There are few countries in which education is as free as in Sweden. From the grammar school to the university in all its stages, the cost is defrayed entirely by the state or the parish. Education is thus not a privilege of the wealthy, but a benefit common to all.
In Norway you are scarcely ever out of sight of a schoolhouse, and Professor Nielsen, of the university, on being asked concerning the ratio of the illiterates, looked surprised and replied that he was not aware of any illiterates; that he did not recollect having seen any statistics on the subject, and ventured to assert that anybody in Norway could both read and write.
Education is free throughout the entire primary system, a course of seven years, between the ages of seven and fourteen, when the law prohibits the employment of children in any occupation, and requires them to attend school at least thirty hours a week for twelve weeks each year in the country and fifteen weeks in the cities. The maximum term is forty weeks in both city and country districts. There are in the kingdom 5,923 school districts, governed bySkolestyret—boards consisting of the parish priest, the president of the municipal council, and one of the teachers chosen by themselves. There is also a board of supervisors, composed of three men or women, elected by the parents of the parish. Childless people are not allowed to vote. This board of supervisors does not appear to have any definite function except to advise and find fault. The school board elects the teachers, determines the courses of study and methods of discipline, and submits recommendations and estimates for appropriations annually to the municipal council. In both city and country what is called "voluntary instruction" is provided outside of the legal school hours, which may be taken advantage of by people who are willing to pay for additional attention from the school teachers, but it is neither free nor compulsory.
The compulsory studies in the primary schools are the Bible, the catechism of the Lutheran creed, the Norwegian language, the usual elementary branches, with history (including a treatise on the constitution and the government of Norway), botany, physiology (including the fundamental principles of hygiene and the effects of the use of intoxicating liquors), singing, drawing, wood-carving, the use of the lathe and other tools, manual training, gymnastics, and rifle shooting.
The national law requires that schoolhouses shall be so located as to be within a distance of two miles of the residences of ninety per cent of the children of school age. The poor are provided with text-books upon application, and in some places the municipal council provides every child a warm dinner at noon. It can be paid for if the parents prefer, but the better classes look upon this provision with prejudice, as they do upon all charities. Nevertheless, it is an excellent idea to be sure that the children of the poor get at least one warm meal every day. In the city of Christiania, 711,302 meals are served annually in the primary schools. The average attendance is 22,750, so that only about 24 per cent of the children take advantage of the free dinner. Only 18,341 of these meals are paid for, and those are taken on stormy days by children of well-to-do parents.
The Norway school teachers must be graduates of normal schools, of which there are twelve in the kingdom; they must pass examinations and serve a probation of three months before they are definitely engaged, but when they have once received an appointment, they are settled for life and sure of a pension at the end of the long term of faithful service. The same rule applies to all civil service employees, for the school system is a part of the government. There is no such thing as rotation in office. Promotion is expected by all who deserve it. A worthy and efficient teacher, having begun in youth at the lowest grade, expects advancement to the highest, according to the judgment of the school boards and supervisors. School teaching is a career, just as a government clerkship is a career. People enter both professions with the expectation of making them their life-work, although from our point of view they offer very little inducement.
The average salary of the school teachers in Norway is only about $220 a year, the men receiving a little above the average and the women a little less. The highest salaries are paid in the city of Christiania—$756 for men and $434 for women. Head masters to the number of 1,992, like parsons, are furnished with houses to live in and little tracts of land, three or four acres, where they can raise vegetables for their families and keep cows; and nine hundred and ten of them add a little to their incomes by serving as parish clerks. When they become too old to teach, they receive pensions of from $56 to $224 a year, and when they die, their widows are remembered by the government to the extent of from $28 to $74 per year.
The primary school system of Norway costs an average of $5.60 per child per year in the country, and $13.16 per child in the city, or $1.26 per capita of population in a year.
There is a secondary school system under the control of the national government, administered by the department of education and religion. It embraces forty-six high schools, located in different parts of the country, known asLatin-Gymnasier, or classical schools, at which students are prepared for the university, andReal-Gymnasier, or technical schools, in which they are taught English, mathematics, the natural and applied sciences, bookkeeping, stenography, and other branches that will fit them for commercial or industrial pursuits. There are also twelve cathedral schools, one for each ecclesiastical diocese, which were founded in the middle ages, and are supported by large estates acquired from the early kings and by confiscation of church property after the Reformation. There are also five private academies, attended chiefly by the sons of rich men.
The University of Christiania, which is one of the first in Europe, was founded in 1811, and has five faculties, with sixty-three professors, eighteen fellows, and about 1,450 students, of whom 70 are studying theology, 20 law, 330 medicine, and 600 are in the scientific department. The professors are appointed by the king, and receive salaries of about $950 a year, with a longevity allowance in addition amounting to about $125 every five years. The fellows are paid about $350 a year, and are provided with lodging rooms. Tuition at the university is free upon payment of a matriculation fee of $10. Women have been admitted on even terms with men since 1882, and 260 have matriculated, of whom 53 have taken degrees. The university has an endowment of $1,310,000, with legacies amounting to about $250,000 to encourage original investigations in special lines of study. The Nansen fund, which amounts to about $150,000, is intended to encourage exploration on the seas. The hospitals of Christiania are in charge of the medical department.
There are also the usual schools for the deaf, dumb, blind, weak-minded, and crippled children, supported by the state, and reform schools for the correction and restraint of the depraved. Technical schools, with day and night classes, for teaching the trades to young men and women, four schools of engineering in different parts of the country, nine industrial schools for women only, where they can be trained to earn their living by sewing, dressmaking, weaving, millinery, embroidery, and other needlework, bookkeeping, typesetting, stenography, typewriting, photography, and other lines of industry, and an art school especially patronized by the king in connection with the art gallery at Christiania, where painting, drawing, and designing, modeling, decoration, and the art of architecture are taught.
In most of the counties are found what are calledAmtsskoler—schools to educate people for a practical life, with separate courses for each sex, the boys being taught farming, gardening, and mechanics, and the girls the arts of the household. There are also schools of deportment, where girls are fitted to act as governesses and are taught the social graces, music, dancing, the languages, and conversation. In several of the cities are workingmen's colleges, known asArbeiderakademier, where mechanics who have an ambition to acquire a better knowledge of their trades and general culture, may attend lectures in the evenings, delivered by scientific men, successful mechanics, and other specialists. The range of subjects includes every branch of human activity.
In Sweden, in theFolkskola, Elementary or People's School, maintained by the parish under the direction of the school board and the close supervision of the state, instruction is compulsory as well as gratuitous. As in Norway, between the ages of seven and fourteen every boy and girl must attend a public school, unless the parents can show that their child is receiving equivalent instruction elsewhere, in a private school or at home. No exception or compromise is allowed, and no "half-time" system or "rush" through the school to suit the convenience of the factory or the farmer. For seven years, during eight and a half months of the year,—allowing for summer, Christmas and Easter holidays,—and thirty-six hours per week, every boy and girl in the kingdom receives instruction and goes through the same curriculum. The school board, which has the direct management of the schools is elected to the parish, and women are eligible to it. The state, which controls the whole system of education, from the A.B.C. class to the college and university, maintains alike its unity and its efficiency, and sees to the strict enforcement of the law. Parents who try to evade it, through malevolence or neglect, may even, after due warning, be deprived of their children, who are taken over by the community during their school years.
In thinly populated districts the school may be "ambulatory," held now in one part of the district and now in another, so that all may attend in turn. In such cases the schooling is reduced to four months in the year. But there is no district, however poor or thinly populated, without itsFolkskola. There are nearly twelve hundred of these in the land, attended by seven hundred and forty-two thousand pupils, and employing sixteen thousand two hundred and seventy teachers of both sexes.
No more conscientious, hardworking, and respectable class of men and women can be found than the teachers. Eight years' study, first in a special seminary and then in a training college, has taught them their profession both in theory and practice. They are convinced of the importance and dignity of their office, and are respected accordingly. Socially, the general type of the school teacher is a superior one. There are at present in the Riksdag, occupying seats as members of the second chamber, no fewer than eleven teachers in elementary schools, twelve teachers in secondary schools, one inspector of schools, and one university professor. In the rural community, the school teacher is something of an authority. Most of the members of the parish have "sat under him" at school in their early life, and owe to him most of what they know. For years he has been diffusing knowledge around him, and has been looked up to as the fountain of book learning. He is the local parson's great coadjutor in parish matters, and being a ready speaker, is of no mean influence in the parish assemblies. The one dark blot in the existence of the school teacher is the small salary received. Few of them receive so much as $300 a year, the average running from $225 to $275; even in Stockholm the figure going little beyond $300. Living is, however, cheap in the rural districts, and these teachers, who are drawn generally from the rural and indigent classes, are accustomed to frugality and economy. They are lodged free of rent in the schoolhouse or a cottage attached to it, and are allowed firewood and other small prerequisites. They have generally a small garden or potato patch to cultivate, and can keep a cow and a few hens. They often add to their modest stipend by extra work, such as teaching in the evening classes, playing the organ in church, and writing, or some such work after school hours.
At fifteen, after seven years' assiduous attendance at theFolkskola, the boy and girl have finished their education, so far as compulsory instruction goes, and they are free to begin work on their father's farm, in his shop or his trade, or take service anywhere and shift for themselves. They may, however, if they like, pursue their studies further in the continuation schools, or in the evening classes provided in most parishes, or repair to a college or gymnasium town, if they elect to enter the church, the liberal professions, or the service of the state. But they have first to be confirmed, and it is here that the definite religious instruction is given. The preparation for confirmation, which entails a much longer and more advanced course of religious instruction than is usual for confirmation in England, is independent of the school and takes place in church, parents being allowed every liberty in the choice of the clergyman who performs this office for their children. English readers who are acquainted with Longfellow's admirable translation of Tegnér's beautiful poem, "The Children of the Lord's Supper," are aware of the importance of this ceremony in Swedish social life. It is the great turning point in the existence of Scandinavian youth. The boy and girl emerging from it leave boyhood and girlhood behind them. Knee-breeches and short frocks have given way to pants and long skirts. The boy sports his first watch and glories in his first shirt-front. The girl discards her long plaits, and wears her hair in a top-knot. They have made their profession of faith in public, have been examined in regard to it, and have had to answer for it in the presence of the whole congregation. They have assumed henceforth the full responsibility of their acts. In the eyes of the church, if not in the eyes of the law, they are free and responsible members of society.
The secondary schools are maintained by the state, and are confined to the towns. They comprise nine forms in seven classes, of which the last two have double forms. The first three correspond to the curriculum of the primary schools, where are taught reading, writing, arithmetic, history, natural sciences, singing, drawing, and gymnastics, to which are addedSloydand gardening for the boys, and needlework and cooking for the girls. Scholars who have passed these in the primary schools enter into the fourth form. They are generally divided into two branches, the classical and the modern, according as the classics or languages predominate in the curriculum, which comprises religion, Swedish composition, history, geography, philosophy, Latin, Greek, German, French, mathematics, zoology, botany, physics, chemistry, and drawing. After the fourth form, pupils must declare, with the written approbation of their parents or guardians, whether they will follow the classical or non-classical course, according as they intend to qualify for the universities or the technical high schools. Not all the pupils who attend these secondary schools complete the full course and pass the final examination. More than half—those who mean to devote themselves to trade, agriculture, or industry, and those who have not developed the capabilities necessary to confront the severe final test of the "maturity" examination—leave the school on attaining the upper forms. To those who intend to enter the professions, the civil and military service, and the church, the full course of the secondary school is necessary, the "maturity" examination certificate being the only open sesame to the universities, the special colleges, and the technical high schools. To obtain it and to don the white cap, which is the outward and visible sign of university membership, is the first great step in the life of the ambitious youth.
For young men destined for the technical trades and professions, there are open, after they have passed the maturity examination at the secondary school, two special institutions, where they complete their technical training—the Technical High School of Stockholm, and the Chalmers Technical Institute at Gothenburg, besides elementary technical schools at other places. The Stockholm Technical School, which is the most complete, comprises five branches: (1) mechanical technology and machinery, shipbuilding and electrotechnics; (2) chemical technology; (3) mineralogy, metallurgy, and mining mechanics; (4) architecture; (5) engineering. The course in each of these sections takes between three and four years. Generally several are combined, constituting a course of six or seven years.
There are two universities in Sweden—Upsala in the north, founded in 1477; and Lund in the south, founded in 1668, to which may be added the Medical College in Stockholm, founded in 1810, and limited to the medical faculty. The studies at these universities are thorough and comprehensive, but unusually long. They have each four faculties,—theology, jurisprudence, medicine, and philosophy,—and grant three different degrees in each, besides special degrees in theology and jurisprudence for entering the church and the government services. Even these last, which are easiest to obtain, require a course of from four to five years. To take a medical degree a young man must stay nine years at the university, and two additional years in the hospitals, making eleven years in all. Unlike English and American universities, the Swedish universities are non-residential. Like those of the Continent, they are only teaching institutions, and the students who matriculate at Upsala and Lund must lodge in town or board with families living there. Beyond attending the lectures and going up to be tested, they have no direct intercourse with their professors.
In this brief sketch of the institutions provided by the state it will be seen that what especially characterizes public instruction in Norway and Sweden is its undoubted thoroughness and depth, though a serious penalty is paid for this in the extreme length of the course. By the time it is completed, and the young man issues from the protracted ordeal, armed for the battle of life, several of the best years of his youth are passed; he is already between twenty-five and thirty years of age when he first treads on the threshold of his career. On the other hand, he enters it not only with the necessary qualifications whereby to rise to eminence in it, of which the severe tests he has undergone offer evident proof, but with the assurance of finding the way more or less open to success.[i]
There is something essentially, almost ludicrously, modern about the creation of Norway's new king. Not that it is the first time a sovereign has been, so to speak, "custom-made." An eligible foreign prince is tendered a seat upon an ancient throne; the form is old, but the spirit, how new! Republican though she is to the backbone, Norway has elected to be governed by monarchical methods, fearing with her isolated and primitive peasantry, to put the machinery of control into the hands of the people themselves. She must have a king, but he shall be of a new variety; in short, a republican king. She will not even have him addressed as were the monarchs of old, by the Norwegian equivalent of "Your Majesty." He shall be justHerre Konge, plain "Mister the King."
Even as the Norwegians welcomed Haakon VII to their shores, they took pains to show him clearly his rightful place. In his address delivered to the newly arrived sovereign on board the battleship Heimdal, Herr Michelsen, President of Council, and for six months virtual President of Norway, used these significant words: "For nearly six centuries the Norwegian people have had no king of their own. To-day a king of Norway comes to make his home in the Norwegian capital, elected by a free people to occupy, conjointly with free men, the first place in the land. The Norwegian people love their liberty, their independence, and their autonomous government which they themselves have won. It will be the glory of the king and his highest pleasure to protect this sentiment, finding his support in the people themselves. This is why the Norwegian people hail you to-day with profound joy and cry, 'Long live the King and Queen of Norway!'"
Was ever so frank a bargain driven with a king before? "Behold," says Norway in effect, "you may sit on a throne; but beware how you attempt to king it over us. We will give you a salary to transact our official business and act as official figurehead. But you must never overlook the fact that it was we who made you and not you yourself."
Is it any wonder that when asked to undertake to govern a people so independent, so proud spirited as this, Prince Karl of Denmark took time to think? Or that he asked for a popular vote that he might know how large a proportion of thefreipeople of Norway really wanted him for a king?
This was not the only reason why he hesitated. Being himself on his mother's side a Bernadotte, he could scarcely ascend the Norwegian throne without the friendly sanction of Sweden. Moreover, his wife, Princess Maud of England, was more than reluctant to undertake life in Christiania and the duties of queenship. Lastly, Prince Charles himself ran a shrewd risk in assuming the crown, lest, should his relations with Norway become difficult, he might be forced to resign, and find himself—having abandoned his naval career for the throne—in a state of abject poverty.
All three objections were finally overruled. Sweden, fearing lest an empty throne in Norway should give impetus to the movement for a republic, and that such a movement might afterward spread to her own borders, was as much in haste to see Norwegian affairs settled as the Norwegians themselves, so she swallowed her grievances. Most amicable correspondence passed between Prince Karl and the Crown Prince of Sweden, the latter expressing himself anxious to be the first to welcome Haakon VII into his capital. What became of Princess Maud's reluctance is not definitely known. It is understood that she never found life at the Danish court very amusing, and probably the prospect of exchanging Copenhagen for a city of less than half its size did not allure her. She must have realized that if she accepted a share of the Norwegian throne, she would be forced to abandon her favorite cure forennui—frequent flights to the court of England—for Norway has had quite enough of absentee royalty. The English papers asserted that King Edward used his parental authority to overcome his daughter's scruples. At all events, she gave in. As for Prince Karl's reasonable fear of dethronement and penury, the Norwegian government quieted that by promising a respectable pension in case the king should find it expedient to abdicate.
So, then, the affair was comfortably arranged. The king has a salary of $200,000, a crown when he had no hope of ever feeling one on his brow, and the problems of a court without a nobility.
And now the world is asking, "Has Norway done well for herself?" Certainly she has done well in putting a Scandinavian prince on the throne. No alien would ever understand Norway or be understood. If reports are creditable, the Kaiser made the most of his friendship with the country in support of the claims of a son of his own. Had a German secured the throne, there would have been sown fresh seeds of discord on a peninsula which can raise a sufficient crop of dissensions without any aid from the rest of Europe. For Denmark, still nursing the rankling grievance of the Schleswig-Holstein affair, detests the thought of everything German.
King Haakon combines the advantages of Scandinavian birth with the very positive political asset of blood relationship to half the courts of Europe. Grandson of the late King Christian of Denmark, the young monarch is also nephew to King George of Greece, the Dowager Empress of Russia, and Alexandria of England, a grand-nephew to the late Oscar of Sweden, son-in-law to King Edward VII, and cousin to the Czar. To a relatively defenseless country like Norway, this means a good deal.
In himself the new king is a clean-lived, healthy young man of thirty-three, in personality quite fit to represent a nation which thinks well of itself. Tall, though not quite so tall as his uncle, Prince Christian, whose mark on the famous old royal measuring-column at Roskilde comes just under that of the giant, Peter the Great, King Haakon is slight, yet vigorous-looking, and splendidly well set up. The face, while scarcely so handsome as the profile pictures lead us to think, is a distinguished one, and has for Norway this charm, that it is markedly not of the Bernadotte type, although his mother is a Bernadotte. Those who know him describe him as an extremely intelligent and sensible young man, easy and tolerant without being weak, and capable of strenuous devotion to hard work. These things bespeak an industrious, efficient, and tractable king, such as the Norwegians, who would equally resent either vacillation or tyranny, know how to appreciate.
It has been said in France that King Haakon abandons tiller and compass for crown and scepter without one hour's training in politics or diplomacy.
The statement appears incontestable. In view of the remarkable longevity of the late king of Denmark, and the excellent health and prospects of the Crown Prince and his immediate heir, this younger son of a royal house was not brought up to look for a crown. Instead, he was destined from the outset for a naval career. For all that, it is not safe to say that he has had no training in politics or diplomacy. One can scarcely grow up in the family of the "father-in-law of Europe" and not learn the principles of the great game of world affairs. King Haakon is no stranger to the queer old palace among the beeches at Fredensborg, where every summer King Christian gathered together his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren from the courts of England, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, and Greece; and where conversations took place which, if reported, would vitally interest the whole round world. In his lifetime, the Czar Alexander III was particularly fond of holding long talks at Fredensborg with his nephew Karl, then a lieutenant of the navy, whom he found especially intelligent and open-minded.
It is thought in Copenhagen that King Haakon may, even during the last years of his father's life, have had some experience in the government of Denmark, since his father, the Crown Prince, was called upon to perform many of the old king's duties. At least, if he did not actually transact royal business, he acquired no small acquaintance with the working of government machinery.
Nothing, certainly, could have been more fitting than that a ruler of Vikingland should be educated for the sea. Nor could anything have been devised better calculated to knock the nonsense out of a princeling than apprenticeship in the Danish navy. Hrolf Wisby, who messed with Prince Karl when he was a naval cadet, says that the lad was at first little more than a piece of court furniture. Any one who is familiar with the appalling frankness and unvarnished brusquerie of grown-up Danes can judge whether the hazing and horse-play on a Danish man-of-war was agreeable, and whether it was medicinal in a case of congenital self-esteem. Prince Karl lived the life of an ordinary middy, scrubbed decks, mended his own clothes, slept in a hammock, and ate provender which was anything but fit to set before a king. It is recorded of him that he was an expert in polishing a certain brass binnacle lantern. We wonder if he ever thinks now of a certain line in Pinafore, "I polished that handle so care-ful-lee, that now—"
As ensign, second lieutenant, first lieutenant, and finally captain of a frigate, the young man acquitted himself well, earning the reputation of a capital officer, hardworking, careful, no martinet towards his men, though by no means to be trifled with. In practical seamanship, he excels any other prince of his age, and can command any kind of naval craft from torpedo boat to battleship, and lead in actual battle.
In forming their court, King Haakon and Queen Maud are gathering about them the literary, artistic, and musical people of the realm, for they are devoted to the companionship of gifted folk. The queen has herself written plays under the pseudonym "Graham Irving," and the king paints a little in aquarelles, and plays the piano almost too well to be termed an amateur. Both are accomplished linguists, speaking with discrimination French, German, Russian, English, Norwegian, Swedish, and, naturally, Danish. There is no barrier of speech in their intercourse with members of the diplomatic corps.
The little heir apparent, Alexander, rechristened Olaf, has already done much toward ingratiating himself with the Norwegian people, although but a half dozen years old. On the day when the royal couple entered Christiania, the boy was but two and a half years old, but he was very much interested in the decorations, and seemed to catch the enthusiasm of the crowd, for he waved his little hand spontaneously. In counting up the merits of the king, the promising little heir must by no means be left out.
Trondhjem Cathedral, where all the kings and queens of Norway for centuries have been crowned, and where the coronation of King Haakon VII and Queen Maud occurred, stands on the site of what was undoubtedly the first Christian church in the country—that erected by Olaf Trygvason in 996. Within its confines bubbles the spring which sprang from the tomb of that later Olaf who is the patron saint of Norway, and somewhere under its walls lie moldering the bones of medieval kings, four of whom accepted their consecration before the altar where King Haakon received his crown. It is a thousand pities that hammer and chisel should have exorcised the spirits which ought to haunt this venerable shrine. It is as if England's Abbey had been scrubbed and resurfaced, and new noses had been provided for all the crumbling stone kings and queens. Trondhjem Cathedral has burned down so many times, and the work of restoration has been so sweeping, that it takes an active imagination to invest it with the proper glamour of romance.
Trondhjem itself is an odd place for festivities. The people say that it is fear of fire which makes them separate their insignificant wooden houses by such disproportionately broad streets. Certainly it gives to the town a low look anything but imposing.
Whatever may be the esthetic shortcomings of King Haakon's coronation city, it was amply atoned for by the enthusiasm and whole-hearted devotion of his new people. The king and queen are in very truth "the father and mother of the land." Even toward the rulers they shared with Sweden their cherished warm affection until their grievances waxed too sore. When Sophie of Nassau was on her way to Trondhjem to be crowned, in 1873, she drove herself in a carriole from the Romsdal, stopping perforce at humble posting-stations by the way. And everywhere the peasants came with flowers, greeting their queen by the affectionate and familiar "Du." More than once when the press was thick about her, and those on the outskirts could not see, the queen was urged to mount upon the housetop that the eyes of all might be gladdened by the sight of the dear land-mother. There was a significant demonstration of this sort of heart-loyalty when Haakon VII and Queen Maud entered Christiania. The crowds which waited in the steadily falling snow, and shouted themselves hoarse, might be accounted for by curiosity and mob enthusiasm.
Triumphal arches, flags, and even the rain of flowers which descended on the royal pair, might be classed as perfunctory, an essential part of the occasion. But at night the spirit of the people showed beyond mistake. Not only were the streets arched and bordered with festoons of colored incandescent lights, not only were the battleships in the harbor strung with fiery beads to the topmost spar, but every window in every house in the city bore its light. Fine houses had candelabra behind the glass, and the poorest mere tapers, but everywhere the same fire of welcome burned.
Haakon VII has the privilege of ruling over the most united people on the face of the earth. Before the plebiscite, Sweden declared that the desire for separation was confined to a party who were poisoning the minds of the common people. When the plebiscite had shown that only 164 men out of 368,000 could be found to uphold the union, Sweden protested that the peasants had been intimidated and dared not vote as they thought!
Now, it was just at this stirring time that I was driving through Norway, or cruising in her fjords, and talking with graduates of her university, with sea-captains, hotel proprietors, traveling men, porters, drivers, serving-maids—all, in short, who spoke English enough to make themselves clear. It was as if all Norway spoke with one voice. From Hamerfest to Stavanger there was the same complaint of the same wrongs, the same quiet insistence upon the same remedy. Nor was it only the subjects of King Oscar who spoke; Norwegians settled in France, in England, or in America either hurried home to vote or sent their vigorous endorsement of the revolutionary proceedings. A window in Christiania was completely filled by the mingled flags of Norway and the United States, crossed by a banner bearing the words, "For Disunion." It was the voice of Norway and America. It was a modest desire they expressed. In the words of Olaf Sprachehaug, our humble-mindedskydsgut, the whole country was saying, "And now I t'ink we get a king of our own." They have their own king now, and all the world wishes them joy in him.[j]
The present reigning family of Sweden is too young to be very numerous, and in this brief survey it is well to begin with a bit of information about that grand democratic monarch, Oscar II, passed away less than two years ago. How the Bernadotte dynasty was formed has already been shown in a previous chapter, and something of the kings, who succeeded the former Field Marshal of France has also been related, so that we have in these few pages simply to deal with Oscar II, the late king, and his four sons and their families.
Oscar's grandfather, the originator of the Bernadotte dynasty, was still on the throne when he was born, in 1829, as the third son of Crown Prince Oscar and the beautiful Josephine of Leuchtenberg. He seemed far removed from the throne then, and thus he found freedom to develop himself more in keeping with his individual tastes and inclinations. Another factor to be borne in mind is the character of his governor and principal instructor, the historian, F.F. Carlson, who gave to his pupil a fondness for scientific exactness as well as an insight into the true causes of civilizatory development found none too frequently in professional thinkers, and hardly ever in princes. The things that drew him most strongly in those days were the sea, and music.
One of the foremost of Swedish composers, A.F. Lindblad, taught him the latter, while his fondness for the former was richly satisfied during the years when he worked his way through the ranks of the Swedish navy. And his position on board the various man-of-war's-men in which he traveled on many seas was never merely ornamental or even exceptional. He took not only the title but also the work of the offices he held, from midshipman to admiral.
It was characteristic of him, too, that when he married, he did so out of love. On a tour through several countries; in 1856, he was fortunate enough to meet Princess Sophia of Nassau. The courtship was brief and ardent. Within a few months occurred the engagement, and the wedding followed in less than a year. To the last that royal couple remained strongly devoted to each other in spite of widely differing tastes and temperaments. She has all her life been intensely religious, with a strong leaning toward pietism, and illness has still further developed this inborn tendency. He, on the other hand, was always gay, light-hearted, fond of merriment, and given to many pleasures and pursuits which his spouse could only look upon as far too worldly.
Duke Oscar Frederick, as he was known in those early days, found himself heir to the throne after death had unexpectedly removed the two claimants with rights prior to his own. And on the succession of his eldest brother, he became the Crown Prince. It was a delicate position which imposed on him a reserve foreign to his nature. As it contrasted sharply with the unceremonious jollity of his brother, King Charles, he came by degrees to be regarded by those ignorant of his true character with a distrust bordering on dislike. Thus, when the succession fell to him in 1872, he found himself little understood and less loved. It took him years to overcome the prejudice. Perhaps it was his sanction of the impeachment proceedings by the Norwegian Radicals against the retiring Conservative ministry which, in the early '80's, first served to turn the trend of public opinion in his favor, both in Sweden and Norway. That act was one of the many by which he showed his ability to submit his own inclinations to the demands of the people without becoming a mere tool in the hands of any one political party. About the same time he succeeded in bringing about a deeply needed and by himself long-cherished reform of the popular educational system in Sweden. Previously,—it was, in fact, his first important step after his ascension to the throne,—he had on his own initiative proclaimed full freedom of worship for persons not belonging to the established church.
A Scandinavianism of the purely sentimental kind,—the kind that talked without ever dreaming of putting the talk into deeds,—had prevailed until then on the peninsula. Intermixed with it was an equally sentimental sympathy with France. Though himself the grandson of a Frenchman and still keenly devoted to French literature and art, King Oscar had the foresightedness to recognize that the interests of the country were more closely bound up with those of Germany. And one of the most striking features of his reign was the growing cultural intercourse between the nations in the north and their neighbor south of the Baltic. And while the king discouraged the speech-making, empty Scandinavianism against which Ibsen was fond of launching his most vitriolic invectives, he fostered instead a fellow-feeling between Sweden, Norway and Denmark that found its expression in practical co-operation, in the equalization of commercial and industrial regulations, in the breaking down of as many as possible of the unnecessary barriers between them. As the years passed on and the trend of his labors became understood and appreciated, he found a part of his reward in a steadily increasing respect for him throughout the civilized world, a respect that repeatedly found expression in requests that he act as arbiter of international differences. He had always been fond of traveling, and this fondness he continued to indulge up to the last. Unlike those of some other monarchs having a similar taste, his comings and goings on the Continent were always the objects of pleasant and welcoming comment. If gossip had to name King Christian of Denmark "the father-in-law of all Europe," King Oscar was surely "the friend of all the world." Apace with his own fame grew the prosperity of his people. On either side of the Kjölen his reign marked an era of unprecedented economical, social, and spiritual progress which not even the internal dissensions of the sister nation could interrupt.
King Oscar's motto wasBrödrafolkens Väl"The Brother-Peoples Weal!" The Scandinavian peninsula is still populated by brother-peoples, as was indicated at the time of the death of the old king. It was the week for the distribution in Norway of the Nobel prizes, always attended in Christiania with great rejoicing and merry-making. On this occasion all demonstration was prohibited, and the Norwegian capital was almost as much in mourning as was Stockholm. Though entirely devoted to the new order of things, the Norwegians did not forget, nor will they forget, the character of the king who ruled them for a generation. More democratic than the Swedes, they were peculiarly attached personally, if not politically, to one whom they felt to be really of like democratic instincts with themselves, even if he did show himself every inch a king.
Not only as a ruler, but as a father, King Oscar was both wise and fortunate. Four sons came to him through his marriage, and these have proved men of his own type. The Crown Prince Gustave was born just one year after the marriage of his parents, on June 16th, at the Castle of Drottingholm, in the year 1858; Prince Oscar, known as Prince Bernadotte, was born on Nov. 15, 1859, at Stockholm; Prince Carl on Feb. 27, 1861, also at Stockholm; while the youngest, Prince Eugene, like his eldest brother, first saw the light at the Castle of Drottingholm, on Aug. 1, 1865. As has been previously stated, the Crown Prince (now king) was married to the Princess Victoria of Bade, granddaughter of Emperor William I of Germany, and great-granddaughter of the exiled Gustavus IV of Sweden. The third son, Prince Carl, is wedded to his cousin, the Princess Ingeborg of Denmark, which was a source of great satisfaction to King Oscar and Queen Sophie. The youngest son, Prince Eugene, is devoted to art, and spends much time out of the country. Never did King Oscar do more to win the approval of his subjects, and thinking men and women everywhere, than when he permitted the marriage of his second son, Prince Oscar, to a young Swedish noblewoman, Fröken Ebba Munck, of Fulkila, who was also Queen Sophie's maid-of-honor. While the prince had to renounce his right of succession and his position as a royal prince of Sweden, his relations to his father and the other members of the royal family remained the same.
Of this incident in the history of the royal family of Sweden, the following story is told:
The Queen interceded long and persistently with her husband for permission for her second son to be married to the woman he loved. Although the Munck family had played a very important part in the history of the nation, the king was opposed to themésalliance. "It is Oscar's duty to be true to himself and to his love," she used to say. But the king, who was not wont to refuse any of the wishes of his consort, steadily refused to sanction the union. There were many things against such a marriage, for Prince Oscar was the second son of the king, and the very fact that the reigning House of Norway and Sweden was one of the most youthful of the royal houses of Europe made it all the more necessary that its scions should intermarry with the members of the ancient reigning houses.
About this time the queen was seized with one of her serious attacks of illness, and her state was such that at one time her life was despaired of. Her physicians declared that her only hope of recovery lay in an instant operation, which was both dangerous and extremely painful.
The queen called the king to her bedside, and said, "If I undergo this operation and recover, will you allow Oscar and Ebba to have their way?" The king was unable to resist such an appeal, made at such a time, and gave his promise. A short time afterwards the operation was successfully performed, and when the queen was convalescent, the king redeemed his promise and gave his consent to the marriage of his second son. It was on Christmas Eve, and the king had come to his wife's apartments to see her. He found Ebba Munck and his son Oscar with her. The maid-of-honor was, at the time of his entrance, singing one of his poems to Her Majesty, which, oddly enough, was on the subject of the right to love. After waiting until the song was ended, the king went up to his son, and, leading him to the girl, laid his hand in hers, in this manner signifying that he had withdrawn his opposition to their plans.
The marriage has proved a most happy one. Prince Oscar has found perfect content, and has been able to follow his career as a philanthropist. The wedding took place at Bournemouth, in the presence of the queen of Sweden, on March 15, 1888, and for some time after it the prince and his wife were known as Prince and Princess Bernadotte; but later the uncle of Prince Oscar, the Grand Duke of Luxemburg, gave him the title of the Count of Wisborg for himself and his descendants. When their children were born, Prince Oscar and his wife proclaimed them as the children of Oscar and Ebba Bernadotte, and, during their entire married life, they have lived as quietly and simply as possible, and have found their greatest interest in working for the poor and suffering. They have a son and a daughter, the former, Count Carl Oscar, having been born on May 27, 1890, and the latter, the Countess Marie, on February 28, 1889; and three other children.
And so, as the years went by, a third generation grew up in the palace at Stockholm,—a brood of long-limbed and broad-shouldered sons with wholesome tastes and bright minds and kindly temperaments. And at last, when the king was seventy-eight years old, a great-grandchild was laid in his arms,—the first son of Prince Gustavus Adolphus (now the Crown Prince) and the Princess Margaret of Connaught.
Up to the last King Oscar remained active and interested in all public affairs. Though he had experienced several brief but rather severe illnesses of late years, the end came without warning, after a few days of indisposition, on Dec. 8, 1907. A kindly "thanks" for a small favor rendered him by a member of his family was the last word heard from his lips. Previously he had expressed his wish to the members of his cabinet that no interruption in public or private business be made on account of his death.
King Gustavus V, who took the oath of office within a few hours of his father's death, has suffered something resembling his father's fate as Crown Prince. Overshadowed by the more brilliant gifts and more attractive personality of the parent, he was for years spoken of in rather a disparaging manner in Sweden, while in Norway he harvested outright hatred in return for his determined upholding of the union. On frequent occasions during the last decade of his father's reign, he acted as vice-regent while his father was sick or traveling, and in this way he found chances to display qualities that gradually changed the popular regard of him from one of suspicion to one of hearty respect. His near-sightedness, his serious-mindedness, have militated against him, but it seems probable that he will prove the verybestruler Sweden could desire at the present juncture. He is slow to make up his mind, and will not do so until he has searched every phase and detail of the problem before him, but once he has come to a conclusion, he pursues his path without looking to the right or left.
Gustavus is fifty years old, tall, rather dark, quite unassuming, and is essentially democratic, while seeming the opposite, whereas Oscar was aristocratic, although he made much of the people. Like all other Swedish kings, Gustavus adopted a motto when he ascended the throne; it is "With the People for the Fatherland"—not inappropriate in view of his inheritance of a problem clamoring for solution, the extension of the suffrage and a more direct representation of the people in both the upper and lower houses of the Riksdag. The new king, who possesses an uncommon amount of energy, may probably be depended upon to accomplish this reform.
There is neither pride of an objectionable type, nor any tendency to tyranny, nor one strain of arrogance in the new king. He may not be able to draw upon such ripe culture or upon such fine talents as the monarch who preceded him, yet the Swedes have no fear that his love of truth and justice will not outweigh this deficiency and probably make him a more practical ruler. As for the French descent of the Swedish royal house, neither the present nor the late king have ever been ashamed of their ancestry, or forgotten that the first Bernadotte on their throne was one of Napoleon's greatest marshals.
Never will Gustavus V be able to give to words or actions that brilliantly original and kingly tone for which his late father was so admired everywhere. That, to the mind of all beholders, is to be the drawback of his reign, for he is the merest mortal; where his father was the luminous angel. Where Oscar would have been finely eloquent, Gustavus shows himself merely sensible. Oscar's temper was heated, his emotions were forever coming to the surface. Gustave is, if more poised, less interesting. He has always been addicted to manly sports and exercises. He has often been observed to "put up" an excellent game of tennis at the club in Stockholm. But he is without the alert and springy step of the old Oscar, whose muscles remained taut and elastic almost to his dying day. Gustave lacks the literary aptitudes of his late father, likewise, who left a well-filled book of verse which admirers all over Europe did into French, German, Italian, Danish, and even Hungarian. Gustave has not inherited his mother's musical genius, either. She was at one time a devotee of Wagner, a disciple of Kant, and always a pious evangelical of the German cast. From both his parents Gustave received every encouragement to proficiency in music. Music, to the late Oscar, was, both in theory and practice, an essential element in the intellectual life. Gustave is less the artist than the practical king.
He encourages international congresses of every kind to come to Sweden; he helps the universities and the cause of education throughout his kingdom; he feels his father's interest in Hedin's travels through central Asia, but he can give no creative impulse after his father's grand fashion. Oscar was the man of ideas, the vitalizer of projects literary, musical, dramatic and scientific. He made Stockholm the capital of the whole intellectual world. Gustave is very courteous, affable in a dignified way, impressive as he opens the Riksdag in royal ermine. He has commenced his reign in simplicity, rising at eight, breakfasting on coffee and rolls, reading the morning papers until ten, and reviewing the military with a conscientious assiduity. His note is repose both in manner and in speech, in striking contrast with the late Oscar, who was majestic in the very way he had of eating cold meat at supper, and whose height of six feet three towered, almost without the drooping heaviness of age, till his seventy-ninth year. Notwithstanding the adverse comparison with his parent, one has but to see Gustave's face, with its determination and refinement, to feel a certain assurance as to Sweden's future.
It is a curious fact that there has been such a dearth of girls in the Swedish royal family, the only princess of the house being the Crown Princess of Denmark, a daughter of the late King Charles XV. The present queen has only sons: Crown Prince Gustavus Adolphus, wedded to Margaret of Connaught; Prince Wilhelm, who was recently married to the Russian Princess Marie Palvona, and Prince Erik, now about twenty years of age. The present Crown Prince and Princess are seemingly perpetuating the tradition, as their first child is a lusty little son.
Queen Victoria is said to be endowed with an instinct for business of every kind far finer and more efficient than that of her husband, and it is to be regretted that her health is so frail that she is obliged to spend much time outside her husband's realm, and the duties of her royal dignity devolve upon her daughter-in-law, the Crown Princess. It is very satisfying to the Swedish people that by a strange play of circumstances, the claims of the extinct House of Vasa,—the last direct descendant of which passed away a few days after King Oscar, in the person of Carola, Dowager-Queen of Saxony, and daughter of the deposed King Gustavus Adolphus IV of Sweden,—are again restored, and that the reigning House of Bernadotte and the ancient House of Vasa have become joined through the present Crown Prince. It is something to consider, too, that Adolphus V is the first of the Bernadotte dynasty in whose veins, through his mother, Sophie of Nassau, there flows royal blood.[k]
This is the age of munificent benefactions in aid of science and learning. The Rhodes scholarships, Mr. Carnegie's free libraries and educational endowments, the Duc d'Aumale's gift to the French Academy of his finechatteauat Chantilly, with its magnificent historical and art collections; many institutions founded in the United States and elsewhere by multi-millionaires for the advancement of knowledge, are a sign of the times. They foreshadow the abolishment of pauperism and its attendant charities to give place to beneficent institutions, and Norway and Sweden are abreast with other countries in this movement. Apart from charitable institutions and endowments for the maintenance of hospitals and asylums, of universities, scholarships and fellowships, which the generosity of former generations has secured, the present generation has seen noble donations made by private men for more special objects, having the general advancement of knowledge in view, such as the encouragement of scientific research and the support of voyages of geographical exploration. Nordenskiöld's Arctic voyages, his and Palander's navigation through the polar northeast passage in theVega, Nathort's exploration of King Carl's Land, the Swedish expedition to the Antarctic regions under Otto Nordenskiöld, which has lately returned after two years' adventurous exploration in Graham Land and the discovery of King Oscar Land, Sven Hedin's travels in Central Asia, which have had such important results and made his works so widely read—all these were undertaken as the result of such aid. The latest case in point, Alfred Nobel's foundation of annual prizes for the reward of scientific discovery, of literary merit, and humanitarian endeavor, deserves special notice. The annual distribution of these prizes, each of which represents a small fortune ($41,500), has of late years fixed the attention of the learned world on the Swedish literary and scientific bodies, and the Norwegian Parliamentary Committee, who were entrusted by him with the difficult and invidious task of awarding them.
Alfred Nobel, the dynamite king, as he was styled, belonged to a family of inventors and industrial magnates. His father, Emmanuel Nobel, was the inventor of nitroglycerine, and of fixed submarine torpedoes or mines. His two brothers, Robert and Louis Nobel, founded the naptha and petroleum works at Bacou, one of the largest industrial enterprises of Russia. Alfred himself invented dynamite and dynamite gum, and a smokeless powder, ballistite, which he patented in 1867, 1876, and 1889. It is mainly due to the works of the Nobel family that Sweden has attained the reputation of Master Producer of Explosives. Chemical research has always been a specialty among Swedish men of science, and a large number of the known chemical elements were discovered and made known by Swedish scientists.
In 1876, Alfred Nobel had perfected his invention of dynamite gum. He went to Paris with his patented invention, and there formed a company with a capital of ten million francs for the manufacture of dynamite. It proved to be an article of the greatest industrial importance, and one destined to revolutionize mining and engineering. Erelong he had established extensive works in France, Scotland, Germany, Belgium, Austria, and the United States. He produced over $25,000,000 worth a year. He became, in fact, the world's purveyor of an article which was now exclusively used in mining and engineering works. Thanks to it, engineers were able to pierce tunnels through the Alps, miners to sink their shafts into the bowels of the earth, and harbor constructors to remove sunken rocks out of the way of shipping. But thanks to it, too, the Communards were enabled to blow up the finest monuments of Paris in a few hours. It was at once a powerful instrument of industrial development, and of progress in the conquest of man over inert matter, and a terrible engine of devastation in warfare, and of massacre and vandalism where homicidal and destructive passions were aroused in mankind.
It was perhaps this thought, that in benefiting industry he had also made war more destructive, which led Alfred Nobel, who was a most pacific and humane man, endowed with the kindliness and sympathy of a great mind, to make the provisions he did in his will. He devoted all his fortune to the encouragement of scientific discovery and the reward of endeavors to diminish standing armies and the chances of war, to promote fraternity among nations, and the settlement of international disputes by peace congresses. His will, in its very conciseness and unsophisticated simplicity, is characteristic of the man. It is dated Nov. 27, 1895, and he died a year afterwards, on Dec. 10, 1896, leaving a fortune of $10,000,000. After instituting several small legacies, the will proceeds:
"With the residue of my convertible estate I hereby direct my executors to proceed as follows: They shall convert my said residue of property into money, which they shall then invest in safe securities; the capital thus secured shall constitute a fund, the interest accruing from which shall be annually awarded in prizes to those persons who shall have contributed most materially to benefit mankind during the year immediately preceding. The said interest shall be divided into five equal amounts, to be apportioned as follows: one share to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention in the domain of physics; one share to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one share to the person who shall have made the most important discovery in the domain of physiology or medicine; one share to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most distinguished work of an idealistic tendency; and, finally, one share to the person who shall have most or best promoted the fraternity of nations and the abolition or diminution of standing armies and the formation or increase of peace congresses. The prizes for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Science in Stockholm, the one for physiology or medicine by the Caroline Medical Institute in Stockholm; the prize for literature by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, and that for peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storthing. I declare it to be my express desire that, in awarding these prizes, no consideration whatever be paid to the nationality of the candidates, that is to say, the most deserving be awarded the prize, whether of Scandinavian origin or not."
It was Nobel's object to reward and help the pure man of science, too much absorbed in his researches to think of drawing any industrial or pecuniary advantages from his scientific discoveries. "I would not leave anything to a man of action or industrial enterprise," he said to a friend with whom he was discussing the project of his will; "the sudden acquisition of a fortune would probably only damp the energy and weaken the spirit of enterprise of such a man. I want to aid the dreamer, the scientific enthusiast, who forgets everything in the pursuit of his ideas."
It seems like dropping from the sublime to the ridiculous to follow so ideal a benefaction with a report of so mundane a thing as a soup kitchen, but soup is as necessary to humanity at the present period of life as some of the exalted things of the intellect, and, as pauperism in Norway and Sweden is so almost unobservable, it is difficult to search out with the keenest vision any charity that is doing more than are the "steam kitchens" of Norway and Sweden. And the keenest vision would hardly observe that these "steam kitchens" are charitable institutions. They are called "steam kitchens" because they are the first institutions in the peninsula where steam was used for the cooking of food. The one at Stockholm, instituted by Prince Carl, is very similar in detail and operation to the one in Christiania, but the latter was established first and is more perfect in its arrangement and methods, so we will take it for illustration.
This kitchen at Christiania was established in 1858 by benevolent people to provide wholesome food for the poor at low prices. The charter granted to the company limited its profits to six per cent of the capital invested, with a provision that the balance, if any, should be paid into the poor fund of the city. There was a hard struggle at first to make both ends meet, and an annual deficit for many years, which was made up by the stockholders, but at last the "kitchen" became so popular that it began to pay dividends, and the stock has since been watered four times, until it now pays what is equivalent to twenty-four per cent annually upon the original investment, with a surplus larger than the capital on which it was started. It is one of the most profitable enterprises in Europe for the amount of money involved, but that fact does not diminish the benefits conferred upon the public, and the generosity of the company to the poor, particularly in times of labor troubles and financial depression, can not be questioned. Hundreds of bachelors and single women take their meals there regularly, and hundreds of families obtain their entire supply of food, wholesome and well cooked, at nominal cost.
There is a long official title to the company, but nobody ever mentions it. It occupies a two-story building covering nearly half an ordinary block. The location is convenient to the business portion of the city, the docks and the market-place. There are two large halls, one above the other, containing five long tables, seating thirty persons each, thus accommodating three hundred customers at a sitting. In the upstairs room it costs eleven cents in our money for a good dinner; in the lower room it costs nine cents. There are no tablecloths and no napkins, but the tops of the tables have been scoured until they shine and everything is spotless. The whole institution is a model of neatness. It seems remarkable how it can be kept so clean with so many unwashed customers and so much business. The windows are large and let in plenty of light. The walls are covered with bright tints, and the waitresses wear white caps, aprons, and oversleeves. At each place is a knife, fork, spoon, drinking glass, cup and saucer, and a piece of bread about three inches square. Dinner is served from ten in the morning until six in the afternoon to an average of 2,500 people daily. Some of them come twice. They take a cup of coffee and eat a piece of cheese and bread at their homes early in the morning. Then at ten or eleven, and again at four or five o'clock, they go to the "kitchen" for a square meal. Thus it costs them not more than twenty-five cents a day, all told, for their food. In the last ten years they have never served less than 1,500 people in a day.
The bill of fare varies from day to day, but we will take one day, Tuesday, for example. A large dish of barley soup is served, wholesome and nourishing, a ball of hashed meat, with potatoes and rice, or boiled salmon, potatoes and turnips.
The nine-cent dinner is pretty much the same, with the exception of the soup; boiled potatoes and rice, or boiled salmon, potatoes and turnips. A plate of soup alone, which in itself would be more than a meal for most people, being filled with meat and vegetables, is served for three cents.
The same dinners are furnished to the public to be eaten at their homes for nine and seven cents respectively, and usually contain enough food for two or three women, although Norwegians have stalwart appetites. The outdoor service is conducted in another part of the building, upon another street. The patrons procure tickets at an office and then form in line—men, women and children, each with a bucket or a basket, or both, in hand. Many tickets are given gratuitously, but it is impossible to distinguish the paying from the charity customers. Benevolent people throughout the city purchase bunches of tickets, which they give to the poor, and sometimes in lieu of wages. If you hire a man to clean up the yard, you can give him so much cash and so many meal tickets, or if a person appeals to you for relief, it is always better to give a ticket to the "Steam Kitchen" rather than money. Many customers buy two portions which they take home and warm up at meal time for the whole family.
In the center of a large room are rows of immense caldrons with coils of steam pipe embracing them. The air is filled with pungent odors from the bubbling soup, and clouds of steam rise from the other cook-pots. On a long table are pyramids of bread, cut into cubes three or four inches square, usually rye or black bread, such as the natives of Norway prefer. Along the walls are deep cupboards containing the linens, the culinary supplies and utensils. In an adjoining but detached building is a furnace and boiler-room which furnishes the steam, and beside it a laundry and dish-washing establishment. It requires a good many dishes to serve three thousand people even in a simple way. In an annex the finer qualities of beef, mutton, and other meats are cut off and sold to the public, thus utilizing all the supplies which are bought in large quantities, the beef by the carcass and the vegetables by the carload. The sausage of the "Steam Kitchen" is said to be the best to be found in Christiania. All kinds of prepared meats are also sold in this annex butcher shop. During the fruit season the company runs a canning department upstairs, preserving all kinds of fruits, jellies, pickles, and that sort of thing. At the baking department bread is sold to the general public at wholesale or retail, and small retail establishments are supplied with all kinds of groceries as well as meats and other edibles. Thus the restaurant is only part of this large business from which the company derives its profits. There is naturally a good deal of jealousy among the competing small dealers against the "Steam Kitchen," but it serves a benevolent purpose, and there is no disposition among its customers to question its business methods or reduce its profits. It has succeeded in abolishing the cheap restaurants such as are found in all large cities, at which wretched food, generally the scrapings from high-class hotels and eating-houses, is worked over and sold to the poor.
It is an interesting sight, this bucket brigade, that stands in line and passes slowly by the serving windows, which are attended by half a dozen brawny Norwegian women with bare arms and broad, good-natured-looking faces. They wear neat white aprons and caps, and handle the food with a dexterity that shows long experience. They seem to know most of the customers and carry on a familiar conversation with them while falling their orders. When a bucket and a ticket passes up, blue for a nine-cent and red for a seven-cent dinner, the waitress first plunges a huge ladle into the soup pot and empties its contents into the bucket; then passing along the rows of kettles she harpoons a piece of meat with a long two-pronged fork, scoops up a quart of rice with a wooden shovel, and then, adding a portion of potatoes, slams on the cover, and, grabbing a cube of bread, passes it over to the purchaser with a joke or a few pleasant words.
Many of the customers are well dressed, according to the Norway standard, but no people in the world seem to care so little for their personal appearance, except on Sundays, when you can scarcely recognize men and women you have been familiar with during the week. On the day I ate at the restaurant, my cicerone pointed out at the dining table two professors of the University faculty, a lawyer in good standing, a photographer, and a sub-editor of one of the daily papers, who were his personal acquaintances. The remainder of the customers appeared to be professional men, clerks, bookkeepers, and a good many laborers, many of them coming for their dinner without having removed the traces of toil from their faces and hands. At one of the tables was a group of students inclined to be boisterous and evidently enjoying themselves. The "Steam Kitchen" is the favorite eating-place for the undergraduates, from four to five hundred being served every day.
Such an institution as the "Steam Kitchen" is especially suitable to a Norwegian city, where a portion of the population work for very small wages, the average income of the wage-earner being less than $100 a year—so small that, measured by the American standard, it would seem a difficult problem to find food, clothing, and shelter for a family.
Few Norwegians suffer from poverty or privation, even through the cold and gloomy winters that are eight months long. Our own people might die, or at least suffer seriously under the same circumstances, but the Norwegians are a hardy race. They have inherited the power of endurance and the ability to survive hunger and thirst and discomforts better than most races.
There are comparatively few poor in Sweden, probably fewer than in any other European country except Norway and Switzerland, because of the low cost of living, the sparse population, and the ability of all men and women to find work if they are willing to earn their own subsistence. Able-bodied paupers are compelled to work upon poor farms, but the aged, decrepit and invalids who are dependent upon public charity are kindly taken care of by what is called outdoor and indoor relief. In the cities are asylums and almshouses similar to those in the United States, but in the parishes, as a rule, the care of the poor is assigned to individual farmers and others who are willing to take care of them under contract, subject to the supervision of a board of guardians, of which the pastor is the chairman and the elders of the church are members. This has long been a practice in Sweden, but is not universal.
There are at present 5,277 relief establishments of all kinds in the kingdom, and the total contributions for the benefit of the poor amount to $3,000,000 annually, or on an average of 58 cents per capita of the entire population, an average of 44 cents in the country and $1.18 in the cities. This includes all poorhouses, asylums, hospitals, and other institutions for adults and children who can not take care of themselves.
A large part of the relief work in the cities is looked after by the Salvation Army under contract with the municipal authorities, but there are many institutions, hospitals, asylums, homes for the friendless and aged and for orphan children, supported by private charity. The free hospital for children in Stockholm is famous as one of the best equipped and managed institutions in the world.
The private charities in Stockholm are united for cooperation in an organization similar to those found in American cities, and all charitable institutions are subject to government supervision.[l]