If you were to see a group of school children in a Danish town you would
find that they look very much like the Norwegian children and the
Swedish children. They look much like girls and boys in America too.
Those children study about the same subjects that the Norwegian and
Swedish girls and boys study. They study from books written in Danish.
Danish words and Norwegian words are alike in print, but the Danes and
the Norwegians do not pronounce them alike.
Since an island is a small body of land with water all around it, and
Denmark has so many islands, many girls and boys in Denmark live near
water. Since there is so much water in Denmark almost all Danish pupils
learn to swim at school. They begin swimming lessons when they first
enter school.
In Copenhagen, which is Denmark’s largest city, the schools have
swimming contests. On the day of the contests classes from different
schools gather at the water front. A high board wall has been built
around a part of the water so that the place for the contests looks much
like a pool. Mothers and fathers sit on the platform near the walls and
watch the contests. Danish flags fly in the breeze. Everybody is excited
when the contest begins.
[Illustration: A SWIMMING CONTEST IN COPENHAGEN]
The older girls and boys in the schools in Copenhagen, like those in
Oslo, study English. One day each month a librarian visits each school
in the city to take books to the pupils. She takes story books written
in Danish to the younger pupils. But to the older pupils she takes books
written in other languages which they have studied. Some of the books
are written in French, some in German, and some in English. Those Danish
pupils read some of the same stories that American pupils read in their
libraries.