Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1941, Blaðsíða 166

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LE NORD
now freely acknowledge, that we are in many respects highly
indebted to Denmark, and that many things in Iceland, which
we now cherish highly and of which we expect much in the future,
are of Danish origin.
Let us first of all mention the higher education. The Icelandic
higher schools are in their present shape modelled on the Danish,
and when in 19 n an Icelandic university was founded, it took
the University of Copenhagen as its model. Down to 1918 Ice-
landic university students enjoyed specials privileges regarding
scholarships and aids to study in Copenhagen, and in consequence
almost all who wanted to study abroad went to the University
of Copenhagen or to other higher educational institutions in that
city. After 1918 these special rights of Icelandic students in Den-
mark have been abolished; but as the young University of Ice-
land in Reykjavík as yet has not been able to establish a faculty
of natural sciences or a higher technical school and lacks teachers
in many important branches of the humanistic sciences, it follows
as a matter of course that a great deal of students are obliged to
go abroad, and the Icelandic government grants travelling scholar-
ships to these people. As the University of Copenhagen however
still retains its old renown, most Icelandic students still frequent
that venerable institution. The excellent Polytechnical School,
the Royal College of Agriculture, the Royal Academy of Arts,
the Commercial High School and other higher educational institu-
tions of the “Athens of the North,” — and last not least, the
charming, gay city of Copenhagen, with its big Icelandic colony,
attract every year a number of Icelandic students.
Not a few Icelanders visit the famous Folk High Schools in
Denmark, especially Askov, and of course a great number of
artisans of different kinds, young girls who want to learn Danish
and see something of foreign life, etc. etc. go to Denmark and
stay there for some months or years. As a rule they return to Ice-
land, sooner or later; comparatively few settle in Denmark for
full and good. Of course intermarriages occur, and the Icelanders
are proud of the fact, that descendants of such families
often turn out to be very fine people. ¥e mention with pride
that among the most famous Danes of the 19“* century are two
of Icelandic descent, the great sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen and
the famous discoverer of the light cure Niels Finsen, the Nobel
prize taker. And in the University of Copenhagen there has been
an almost unbroken Icelandic series of eminent scholars in the