CHAPTER III

THE SCOPE OF CONTINUATION SCHOOLS 279

Napoleonic Wars outcome of the wrong thinking of ignorance--Intellectual renaissance followed--To be superseded by the utilitarian motive--Continuation School movement--Technical education--The Munich Schools--“The utilitarian theory profoundly immoral”--“Service and self-direction”--But food and work not synonymous terms--The wide reading of great statesmen--Duly ordered education means self-sustaining minds and bodies--Moral bankruptcy--Co-existent with utilitarian education--Moral madness--National insanity--The better man does better work--German efficiency--We depreciate ourselves--People’s High Schools of Denmark--“A well of healing in the land”--“To blend all classes into one”--A profoundly Christian movement--Widely liberal as that of the “Angelic Doctor”--Agricultural schools--Humanistic training for business capacity--A village should offer happy community life--Intellectual well-being makes for stability--An empty mind seizes on any notion--A hungry mind, responsible for labour unrest--Continuation Schools should not exist for technical instruction--Evening hours still free for recreation--Eight hours a week for things of the mind--Not for opinions--Lest leisure bore and strikes attract--But for knowledge--Not for due exercise but for food--No education but self-education--A great discovery has been vouchsafed--Not a “good idea” or a “good plan”--But a natural law in action--Grundtvig saw impassible barrier of no literary background--But hope of Comenius “all knowledge for all men” is taking shape--In the case of thousands of children--Even dull and backward ones--Under the right conditions--Knowledge meet for the people--The Parents’ Union School--A common curriculum for _all_ children of _all_ classes--Test of a liberal education--Only one education common to all--Nothing can act but where it is--National work done by men brought up on the “humanities”--Fetish of progress--The still progress of growth--The “humanities” in English alone, bring forth stability and efficiency--A common ground of thought has cohesive value--Kindles light in the eyes--Peace, signalised by a new bond of intellectual life--Danger of ignorance in action--A hopeful sign--Demos perceives the lack.