where the preconditions for the human exchange of viewpoints are shaped. Here is where love and trust have their foundation. Both are determined through experience.
Grundtvig felt, therefore, that people should have experienced love prior to a reading of the gospel. This is why he writes: “Human being first and then Christian”. Without having experienced love, which precedes Christianity, Christian faith ends up in dogmatism, rules and the fundamentalism of the written word.
The Danish folk high school movement – and by extension all that is folk-like – was created out of a particular practical situation in Southern Denmark. It was not by chance. Rødding Folk High School was founded in 1844. The school’s task was to take up arms in a culture war, which was developing in the duchy between Germany and Denmark. A German identity had seeped down from the agrarian and urban upper class through the social hierarchy. The upper class, originating in Denmark, had adopted a German culture. They were called ‘home Germans’. They were Germans who were at home in a Danish culture.
Even before the war in 1864, when Southern Denmark was a duchy, the dominant German culture had been a problem. This is why it was important to take a counter-measures. Rødding Folk High School had, therefore, a clear and explicit purpose from the start. To help to create a Danish folk in Southern Denmark.
History and culture
To be national (folk-like) is not the same as being nationalistic. Journalists use the words ‘national’ and ‘nationalistic’ as if they were synonymous. Nationalism is an ideology that has no roots in the folk like (the national). Nationalism has many features in common with pure internationalism. Both of these ism’s have been cut off from any roots they might have had in what makes up the folk. They are ideologies, idealities that have lost their way.
The late lamented professor of philosophy Peter Kemp was, then, right to claim that the prerequisite for world citizenship lies in the nation, or in other words the folk-like. This allows him to speak about a “Danish world citizen”. What belongs to the folk and to the nation is determined by history, experiences, particular characteristcs and love.
Nationalism has many features in common with pure internationalism. Both of these ism’s have been cut off from any roots they might have had in what makes up the folk. They are ideologies, idealities that have lost their way.
Thue Kjærhus
Rønshoved Folk High School is situated in a part of the country that has always been binational. That is the reality we live with. We have a minority both in North and South Schleswig. The region is multi-lingual – with Danish, German, Low German and Frisian. Traditionally, people in Southern Denmark have spoken several languages and were familiar with German and European cultures. So there are crucial differences here between quite ordinary people in Southern Jutland and the run-of-the-mill Dane.
A modern population that bases its ‘Danishness’ or ‘Germanness’ solely upon its individual rights as citizens is not a folk but a population. Rights do not confer the status of being folk-like but are bound to law and precedent. What belongs under our humanity is a consciousness of our history and culture. Without history, we lose our humanity.
German Bildung
At Rønshoved Folk High School we have also set German Bildung alongside Grundtvig’s way of understanding what is folk-like. In Southern Denmark, Danish and German cultures meet. Southern Denmark stands between the two countries as a bridge and a frontline. The German tradition for Bildung has its roots in philosophy, while the Danish equivalent, personal development or edification, is centred around history and togetherness. German Bildung, also called New Humanism, seeks to create unity in a modern and divided world. It insists, then, on seeing personal development as multidisciplinary. Bildung is, therefore, the opposite of specialisation, of thematic folk high schools and of any pluralism that does not strive to create wholeness among all differences.
German Bildung, also called New Humanism, seeks to create unity in a modern and divided world.
Thue Kjærhus
The subjects that promote Bildung are not random. They have to reflect a beauty, orderliness, harmony and system. German Bildung is indebted to Platonism and the Greek concept of logos. It has philosophy at its core. The ideal is that students are given the opportunity to learn to make music, to draw, to sculpt and to read Greek, Latin and philosophy. These subjects create a whole and a beauty that counteract the modern world, divided as it is into various subjects that are themselves a product of the fragmentation of the modern world. Bildung will unite feelings, art and intellectuality.
Interpretations of existence that are based on both folk-like edification and on German Bildung are reflected in teaching, lectures and morning assemblies at Rønshoved. Morning assemblies, which last between 30-40 minutes, are held by the teachers or by the principal. They give expression to the ways in which the school views existence. The folk-like qualities we know from Grundtvig find expression, for example, through the Folk High School Songbook, through literature but especially through the history of Denmark and of the world and through myths. All these are central subjects at the school.
In literature, in Judeo-Christian history, in the history of art, in philosophy and in the history of music we look for shared edification/Bildung that can structure these subjects. When we appoint teachers, we always ask what the purpose of their teaching is, and how their particular subject approaches and touches upon qualities that are folk-like and contribute to Bildung. The teachers shape their classes according to a set of underlying values, that ensures that individual subjects are relevant to Bildung.
When we discuss things among ourselves at the school, we never allow ourselves to forget our underlying values. They are the frame of reference for all discussion about the school.
On our short courses, we also try to give a shape to topics and themes on the basis of our values. This means that we can achieve a value-driven togetherness that is shared by students on both long and shorter courses.
In this way, all our students can understand both the Grundtvigian and the German Bildung tradition.
