THE ORGANIZATION OF COUNTRY LIFE IN DENMARK
In Europe the man whose situation most nearly corresponds to that of
the Negro in the Southern States is the peasant. I had seen pictures of
peasants before I went to Europe, but I confess that I was very hazy
as to what a peasant was. I knew that he was a small farmer, like the
majority of the Negro farmers in the Southern States, and that, like
the Negro farmer again, he had in most cases descended from a class
that had at one time been held in some sort of subjection to the large
landowners, the difference being that, whereas the peasant had been a
serf, the Negro farmer had been a slave.
In regard to the present position of the peasant in the life about him,
in regard to his manner of living, his opportunities and ambitions,
I had but the vaguest sort of an idea. The pictures which I had seen
were not reassuring in this regard. The picture which made the deepest
impression upon my mind was that of a heavy, stupid, half-human looking
creature, standing in the midst of a desolate field. The mud and
the clay were clinging to him and he was leaning on a great, heavy,
wrought-iron hoe, such as were formerly used by the Negro slaves. This
picture represented about my idea of a peasant.
In the course of my journey through Italy and through Austria-Hungary I
saw a number of individuals who reminded me of this and other pictures
of peasants that I can recall. I saw, as I have already said, peasant
women sleeping, like tired animals, in the city streets; I saw others
living in a single room with their cattle; at one time I entered a
little cottage and saw the whole family eating out of a single bowl.
In Sicily I found peasants living in a condition of dirt, poverty, and
squalor almost beyond description. But everywhere I found among these
people, even the lowest, individuals who, when I had an opportunity to
talk with them, invariably displayed an amount of shrewd, practical
wisdom, kindly good nature, and common sense that reminded me of
some of the old Negro farmers with whom I am acquainted at home. It
is very curious what a difference it makes in the impression that a
man makes upon you if you stop and shake hands with him, instead of
merely squinting at him critically in order to take a cold sociological
inventory of his character and condition.
Some of the pleasantest recollections I have of Europe are the talks
I had, through an interpreter, of course, with some of these same
ignorant but hard-working, sometimes barefoot, but always kindly
peasants. The result was that long before I had completed my journey
I had ceased to take some of the pictures of peasants I had seen
literally. I discovered that the artist whose pictures had made so
deep an impression upon me had sought to compress into the figure of a
single individual the misery and wretchedness of a whole class; that
he had tried, also, to bring to the surface and make visible in his
picture all the hardships and the degradation which the casual observer
does not see, perhaps does not want to see.
It was not until I reached Denmark, however, that I began to feel that
I had really begun to know the European peasant, because it was not
until I reached that country that I saw what the possibilities of the
peasant were. Before this I had seen a man who was struggling up under
the weight of ignorance and the remains of an ancient oppression. In
Denmark, however, this man has come to his own. Peasants already own
a majority of the land. Three fourths of the farms are in their hands
and the number of small farms is steadily increasing. In Denmark the
peasant, as a certain gentleman whom I met there observed, is not
only free, but he rules. The peasant is the leader in everything that
relates to the progress of agriculture. The products of the coöperative
dairies, the coöperative egg-collecting and pork-packing societies,
organized and controlled by the peasants, bring in the markets of the
world higher prices than similar products from any other country in
Europe.
The peasants are now the controlling influence in the Danish
Parliament. When I was there half the members of the ministry in power
were peasants, and half the members of the cabinet were either peasants
or peasants' sons.
Let me add that there is a very close connection between the price of
the peasants' butter and the influence which the peasants exercise
in politics. For a good many years, up to about 1901, I believe, the
most influential party in Denmark was that represented by the large
landowners. Forty years ago the peasants had all the political rights
they now possess, but they did not count for much in political matters.
At that time there were two kinds of butter in Denmark: there was
the butter made in the creameries of the large landowners, called
gentlemen's estates, and there was the butter from the small farmers.
In other words, there was "gentleman's butter" and "peasant's butter."
The peasant butter, however, was only worth in the market about one
half as much as that from the gentleman's estate. When the price of
peasant butter began to rise, however, the political situation began to
change. Year by year the number of coöperative dairies increased and,
year by year, the number of peasant farmers in parliament multiplied.
In other words, the Danish peasant has become a power in Danish
politics because he first became a leader in the industrial development
of the country.
Denmark is not only very small, about one third the size of Alabama,
but it is not even especially fertile. It is an extremely level
country, without hills, valleys, or running streams worth speaking
of. I was told that the highest point in Denmark, which is called
"Heaven's Hill," is only about 550 feet above sea level--that is to
say about half as high as the tower of the Metropolitan Building in
New York. As a result of this a large part of the country is windswept
and, in northern Jutland, where the Danish peninsula thrusts a thin
streak of land up into the storm-tossed waters of the North Sea, there
were, forty years ago, 3,300 square miles of heather where not even a
tree would grow. Since that time, by an elaborate process of physical
and chemical manipulation of the soil, all but a thousand square
miles have been reclaimed. The result is that where once only lonely
shepherds wandered, "knitting stockings," as Jacob Riis says, "to pay
the taxes," there are now flourishing little cities.
Another disadvantage which Denmark suffers has its origin in the fact
that more than one third of the country consists of islands, of which
there are no less than forty-four. In going from Copenhagen to Hamburg
the train on which I travelled, in crossing from one island to another
and from there to the peninsula, was twice compelled to make the
passage by means of a ferry, and at one of these passages we were on
the boat for about an hour and a half.
Riding or driving through Denmark to-day is like riding through
Illinois or any other of the farming regions of the Middle Western
States, with the exception that the fields are smaller and the number
of men, cattle, and homesteads is much larger than one will see in any
part of the United States. I have heard travellers through Denmark
express regret because with the progress of the country, the quaint
peasant costumes and the other characteristics of the primitive life
of the peasant communities, which one may still see in other parts of
Europe, have disappeared. One of my fellow-travellers tried to make
me believe that the peasants in Europe were very much happier in the
quiet, simple life of these small and isolated farming communities,
each with its own picturesque costumes, its interesting local
traditions, and its curious superstitions.
This seems to be the view of a good many tourists. After what I have
seen in Europe I have come to the conclusion, however, that the people
and the places that are the most interesting to look at are not always
the happiest and most contented. On the contrary, I have found that
the places in which the life of the peasants is most interesting to
tourists are usually the places that the peasants are leaving in the
largest numbers. Emigration to America is making a large part of Europe
commonplace, but it is making a better place to live in.
The reorganization of agricultural life in Denmark has come about in
other ways than by emigration, but it has left very little of the
picturesque peasant life, and most of what remains is now kept in
museums. I noticed in going through the country, however, two types of
farm buildings which seem to have survived from an earlier time. One of
these consisted of a long, low building, one end of which was a barn
and the other a dwelling. The other type of building was of much the
same shape, except that it formed one side of a court, the other two
sides of which were enclosed by barns and stables.
Upon inquiry I learned that the first type of dwelling belonged to a
man who was called a _husmaend_, or houseman; in other words, a small
farmer whose property consisted of his house, with a very small strip
of land around it. The other type of dwelling belonged to a man who was
called a _gaardmaend_, or yardman, because he owned enough land to have
a _gaarde_, or yard. In Denmark farmers are still generally divided
into _huse_ and _gaarde_; all farmers owning less than twenty-four
acres are called "housemen," and all having more than that are called
"yardmen," no matter how their buildings are constructed.
As a matter of fact, it is not so long since conditions in Denmark were
just about as primitive as they are now in some other parts of Europe.
Jacob Riis, whom I learned, while I was in Denmark, is just as widely
known and admired in Denmark as he is in the United States, says that
he can remember when conditions were quite different among the homes of
the people. "For example," he said, "I recall the time when in every
peasant's family it was the custom for all to sit down and eat out of
the same bowl in the centre of the table and then, after the meal was
finished, each would wipe the spoon with which he had dipped into the
common bowl, and without any further ceremony tuck it away on a little
shelf over his head.
"To-day," he added, "Danish farmers wash their pigs. The udders of the
cows are washed with a disinfecting fluid before milking. When a man
goes to milk he puts on a clean white suit."
Not only is this true, but the Danish farmer grooms his cows, and
blankets them when it is cold. He does this not only because it is
good for the cow, but because it makes a saving in the feed. Although
Denmark has more cattle in proportion to the number of inhabitants
than any other part of Europe, I noticed very few pastures. On the
contrary, as I passed through the country I observed long rows of
tethered cattle, feeding from the green crops. As rapidly as the cows
have consumed all the green fodder, usually four or five times a day, a
man comes along and moves the stakes forward so that the cattle advance
in orderly way, mowing down the crops in sections. Water is brought
to the cows in a cart and they are milked three times a day. All of
this requires a large increase of labour as well as constant study,
care, and attention. In other words, the Danish peasant has become a
scientific farmer.
One difference between the farmer in Denmark and in other countries
is that, whereas the ordinary farmer raises his crops and ships them
to the market to be sold, the Danish farmer sells nothing but the
manufactured product, and as far as possible he sells it direct to
the consumer. For example, until about 1880 Denmark was still a grain
exporting country; in recent years, however, it has become a grain
importing country. Grain and fodder of various kinds to the value
of something like twenty-five millions of dollars are now annually
purchased by Danish farmers in Russia and neighbouring countries. The
agricultural products thus imported are fed to the cattle, swine, and
chickens and thus converted into butter, pork, and eggs. The butter
is manufactured in a coöperative dairy; the pork is slaughtered in
a coöperative pork-packing house; the eggs are collected and packed
by a coöperative egg-collecting association. Then they are either
sold direct, or are turned over to a central coöperative selling
association, which disposes of the most of them in England. The annual
exports to England amount to nearly $90,000,000 a year, of which
$51,000,000 is for butter, nearly $30,000,000 for bacon, and the
remainder for eggs.
As a gentleman whom I met in Denmark put it: "If Denmark, like
ancient Gaul, were divided into three parts, one of these would be
butter, another pork, and the third eggs." It is from these things
that the country, in the main, gets its living. There are in Denmark,
as elsewhere, railways, newspapers, telephones, merchants, preachers,
teachers, and all the other accessories of a high civilization, but
they are all supported from the sale of butter, pork, and eggs,
to which ought to be added cattle, for Denmark still exports a
considerable amount of beef and live cattle. The export of live cattle
has, however, fallen from about $21,000,000 a year in 1880 to about
$7,000,000, but in the same period the excess of butter, bacon, and
eggs has risen from something like $7,000,000 to over $70,000,000.
Meanwhile the raw production of the Danish farms has increased 50 per
cent. and more, the difference being that, instead of producing grains
for the manufacture of flour and meal, the Danish farmers have turned
their attention to producing root crops to feed their cattle. This
means that the peasant in Denmark is not merely a scientific farmer, as
I have already suggested, but he is at the same time, in a small way, a
business man.
The success of the peasant farmer in Denmark is, as I have already
suggested, due to a very large extent to the coöperative societies
which manufacture and sell his farm products. Through the medium of
these the Danish peasant has become a business man--I might almost
say, a capitalist. I do not know how much money is invested in these
different coöperative dairies, egg-collecting and pork-packing
concerns, but all Denmark is dotted with them, and the total amount of
money invested in them must be considerable. There are, for example,
1,157 coöperative dairies, with a membership of 157,000. The number of
coöperative pork-packing societies is 34, with a membership of 95,000.
As soon as I found to what extent the peasants were manufacturing and
selling their own products, I naturally wanted to know how they had
succeeded in getting the capital to carry on these large enterprises,
because in the part of the country from which I hail the average farmer
not only has no money to put into any sort of business outside his
farm, but has to borrow money, frequently at a high rate of interest,
to carry on his farming operations. I found that when the farmers in
Denmark began establishing coöperative dairies some of the well-to-do
farmers came together and signed a contract to send all their milk
which they were not able to use at home to the community dairy.
Then they borrowed money on their land to raise the money to begin
operations. In borrowing this money they bound themselves "jointly
and severally," as the legal phrase is, to secure the payments of the
money borrowed--that is, each man became individually responsible
for the whole loan. This gave the bank which made the loan a much
better security than if each individual had secured a loan on his own
responsibility, and in this way it was possible to provide the capital
needed at a very moderate rate of interest.
When the farmer brought his milk to the common dairy he was paid a
price for it a little less than the average market price. This added
something to the working capital. At the end of the year a portion
of the earnings of the dairy were set aside to pay interest charges,
another portion was used to pay off the loan, and the remainder was
divided in profits among the members of the association, each receiving
an amount proportionate to the milk he had contributed. In this way the
farmer in the course of some years found himself with a sum of money,
equal to his individual share, invested in a paying enterprise that
was every year increasing in value. In the meanwhile he had received
more for his milk than if he had sold it in the ordinary way. At the
same time, out of the annual profits he received from his share in the
dairy, he had, perhaps, been able to put some money in the savings
bank. The savings banks have always been popular and have played a much
more important part in the life of the people than they have elsewhere.
At the present time the average amount of deposits in proportion to the
number of inhabitants is larger than is true of any other country in
the world. For example, the average amount of deposits in the Danish
savings banks is $77.88; in England $20.62; in the United States
$31.22. At the same time the number of depositors in Danish savings
banks is considerably larger than in other countries. For example,
there are fifty-one depositors for every hundred persons in Denmark. In
England the corresponding number is twenty-seven.
The most remarkable thing about the Danish savings banks, however, is
that 78 per cent.--nearly four fifths--of them are located in the rural
districts. That is one reason that Danish farmers have not found it
difficult to secure the capital they needed to organize and carry on
their coöperative enterprises. With the money which they had saved and
put in the savings bank from the earnings in the coöperative dairies
they were able to borrow money with which to start their coöperative
slaughterhouses and egg-collecting societies.
But these are only a few of the different types of coöperative
organizations. A Danish peasant may be a member of a society for the
purchase of tools, implements, and other necessaries, of which there
are fifteen in Denmark, with a membership numbering between sixty and
seventy thousand. He may belong to a society for exporting cattle,
for collecting and exporting eggs, for horse breeding, for cattle,
sheep, and pig breeding. Finally he may belong to what are known as
"control" societies, organized for the purpose of keeping account, by
means of careful registration, of the milk yield of each cow belonging
to a member of the society, and of the butter-fat in the milk, and the
relation between the milk yield and the fodder consumed. The value of
these societies is found in the fact that the annual yield per cow in
the case of members of the control society was 67,760 pounds, while in
the case of cows owned outside of the society the amount was 58,520
pounds.
Through the medium of these different societies, some of which are
purely commercial, while others exist for the purpose of improving
the methods and technique of agriculture, the farming industry has
become thoroughly organized. First of all, there has been a great
saving in cost of handling and selling farm products. Not many years
ago the Danish farmer used to send his butter to England by way of
Hamburg, and there were at that time, I have been told, no less than
six middlemen who came between the farmer and his customer. Now the
coöperative manufacturing and selling societies sell a large part
of their products direct to the coöperative purchasing societies in
England. In this way the farmer and his customer, the producer and
distributer, are brought together again, not exactly in the way in
which they still come together in some of the old-fashioned market
places in Europe, but still in a way to benefit both classes. For
one thing, as a result of this organization of the farming industry,
farming methods and the whole technical side of the industry have been
greatly benefited. A striking evidence of this fact is found in the
following statistics showing the rapid increase in the annual yield of
milk per cow in the period from 1898 to 1908:
Year Annual yield
per cow in
pounds
1898 4,480
1901 4,884
1904 5,335
1907 5,689
1908 5,874
I might add, as showing the extent to which Danish agriculture has been
organized in the way I have described, that now Denmark produces about
253,000,000 pounds of butter every year. Of this amount 220,000,000
pounds come from the coöperative dairies.
Behind all other organizations which have served to increase efficiency
of the farming population are the schools, particularly the rural high
schools and the agricultural schools. It is generally agreed in Denmark
that the coöperative organizations which have done so much for the
farming population of that country could not exist if the rural high
schools had not prepared the way for them.
I have described at some length, in another place, my impressions
of the Danish schools, and shall not attempt to repeat here what I
have said elsewhere.[5] I would like to emphasize, however, certain
peculiarities about these schools that have particularly impressed me.
In the first place, the schools that I visited, and, as I understand,
practically all the schools that have been erected for the benefit of
the rural population, are located either in the neighbourhood of the
small towns or in the open country. In other words, they are close to
the land and the people they are designed to help. In the second place,
and this is just as true of the rural high schools, where almost no
technical training is attempted, as it is of the agricultural schools,
the courses have been especially worked out, after years of experiment
and study, to fit the needs of the people for whom they are intended.
There is no attempt to import into these schools the learning or style
or methods of the city high schools or colleges. There is in fact, so
far as I know, no school in existence that corresponds to or of which
the Danish rural high school is in any way a copy.
In the third place, all these schools are for older pupils. The ages of
the students range from sixteen to twenty-four years, and, in addition
to the regular courses, conferences and short courses for the older
people have been established, as is the case with many of the Negro
industrial schools in the South. In fact, everything possible is done
to wed the work in the school to the life and work on the land.
Finally, and this seems to me quite as important as anything else,
these schools, like the coöperative societies to which I have referred,
have grown up as the result of private initiative. The high schools had
their origin in a popular movement begun more than fifty years ago by
Nicola Frederik Severin Grundvig, a great religious reformer, who is
sometimes referred to as the Luther of Denmark.
Denmark was at this time almost in despair. England in the course
of the war with Napoleon had destroyed the Danish fleet, and later,
in 1864, Germany had taken from Denmark two of her best provinces
and one third of her territory. Grundvig believed that the work of
reconstructing and regenerating Denmark must begin at the bottom. He
preached the doctrine that what Denmark had lost without she must
regain within, and, with this motto, he set to work to develop the
neglected resources of the country--namely, those which were in the
people themselves.
The work begun by Grundvig has been taken up and carried on in the same
spirit by those who have followed him. The results of this movement
show themselves in every department of life in Denmark--in the rapid
increase of Danish exports and in the healthy democratic spirit of
the whole Danish population. The Danish people are probably the best
educated and best informed people in Europe. This is not simply my
impression; it is that of more experienced travellers than myself.
On my way from Copenhagen to London I fell in with an English gentleman
who was just returning from five weeks of study and observation of
farming conditions in Denmark. From him I was able to obtain a great
many interesting details which confirmed my own impressions.
He told me, I remember, that he had noticed in the cottage of a
peasant, a man who did not farm more than four or five acres of
land, copies of at least four periodicals to which he was a regular
subscriber.
"More than that," he continued, "the farmers' journals which I saw in
the peasants' houses I visited seemed to me remarkably technical and
literary." This remark struck me, because it had never occurred to me
that any of the agricultural papers I had seen in America could be
described as "technical and literary." If they were I am afraid the
farmers, at least the farmers in my part of the country, would not read
them.
As illustrating the general intelligence of the farming population,
this same gentleman told me that he had at one time called upon a
creamery manager in a remote district whose salary, in addition to his
house, which was provided him, was about twenty-four shillings, or six
dollars, a week. In his house he found a recent copy of the _Studio_,
a well-known English art publication. On his book shelves, in addition
to the ordinary publications of a dairy expert, he had caught sight of
volumes in English, French, German, and Swedish.
I was impressed with the fact that almost every one I met in Denmark
seemed to be able to speak at least three languages--namely, German,
English, and Danish. I had been greatly surprised on the Sunday night
of my arrival to meet an audience of fully 3,000 persons and find
that at least the majority of those present were able to understand
my speech. In fact I had not spoken ten minutes when I found myself
talking as naturally and as easily to this Danish audience as if I
was addressing a similar number of people in America. The people
even flattered me by laughing at my jokes, and in the right places.
I am convinced that any one who can understand an American joke, can
understand almost anything in the English language.
There is a saying to the effect that if you see a large building in
Germany you may know that it is a military barracks, in England it is a
factory, in Denmark a school. I never saw such healthy, happy, robust
school children as I did in Denmark, and, with all respect to Danish
agriculture, I am convinced that the best crop that Denmark raises is
its children.
While other countries have sought to increase the national wealth and
welfare by developing the material resources, Denmark, having neither
coal, iron, oil, nor any other mineral, nothing but the land, has
increased not only the national wealth but the national comfort and
happiness by improving her people. While other nations have begun the
work of education and, I was going to say, civilization, at the top,
Denmark has begun at the bottom. In doing this Denmark has demonstrated
that it pays to educate the man farthest down.
FOOTNOTE:
[5] "What I Learned About Education in Denmark," chapter XI. "My Larger
Education," Doubleday, Page & Company, 1911.