Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig (1783-1872), Lutheran pastor, poet, hymn writer, and historian, gave birth to the idea of the folk school, which his followers implemented. The Grundtvigian ideological system and folk school emerged from a turbulent period of Danish nationalism, democratic change, and economic crisis. Grundtvig's ideas helped to restore national pride after disastrous military defeats of the 1860s, to rebuild a depressed economy, and to equip the peasants for suffrage.

Michelson's (1969) analysis of how the Grundtvigian religious movement contributed to economic change is instructive. After 1828, following Grundtvig's resignation from church office, he began to articulate his ideas in print, and they gained acceptance among a group of people who became active in his behalf. Persons applied the name "Grundtvigian" to these ideas and the theology that accompanied them, and the name became common in Denmark. Grundtvigians valued self-expression and regarded conversation as recreation. They possessed strong egos and had few doubts about their own country and their role in building it. They did not fear innovation and believed in showing people what they could do. On the other hand, they were also dependent on one another, cooperated in common endeavors, and compromised to make the situation work for others.

Grundtvigians developed several mechanisms for implanting these ideas: singing, the "meeting," the church, grammar schools, and the folk schools. Of these several mechanisms, the folk school has been linked to the establishment of cooperatives, which resulted in Danish farm prosperity. Credit, as Michelson (1969) cautions, does not belong to the folk schools. The folk schools could not have existed during that period of Danish history except as part of a wider Grundtvigian community, and they were only on of several mechanisms by which the Grundtvigian idea system was disseminated and internalized. The folk schools did not teach economics nor advocate cooperation. Yet, the Grundtvigian ideas predisposed people for structural change, which did involve cooperation.

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[Grundtvig's son, the philologist, was the mentor of Francis Child, the renowned American ballad scholar, who gave his name to the so-called "Child ballads." Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks both attended a Grundtvigian Folk School -- Highlander in Tennessee. The Folk Schools also inspired settlement houses, the YMCA, and adult education in general. It is my understanding also that Scandinavia never underwent land enclosure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure , which had such a demoralizing and pauperizing effect on small farmers and craftsmen in the British Isles and Ireland.]