Resulting from this cooperative activity a system of education has evolved which is effectual in the improvement of the state and in the maintenance of the noblest ideals of the church. According to its design this system of schools qualifies all children in the land for intelligent citizenship, and prepares them severally for the performance of every function of state, the service of the church, and for the various arts, professions, and other occupations of life. In other words, Norway provides for her children educational advantages suitable to every legitimate requirement or desire. Thus its school system develops a loyal, well-trained citizenship capable of maintaining its highest ideals and eager to cooperate in moving the fatherland forward into greater and nobler achievement.
FACILITIES FOR EDUCATION
To satisfy the varied requirements of the nation along the line of educational facilities it has been necessary to establish a complex system of diversified schools. Fundamental in the system are the primary schools providing the thorough elementary training so essential and effectual in the qualifying of citizens. Following these are the secondary schools—middle school and gymnasium—which afford the advantages of higher education along the more liberal lines. Besides these are the many institutions—public and private—for technical and professional study. There are general technical schools, schools of trades and manual arts, agricultural and horticultural institutions, naval and military academies, schools of art, teachers' colleges, a technical high school—an engineering college and institute of technology of high rank—in the city of Trondhjem, and the Royal Frederik University in Christiania which is devoted to specialized study and research in science, letters, and learned professions, including theology, law, medicine, and education. The last is provided for in the affiliated Pedagogical Seminary recently established.
At this point we may speak a word in commendation of the important part played by private institutions in Norway. Among them may be enumerated primary and secondary schools, teachers' seminaries, and technical institutes. Being of high merit and operating side by side with the state schools, they have rendered valuable service and exerted a wholesome influence. The state has recognized their work and expressed its appreciation of their efforts by giving them standing and by voting annuities to certain of them.
The uniformly high standard of preparation required for entrance to and the close correlation between the several special schools make easy the passage from one to another when it is desired, and give solidarity and unity wherein cooperation is natural and mutually beneficial.
It should be noted that provision is made for the proper care of the exceptional child in Norway. This is more particularly true of the defective. The child who is dull of comprehension along some lines receives individual assistance from his regular teacher or another who is employed to do the work. Recognition is given to disparity in physiological and mental age of children. Those who are definitely lacking in mentality are segregated into classes in the large schools and into separate schools in the larger cities, where they are provided with abundant, well-selected equipment and expert teachers who exert every effort to improve the conditions and to overcome the handicaps of the unfortunates. Morally delinquent children are placed in children's homes—homes for correction—where they are supervised and taught. Each child is placed under the conditions best suited to his needs—where he will be most profited. All of this work comes under the authority of the school officials, and as a result there is close coordination between the regular and the special schools.
Not only do these officials care for the mentally and morally delinquent but they are also authorized and required to take children from environments that are likely to develop evil and lawless traits. Unfit parents may be deprived of the control and authority over their offspring who are taken and placed in private homes of moral influence or in children's homes where they receive proper care and training. Being vested with such authority the school officials are able to do much toward the prevention of delinquency as well as to attend specifically to the individual cases where a lack of moral responsibility is evidenced.
Here are wholesome lessons for our American schools. Instead of giving sufficient individual help or providing expert teachers for the less intelligent, we permit them to become repeaters or to drop out altogether; in place of taking the child from an evil environment before he becomes a moral delinquent and placing him under moral surroundings in some good home, we hesitate to interfere with parental rights—as though they were greater than social—and permit him to become a law-breaker; and rather than give to school officials the authority and necessary equipment to care rightfully for the child who has committed some error, we place him in the hands of the law and he is probably sent to a reformatory having neither facility for his proper treatment nor any connection with the schools whatsoever.
Closer co-ordination of these educational functions and institutions would prevent much misfortune, cure a vast amount of misery, and accomplish more efficient results.