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The Religion o f the Country is Lutheran; but
all Creeds and Sects are now tolerated.
Education is compulsory. Poor parents pay a
nominal sum w eekly for the education of their
children at the Government schools; so that almost
all the lower class can read and w rite, more or
less. Confirmation, too, is compulsory.
Until that
rite has been received, the youth o f both sexes
are, as it w ere,
in statu pup illa ri;
bu t, once
received, they jump from children to be men and
women.
Certificates o f Baptism , Confirmation, and
Vaccination, are a
sine qua non
to the entering
on service, apprenticeship, matrimony, etc.
The O ld-Danish is now nearly a dead language
in its own Country, as is O ld-English among
ourselves.
But the Old-Northern character o f the
Danish is still abundantly evid en t, and the best
and most expressive, the most national and tuneful,
o f all its words are O ld-Northern. Notwithstanding,
how ever, the difference o f the elements by which
the two languages have been modified, — the one
by the Norman, the other by the German, — the
English and Danish m ay still be considered sister-
members o f the Gothic group. The Danish language,
then, is by no means difficult of acquirement by
an Englishman, still less so by a Scotchman, or an
inhabitant o f the Northern part of England.