Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1944, Page 46

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LE NORD
dug out of the archives and some of it has already been analyzed
by statistical experts but as yet nothing has been published.
Another piece of research into the economic history of the
i8th Century is the assembling and sifting of source material
throwing light upon the earliest history of the first Danish bank,
the “Kurantbank,” founded in 1736. The main purpose of this
work is to ascertain the influence of the bank on the economic
life of the period.
In 1936, through the initiative of the Institute, work was
started on a history of Danish industry from the beginning of the
i7th Century to the first World War. Although the Institute’s
share in this enterprise limits itself to the planning of the work
and the raising of the necessary funds, it falls well within the
range of this paper to mention that of the four volumes planned,
the first two have already appeared under the editorship of Pro-
fessor Axel Nielsen.
In 1937 the historian Hans Jensen and the economist Thorkil
Kristensen wrote a stimulating history of a large rural savings
bank10). Of special interest in connection with this book is the
fact that the Institute was employed by the bank to write it
on the occasion of the 75 th anniversary of its foundation. Here
the example was set of a commercial institution contributing
to the advancement of scientifically-based knowledge of the
past instead of being content with the usual superficially written
rehash of well-known facts in glorification of itself — the ordi-
nary and often quite useless form of commemorative publication
sent out by the average commercial house to mark an anniversary.
This worthy example has since been followed by the Danish
Authors’ Association for whom the Institute at present is pre-
paring a description of the Association’s contributions to the im-
provement of writers’ social and economic conditions since its
foundation in 1894.
Danish Land Policy
A series of studies by the historian, Hans Jensen, on Danish
land policy since the middle of the i8th Century deal with a
central problem in Danish history, since agriculture is the most
important branch of the country’s economic life. However, these
10) Hans Jensen og Thorkil Kristensen: Landbosparekassen i Aarhus. (1937).