Ladies’ Edinburgh Magazine > Volume 5

Education in the Arctic Circle. 81
who happened to be staying on one of the fjords at the close
of their course in one of these Amts-skoler, bears witness to
the great desire for knowledge manifested by these country
girls, and of the sacrifices they were willing to make in order
to attend the school.
Even before their establishment, the traveller must have
been struck by the general intelligence of the middle and
upper classes. Eeligion (I mean by this not so much
instruction in Scripture, as a general enforcement of moral
and social duties), history, geography, grammar, arithmetic,
and natural history, are the subjects taught. They are made
acquainted, likewise, with all the best northern writers and
their works ; and themes on various subjects are given them
to write. The thirst for information leads most young
Norwegian girls who are dwellers in the towns, to study
German, French, and English, and they attain, as a rule, not
a mere smattering, but a sound grammatical acquaintance
with the construction, history, and literature of one, if not
of all these languages. Ladies' classes for critical readings
of Shakespeare, given once a week by the first philologist in
Christiania, during the winter of 1873, were largely attended,
and the instruction to be gained, even by an Englishwoman,
was both interesting and valuable. A ladies' reading-room,
furnished with a good library, and provided with every
periodical of note, native and foreign, was set on foot the
same year, and aftbrded excellent opportunities for keeping
up and improving an acquaintance with foreign tongues.
Drawing classes are attached to every important school, and
though no Rosa Bonheur has yet arisen in Norway, there is
plenty of talent from which she may yet be evolved. A
member of our House of Commons, when conducting two
Norwegian ladies over the Palace of Westminster, found
both conversant with, but one especially well versed in the
lives, works, and political influence of every national hero
to whose statue he directed their attention. I have no
doubt there are many young ladies in Great Britain who
would be equal to a similar emergency should they find
themselves suddenly parading the parliament - houses of
Berlin and Versailles, under the guidance of a French
deputy or a German reichsrath; but it points the moral
that we have not begun our reforms in female education too
early, and that we cannot support them too heartily if we
mean to keep ahead of other European nations.
Catherine Eay.
No. 50.—Fkbkuaky 1879. w