University of Copenhagen

“ There are a Royal Academy of Arts, having 10 teachers and 300 pupils, and a Polytechnic Institution with a faculty numbering 40 and 600 students. The University of Copenhagen has 95 professors and about 2,000 students, and there are numerous colleges and other advanced schools. ”

“ But the schools and University of Copenhagen are modernly equipped. The Dane is intelligent above all else, and he has always paid great heed to the adequate education of his race. Indeed, Copenhagen was the first city in Europe to establish real public schools, opening them in every parish more than three hundred years ago. ”

“ I also explored the University of Copenhagen, which stands near Frue Kirke. The interior of the building is more pleasing than the smoke-begrimed exterior would lead one to suppose; the walls of the vestibule are tastefully decorated with frescoes, and good sculptures are placed here and there. Students in large numbers were in evidence, looking [205] very much like those whom I had seen in Sweden and Norway, except that the caps which they wore were marked by buttons of the red and white of Dannebrog, instead of blue and yellow, or red, white and blue. ”

“ When he was about eighteen he went to the university of Copenhagen and afterwards studied at Rostock and Wittenberg. He then travelled through Germany, the Netherlands, England, France and Italy, and was received with marked respect at the different universities he visited. In 1613 he was chosen professor of medicine in the university of Copenhagen, and filled that office for eleven years, when, falling into a dangerous illness, he made a vow that if he should recover he would apply himself solely to the study of divinity. ”

“ So in the new arrangements for opening the University of Copenhagen to young women, Karl Blind writes to the New York "Evening Post," that it is expressly provided that they shall not "share in the academic benefices and stipends which have been set apart for male students." Half of these charities may, for aught that appears, have been established originally by women, like the American scholarships already mentioned. Women, however, can avail themselves of them only by deputy, as the Alp-climbing young lady is represented by her dog. ”

“ The square, Kongens Nytory, is the center of the town's life. Its cathedral has a baptismal font by Thorwaldsen, and the Thorwaldsen museum has many of that sculptor's works. The royal castle, called Christiansborg, has a fine art-gallery, some of the pictures in which were burned in 1884. The university, founded in 1479, has 85 professors, 400 students and a library of 250,000 volumes; while the royal library has over 500,000 volumes. Copenhagen in the middle of the 12th century was a mere fishing-village. ”

“ Scientific and technical education at higher educational institutions is of high quality. The most important institutions involved in scientific education are Copenhagen University, Arhus University, and the Technical University of Denmark, which is concerned primarily with the applied sciences and engineering. Affiliated with the Technical University of Denmark, which has about 3,000 students, is the Engineering Academy of Denmark, with 1,500 students. The academy, established in 1957, provides shorter courses of study than the university with less emphasis on research training. ”

“ Degrees, to enable any one to practise any profession, must be taken at Copenhagen; and the people of this country, having the good sense to perceive that men who are to live in a community should at least acquire the elements of their knowledge, and form their youthful attachments there, are seriously endeavouring to establish a university in Norway. And Tonsberg, as a central place in the best part of the country, had the most suffrages, for, experiencing the bad effects of a metropolis, they have determined not to have it in or near Christiania. ”

“ The library is freely open even to strangers under very simple restrictions. The University also contains an extensive Museum of Zoölogy and Geology, which in the departments of the bronze and iron periods excels even the admirable one at Copenhagen. Christiania has a Naval, a Military, and an Art school, a Lunatic Asylum, an Astronomical Observatory, and various charitable institutions ”

“ Copenhagen (380) , the capital of Denmark, and the only large town in it; lies low, and is built partly on the island of Seeland and partly on the island of Amager, the channel between which forms a commodious harbour; is a thriving place of manufacture and of trade, as its name "Merchants' Haven" implies; has also a university, an arsenal, and numerous public buildings.
Copernicus, Nicolas, founder of modern astronomy, born at Thorn, in Poland, and educated at Cracow and Bologna; became canon of Frauenburg, on the Frisches Haff; studied medicine ”

“ In the book stores I visited I was always addressed in English, and found French, German and English and even American books upon the shelves; and more newspapers and magazines are published in Copenhagen, a Danish friend declares, than in any other city in Europe of its size. The Danes have, too, a widely established system of free circulating libraries and book [Pg 22] clubs, which extend throughout the countryside of Zealand and Funen and Jutland, as well as in the towns, while Copenhagen is supplied also from the extensive collections of the University and Royal Libraries. ”

“ Nearly all schools are day-schools. There are only two public schools, which, though on a much smaller scale, resemble the great English schools, namely, those of Sorö and Herlufsholm, both founded by private munificence. Private schools are generally under a varying measure of public control. The university is at Copenhagen (q.v.) . Amongst numerous other institutions for the furtherance of science and training of various kinds may be mentioned the large polytechnic schools ”

“ My university education in Copenhagen had been an abstract metaphysical one; the professors of philosophy of the institution were men who, although mutually opposed to one another and supposed to be advocates of diametrically opposite standpoints, in all essentials bore the impress of the same school. They had begun their career as theologians, and had later become Hegelians, some influenced by the left flank of the Hegel school, others by the right. ”

“ Brandes, Danske Ditgere (1877) ; Marie Herzfeld, Die Skandinavische Litteratur und ihre Tendenzen (Berlin and Leipzig, 1898) ; Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen, Essays on Scandinavian Literature (London, 1895) ; Edmund Gosse, Studies in the Literature of Northern Europe (new ed., London, 1883) ; Vilhelm Andersen, Litteraturbilleder (Copenhagen, 1903) ; A. P. J. Schener, Kortfattet Indledning til Romantikkus Periode i Danmarks Litteratur (Copenhagen, 1894) . (E. G.)
↑ It is true the university was established on the 9th of September 1537, but its influence was of very gradual growth and small at first. ”

“ I was very much surprised when Mill informed me that he had not read a line of Hegel, either in the original or in translation, and regarded the entire Hegelian philosophy as sterile and empty sophistry. I mentally confronted this with the opinion of the man at the Copenhagen University who knew the history of philosophy best, my teacher, Hans Bröchner, who knew, so to speak, nothing of contemporary English and French philosophy, and did not think them worth studying. ”

“ The principal scientific societies and institutions are detailed under Copenhagen. During the earlier part of the 19th century not a few men could be mentioned who enjoyed an exceptional reputation in various departments of science, and Danish scientists continue to contribute their full share to the advancement of knowledge. ”

“ Other private organizations which support and encourage scientific activities are the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, Copenhagen, with a membership of about 130, and several foundations. The Carlsberg Foundation in Copenhagen has a significant influence in fundamental research; independent financial resources enable it to support research in fields not undertaken by the government. It maintains the Carlsberg Laboratory for scientific work in chemistry and physiology and the Biological Institute, both in Copenhagen. ”

“ These persons are not merely intelligent employees, but they are also trained scientists; and, above all, they are enthusiastic in freely imparting the knowledge which inspires them. Such impromptu lectures are both original and impressive. Indeed, to go through the Ethnological Museum of Copenhagen understandingly is a liberal education. It should be added that the zeal and affability of these able officials is as freely and cheerfully extended to the humblest citizen as to distinguished strangers. ”

“ But happily this unquiet atmosphere does not seem to penetrate individuals. The Copenhagener does not desire to be for ever talking about his hustling town.
While so much that is of the old world still survives in Copenhagen, it is on the whole an intensely modern town, rather dominated by its stretches of asphalt and trolley-trams and ever growing lines of flats. A really magnificent feature, by the chief square next the Tivoli Park, emblematic of the soaring ambition of the place, is the new Raadhus or City Hall. ”

“ One meets comparatively few intelligent persons who cannot speak English, while many speak French and German also. The Danish language is a modified form of the old Gothic, which prevailed in the earliest historic ages.
Copenhagen is liberally supplied with free hospitals and charitable institutions, but except the Communal Hospital, the buildings devoted to these purposes have no architectural merit. A child's home was pointed out to us designed for the children of the poor, whose parents are unable to take care of them during their working hours. ”

“ I first entered the place in the present month of June, 1825, and the few particulars I could collect concerning it, as an old place of public entertainment, may be acceptable to many who recollect its former notoriety. Speculators are building up to it, and if they continue with their present speed, it will in a few years be hidden by their operations.
Copenhagen-house stands alone in the fields north of the metropolis, between Maiden-lane, the old road to Highgate on the west, and the very ancient north road, or bridle-way, called Hagbush-lane, on the east ”

“ The ATV employs slightly more than 700 persons, of which 190 have academic qualifications. The Danish Central Welding Institute, which recently has become associated closely with the growing shipbuilding industry, has a total staff of 138. The technical institutes of Copenhagen and Arhus, which carry out research, developmental work, and testing for individual firms, employ about 650 persons, including about 250 engineers. About 750 persons were employed at the Riso Research Establishment in 1967, of whom 190 held academic degrees. ”

“ This must have been a most exceptional state of affairs, if one may judge from Danes one has the pleasure of knowing, or from what one may see of the race making holiday at these seaside resorts. No European people seems to get more out of life and into life than the always cheerful inhabitants of this small land. It is the mark of true genius that, shut out from so much, they have made still more of what remains.
Less than thirty miles north of Copenhagen, where the Sound is straitest, stands the town that is next best known to the world of all on Danish earth. ”

“ There is but little rotten in the state of Denmark to-day. Though fallen from possessing the widest empire of the north to the limits of a mere province, she yet thrills with vigorous life, an object lesson on many points that no land can afford to ignore. Copenhagen is not really very unlike a large German town, though the Danes are not pleased to be told so, and it lacks the numerous uniforms and those minute and detailed regulations for the welfare and good order of the population that so characterise the Fatherland itself. ”

“ Copenhagen is a flat-lying city; it has no hills in it, while there are many canals and watery lanes which wind through it and lead to the sea, or as the Danes would say the Sund (Sound) ,—that narrow strait which links the Baltic to the Kattegat, where Denmark and Sweden appear once to have split apart.
The buildings are generally of brick, sometimes of stone, never of wood; they are large and substantial, often four and five stories high, with gabled roofs, sharp and steep, covered with tiles. ”

“ Notwithstanding Copenhagen is situated so nearly at tide level, modern engineering could easily perfect a system of drainage which would render it independent of this circumstance. The safe and spacious harbor is formed by the channel between the islands of Zeeland and Amager, where there is ample depth and room to answer the demands of a far more extended commerce than the city is ever likely to maintain. The houses are mostly of brick, some of the better class being built of Norwegian granite, while the newer portion of the town presents many examples of fine modern architecture. ”

“ To be a town of only 127,000 inhabitants, and the capital of so small a state as Denmark, Copenhagen contains a surprising number of goodly public buildings, particularly palaces; so much, indeed, is this the case, that the houses for the residence of the people appear as something subordinate, and put half out of sight. ”

“ Therefore, do you wonder, as I stroll about this fine old city, and look into the unhopeful, wistful faces of its plainly clad, not over-rich nor over-busy people, that I begin to comprehend why Copenhagen holds the highest record for suicides of any city in the world, and why so many of her vigorous, and alert and capable, young men continually forsake their native land for the greater opportunities and freer political and industrial atmosphere of the United States? ”

“ With the addition of a computer, the institute has been able to work closely with Swedish institutions in scanning data obtained from photographic emulsions used in bubble chambers of these institutions.
The Danish public regards scientists favorably and with considerable respect. Persons holding the position of professor are socially prominent and surpassed only by royalty and Cabinet ministers. Physicians and graduates of the Technical University of Denmark also enjoy high public esteem. ”