The English translation (sometimes “folk college”) of the Danish words Folkehojskole or
Hojskole. In their various uses, the terms carry social, philosophical, educational, and
political meanings, with certain paradigmatic relationships to the applied folkloristics of
the mid- and later 20th century.
The folk-school movement was envisioned and inspired by Nikolaj Frederik Severin
Grundtvig (1783–1872). Grundtvig was a theologian who loved Danish history and
people and harbored a deep concern that everyone have access to education. In the years
following 1830, this goal became an immediate necessity as the result of political change.
South of the Danish border, a new German state was emerging, and it became
Grundtvig’s desire that Danes reawaken to spirituality and strength of the individual self
while promoting strength in national character. In publications of the early and mid-19th
century, Grundtvig wrote passionately regarding the need for the Folkehojskole. A new
movement was also beginning to spread throughout Denmark replacing Rationalism with
Romantic nationalism. These shifts in worldview changed the dominant school of thought
in the literary, visual, and performing arts. Coinciding with these movements was one
that advocated that people take the spiritual concerns and matters of the church into the
people’s own hands, much the same as the “Great Awakening” religious movement
functioned in the United States during the 18th century. Grundtvig, influenced by all of
these intellectual currents, was an advocate for the children of rural farm families, whom
he wished to see acquire technical skills in a noncompetitive environment, while having
their physical and spiritual needs enhanced. Thus, the Folkehojskole was viewed as an
informal institution that would enrich the body, mind, and spirit while fostering
independent thinking by enlightened, courageous, and conscientious citizens.
The first Danish Folkehojskole was founded in south Jutland on November 7, 1844,
and was called Rodding Hojskole. By 1870 a total of fifty-two such schools had been
founded, and by the late 20th century hundreds had been founded throughout Denmark,
many of which are still in existence.
In England in the late 19th century a related movement to found “settlement schools”
emerged. The settlement-school idea arose from desires, articulated by prominent persons
of the time, to improve the lives of the poor (Charles Dickens, 1812–1870), to eliminate
inhumane working conditions in factories (Robert Owen, 1771–1858), and to create a
more even distribution of wealth (John Stuart Mill, 1806–1873). In 1884 Toynbee Hall
was established as a settlement school in east London. This school has been characterized
by Allen Davis as “the culmination of a diverse reform movement, closely allied with
Romanticism, that sought to preserve humanistic and spiritual values in a world
dominated by materialism and urban industrialism,” all concepts that were dear to the
thinking of Grundtvig as well.
During the late 19th century in the United States, a generation of people, many of
them women, left formal educational institutions in the Northeast after completing their
educations and emigrated into regions of the Appalachians to perform “cultural work” among the indigenous people. Part of this work included the establishment of cottage
industries in the arts and functional crafts, and this practice helped usher in an arts-andcrafts revival in Appalachia, the impact of which is still felt in mountain communities.
The concept of the folk school in the United States, drew from the forces of the craft
revival in Appalachia, the settlement-school concept in Britain, and the Danish
Folkehojskole. During the early 20th century, New England native Olive Dame Campbell
began to travel in the Appalachian Mountains with her husband, John C.Campbell, who
was working on a social survey of Appalachian life for the Russell Sage Foundation.
During her travels in which she implemented some of the first and most scientific ballad
collecting in Appalachia, she formulated the desire to found such a school in the region.
With folksong and folk-dance collector Cecil Sharp of England, she collaborated on
English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians (1917). She was also a founding
member of the Southern Highland Handicraft Guild, and thus instrumental in the revival
of folk craft in Appalachia.
In 1925, after traveling and studying the folk high schools in Denmark, Olive
Campbell and Margaret Butler of the Hindman Settlement School in Kentucky founded
the John C.Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina. Until her retirement in
the mid-20th century, Campbell codirected the school and taught her students concepts of
enlightenment for the body, soul, and spirit through nature studies, the construction of
folk art and functional craft with an emphasis upon process over product, and the
awakening of the inner self through music and dance in a spirit of noncompetitive
interaction among a diverse cross-section of the populace.
As the 21st century approaches, the John C.Campbell Folk School serves more than
3,000 students per year. More than an educational institution, the school also maintains
an archive and a collection of art and craft objects, presents weekly concerts that
celebrate the musical traditions of the community and region, sponsors community
dances that focus on local and regional dance styles, and maintains an ongoing folklore
program, which documents and makes visible the intrinsic folklife of the region through a
wide variety of publications and public programs.
During the 20th century, other such folk schools were established, but their emphasis
has shifted as cultural, educational, and spiritual concerns have changed. The Highlander
Folk School of Tennessee, for instance, became a training ground for social protest and
civil disobedience during the late 1950s and 1960s. It was at the Highlander Folk School
that Sister Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were trained. In the mid-1990s, the
Highlander Folk School is involved in environmental studies and related applied protest
activities regarding environmental waste and pollution. The Hindman Settlement School
of Kentucky, founded on the English settlement-school model and closely related to the
folk-school movement, has evolved into an educational institution specializing in
dyslexia-related reading disorders among children and young adults.
Thus, the humanitarian concepts and aspirations toward holistic education continues
with a very few folk schools still in operation in the United States; of them, the John C.
Campbell Folk School is the longest in continuous operation upholding the original
strivings of the Danish Folkehojskole.
David A.Brose
References
Davis, Allen. 1967. Spearheads of Reform: The Social Settlements and the Progressive Movement,
1890–1914. New York: Oxford University Press.