Voices of Europe; Dr. Johannes Novrup and Peter Manniche

Voices of Europe today Milton Mayer discusses with two Danes the establishment and growth of the adult education movement in Denmark for 10 years Dr. Yohannes no was a teacher in the largest folk high school in Denmark in the town of and skull. And then for eight years advisor for adult education to the Danish government in 1949 he was president of the World Conference on adult education held in Denmark and in 1050 he became principal of his own folk high school in the town of barrack about besides being the author of several books on the philosophy of education. Dr. Nova is a member of the Danish National Commission of you Nesco and president of the governing board of UNESCO's International Institute in Germany. His name is famously identified with the famous Danish system of the focal high schooler or the folk high schools. Here is Milton Mayer. Dr. No. Perhaps you had better. Tell us what a Folk School is. Yes Mr. Mayor it's especially difficult to tell Americans.

Whether folks high schoolers. Because. You. Practically have no. Focus schools in the United States. But let me say. That a focus school is I see danger of Curly's fog on UPS. People use counties. Where. Students. Do not get credits. We have no examinations. And where. The students are getting no degrees are taught. Without bias and garters and lived together for five or six months. Just in order. To. Study. What they. Are interested in. Dr No. Are the. Folk I school. A. Part of the public school system supported by the government or do the students themselves pay their own way.

They are supported by the government. But they are not part of the Danish system of education sense. They are private schools. And. Are not to be. To be considered as a part of. Our school system as such. And how old are the students. And I know it's twenty one not two. DR No if the folk high schools are a good thing. To have. Why haven't we got them in America. You would think Americans have so very many good things. At some cost too. But I think that. That it is. It's is very. Very very complicated thing to make clear why we have got four kind of schools and you have not. So you have you are. Widely developed. A system. For high

schoolers secondary high schools and junior colleges and lots of you are going to college years we haven't done the same. Thing in Denmark. How much schooling public schooling for childhood. Adolescence do you hear in school leaving age is 14. Perhaps 25 percent of Danish children will come to New York to 15 or 16 years of age. But you have a much larger percentage in the United States. Going to school after the age of 14 or 15. Of course. We're quite proud of the United States of the extent. Of our public education system. Certainly our public education system. For. Young people are elementary and high schools. Use. Us. And we had my own in many ways what you have

been able to do in this regard and I think it is one of the reasons why you haven't felt the need. So having four high schoolers as much as we have. But never the next opinion I am of opinion. That. You are system. I was. Going to senior high schools cannot. Can I. Can I. Make up. For. Having NO FUCKING SCHOOL. Because. My focus schools are dealing with DOS but students in senior high schools. They are admissions and that's a very. Different thing. That is in your view. Continuing education. Is a lifelong process yes and an education which is built upon that upon the life experiences of the students.

Therefore how schools built upon in upon and now lives have life. Willis stoops. And that's quite a different thing as impart not only imparting knowledge upon youngsters. No. Sometimes I'm thinking. That. One of the great achievements in the 19th century. And in Europe and in the United States was the establishment. I've been in a mentally school. For practically everybody. And for establishing vocational schools. But now in the middle of the 20th century. I think we are in the midst of a new and very important education and. Development.

And. In the twenty 21st century. Looking back upon the twenty years we might say that the greatest at a new educational achievement in the 20th century. Was the. Establishment. Of an adult education system. But Dr. Norvel I think I'd like you to. Try to persuade the Americans. That. There is a real need and purpose for adult education. You visited America and you know that. I think that. We Americans send all of our children. To. School for 12 to 16 years or even longer. We identify education with childhood and with adolescence. And then when we are out of school. We go to work

raise a family. Take over our civic responsibilities and that's an end to education. Yes I think that you highly esteem made the value of. Education for children and admonitions. But that you will to some degree underestimate. Their value. I have. I don't think you case. And perhaps in a democracy the necessity. I have. And I don't if you care about don't education. And this. Is due to the fact. That. In. No school of thought schools for children and adolescents. You cannot give legal education for citizenship. For becoming interested and feeling like sponges. For. Public life for the life of your nation. Because the post might play I think was it. For

that. Is to be. To have made life experience. To be a grown up. You remind me. Of Dr No rope except for your lack of a beard. Of Aristotle. I now remember having reading my own boyhood who said that. You could always find infant prodigies in mathematics. And in astronomy but you could never find an infant prodigy in morals or in politics. He's like ours to understand moral and political problems one must have the experience of life exactly. That is exactly what I'm thinking and he'll be in the Scandinavian countries in this rather peculiar situation that we are 90 in the 19th century. God. And I don't education movement built upon this very idea that that our things and very

essential things which cannot be given to children and to adolescents and which must be gone up in order to deal with it in a sensible way. And this then is the. Basis and purpose. Of. Your folk ice school system that is citizenship the teaching of citizenship for people when they are already set arsons. In adult life. Yes schools for initiating the common man into the life. And culture of his people. How did the idea in Denmark develop. Dr. Novack. We developed at the same time as we introduced democracy in Denmark. The man who really knew who had the idea. Was Bishop 20. And he at first was very afraid of democracy. He saw democracy coming. But he was a fighter.

And said if we are going to be to be governed by the people then at the end we first. Shall have. To educate. And therefore we must have school schools not for people who want to become something more than they already are not taking a course in something in order to get a better start. But for the common man who is who or what ideas what he is going to remain. A far more industrial rock a fisherman and so on. Why not have schools for people who have. Become what they are going to be. In order that life. May be. A place for them. And that they feel that they belong to the nation and Coalition for Life and so that life in a school is a very democratic one. Young people living together. In close relationship to teachers and principals forming a community.

Are focusing their interest in the history of the Danish people mankind and in this way trying to. Create real life interest in. In the life of democracy and in the cultural heritage of mankind. Dr. Nora. How large is the Folk School System in and. What. Role does it play in the democratic development of your country in your opinion. We have about 60 such people whose colleges today. And then we have 75. The danger of a kind which is for adolescents upon the four kind of school idea. So it has a scope. And. About. Seven or eight thousand students.

Attend these schools every year. And. I really think. That. These 60 schools. Really in spe lation. Is imparted into. A very large. Amount of these seven eight thousand students. They take it with them into their lives. So they live. Among their Come tell them about their experience and their comrades. Next will be the students. Focus. As a for creating and into list in public lies in democracy. And. Politically it lets you see lots of religion. Have played a very large and even today I think that

they. Can. Hardly be and. What is to me. Think you very much starting over in 1921 Denmark gave the world something new in education. The principal of one of their folk schools or peoples colleges a college in Copenhagen for young workers established the international people's college in the town of Hellsing are in north west Denmark. That man was paid her money and here is Milton Mayer to interview him now. There are not icky. What is the next step for the world in education. The next step and the most important one to my mind is to develop the human internationalism which we meet if we leave political internationalist we are trying to establish is to

function in the right way. We have an economic internationalism not least Denmark and the Danish farmers realize how important it is that they have contact with other countries economically. We have also a scientific internationalism and the science of science do not belong to one single nation but to the whole world. We have also talked with the United Nations that beginning political internationalism but we have not yet developed this human internationalist which we need because. It is I know you wish that we have a United Nations if the nations enter into it full of hatred and suspicion against one another. People must learn to understand one another and to cooperate. This is the next step in education into the matter up. If you question really if that were just survive.

And just what do you mean here money. When you use the expression human internationalism I mean the capacity. To work together. Your perspective above the barriers put up by the races. We should push it as a national push it was class push it as an up. But this human internationalism which you regard as the foundation of all other internationalism is. It seems to me the hardest of all to get. And that's perhaps the reason why we make so little progress with it. It's easier isn't it for us to work

together economically scientifically even politically and still preserve. Our old national prejudices and our national feelings and our racial and class feelings. But human internationalism for persons to work and live together entirely apart from all of these traditions these feelings and these prejudices This is the hardest of all to get. Yes but that's the way I think we need to have a new conception of education whatever cation really means and what we look Asian towards international understanding means. But I mean that. It occasion is not just more not huge if you creationist not the wider whole wise. Education is not a better judgment. Education is not even there. Building up a friendship.

School work for common cause a common good idea if occasion is all of that. But it occasion is more than that. If you're going to be found before school I would say that it occasionally is time to Ference of life from one personality to another. It's with the spoken word the Living Word. But even that definition is not sufficient. If you Creation is more than life. It is an interpretation of life and I know very well that no man or woman really began what they should become a nest for time and again again they come out from the mass out in the desert along with the country. Otherwise they will be come. They would come in the straitjacket of public opinion. They will do just what appear and

Paul tells them to do. They will be there. Pray on my suggestion we must out there low but we must not mean there. Because then we will reflect on life. Instead of living life. We must back again and again into fellowship with other human beings and learn to interpret our own experiences of life in fellowship with others. And when I speak about international good occasion and good cation for International Understanding I mean that we must come together with people from other nations and from other places and from other classes of society with their different standpoints and learn to interpret and trap but our experiences in fellowship with them. To get the impulses from them the inspiration from them and not through the collection the

collectives from them. Only then I think we can develop that human internationalism which I spoke about. Here Mikey. Since you are the man who. Certainly more than any other man in the world today has had the experience of trying to develop international education. You told me earlier today that since 1921 you have had a total of 13000 students here from 44 different countries. That is nearly every country on earth. I think you ought to tell us what your experience has been and what the difficulties and the disappointments are. Well is it difficult to list aren't

especially going to make it with the fact that do it outside this going to need an kind of truce. Young people generally want an education that can be become the stepping stone for a professional career. They want the examination they want to please the diplomas and they are not only Oeming it and it occasioned for lack such as actually have been the accomplishment of the Dean you talked. That is one difficulty. Another difficulty is. That in international school where students come together from many different countries simulators the standpoint of the

students are clearly saw very different. I do not think only of the difference in Hindi language shows because that can be overcome. Here at this college we have had the same teachers for many many years and they have gradually learned to find language that can speak to the students in their own language. But I think especially of the different attitude towards education the different national attitude towards it. If I should say for instance what is the difference between the German attitude to education and especially at all duplication and the English attitude. I would see it that the Germans are chiefly interested in ideas and not so much in which such then the English are chiefly interested in English so much loved so much and I guess the favorite subject of that German

is just philosophy. The favorite subject of the English and the Anglo-Saxons I could include the American Israeli politics economics so it's subjects that can give them facts concrete facts. But perhaps this difference is due to a still deeper difference. They're different in attitude towards life as to who the Germans in the last generations I do not think I was German in that well Mantik period. But in the last generations. Have been inclined to think that universe is Russian So what you really have the idea that I had ideology they have all through the premise I'm going to the future is a logical conclusion. Therefore they are too passionately interested in getting the right idea. Where is the increase and the Anglo-Saxons I incline to think that the whole universe is far greater than our individual conception of a new singular ideology our new sibling megamix

past the hold was that far. We must come to the must give our deeds must give their contribution. We must welcome could be truth. There might be your notion of the international people's colleges is an institution not for children or for adolescents but for young adults. Yes and that means in addition to something you have suggested losing their college or university credits. At home because of the barriers between university educational systems from country to country. But it also means the problem of their losing or postponing their jobs at home. That is for adults even young adults to go into education is something quite difficult. Economically Yes but here I am. It could

be you could turn in by the gains for high school education. I'm going to be the founder of the four high schools always emphasized that the chief task of school education and especially the occasion for democracy is not to examine not to put questions to the young. But to help the young to get an answer to their questions. And that's why he would especially appeal to the adults at once not to the child because the charity Breast we call it size not to there really isn't the best school in the period between 14 and 18. There's a farm of clever farmers the workshop to good artists hands. Where they can come into contact with a particular forms of life. But the period of that lesson I don't age between 18 and 25. This is that I time if you want to advocate for democracy and also if you want to advocate for

international democracy because then the mind is mature full of questions and it is a task of the tool school for democracy not to examine not just what to put questions but to help to get an answer to their questions. And the fact that he's had it published them this answer. Inspired so many of the young boy men and women in that age to come to these schools at their own expense at their own cost and with a keen interest so that they didn't didn't waste the time at the school but worked very hard in order to find this. And so to the deepest Christian about the question of life itself is there meaning in life or is that like are I hear Mikey as one of these Anglo-Saxons who is interested in results. I should like to ask you for

your suggestion of the next practical step to be taken. My suggestion and I say that as definitively I can hear is that private individuals and private foundations and organizations and here I think especially of America. Because after all and Medicare are among the most generous of all nations and they have all through the means to help they should try to support the establishment of such international schools with international subjects. Try to develop that human internationalism which I spoke about it can be the nations that should do that.

It would be almost self-contradictory for the next two to emphasize this. International Education by the CI B. Number mind mane and women who are strongly concerned about the work for peace and for international into standing that you take that job and they keep all of their primary concerns. Thank you very much Chairman Milton mair American author and lecturer broadcaster and professor in the Institute of Social Research from Frankfurt University has been interviewing Dr. Hugh 100 snowdrop and Peter monarchy. The program you have just heard has been made possible under a grant from the fund for adult education an independent organization established by the Ford Foundation. These programs prepared and distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters are introduced by Norman McKee and this is the end AB tape network.