1890.07.21 English

THE ROYAL INSTITUTE

 FOR THE DEAF-MUTE    

     COPENHAGEN

21st of July 1890

 

 

            Dear Mr R.C. Mortensen ! [1]

 

In response to your kind offer I am forwarding the attached preliminary list of participants and kindly request you to return it to me after having completed the missing information about the years and the names of the graduating teachers – preferably fairly soon.

 

I doubt that vicar Carstensen will be invited, but I do expect that Brigadeer [2]Licht will attend.

 

Concerning the forthcoming meeting on the road between Maaløv and Jonstrup[3] on August 4, for the time being there is this: We will travel by the ‘Provision’[4] towards Farum and with some members of the music band of the Household Troups – 8 men.

 

Yours most sincerely

 

And with my very best greetings!

 

 

                         R. Malling-Hansen

 

 

The Centenary Celebrations of Jonstrup Teacher College.

 

The ‘Jonstrup Book‘ from 1928 has an article about Rasmus Malling-Hansen written by Arild S. Ebbe providing the following description of the centenary celebration:

 

    He always spoke with the greatest love and appreciation about his residence at Jonstrup. These feelings he expressed very beautifully in his speech at the centenary celebration on August 4, 1890.    In fact, the official celebration took place on June 25, which marked the centenary of the Royal ordinance; however, certain conditions – among them that the big Nordic Educational Conference was held in Copenhagen in the beginning of August – lead to the situation whereby 43 former students, Malling-Hansen being principal of the institute for the deaf-mute and organizer of the event, invited for a celebration on August 4.     Around 200 former students accepted the invitation. After a lecturer, Mr Betz from Idestrup, Falster, had given a speech in honour of his Majesty, Malling-Hansen was given the floor for his speech for “The Old Jonstrup, for all the participants and in particular for you, the brothers and sons of the old Jonstrup”, he spoke more or less as follows:

 

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    “And when I look back upon my residency at Jonstrup, around 40 years ago, in order to find the common denominator around which we would all be able to gather in a joint appreciation of Jonstrup – my mind goes to this first and foremost: We learned to work, to put our back into it, we learned diligence and of the importance of working in a rational way and not to shirk our responsibility – even when it did not please us. The college had a spirit of industriousness, it emanated from the principal and could be found in almost all of the lecturers and imbued all the students in such a way that anyone found to be an incorrigible loafer was liable to be made a fool of. Well, that didn’t prevent us from doing some foolish things or from making an excursion by foot from time to time; but within the old castle hard work was reigning and taught, and hence: The sons of Jonstrup have brought with them hard work and industriousness and imparted this spirit into our motherland at all times. Therefore: Thanks be to our old Jonstrup!    The next thing around which we can all gather in appreciation is our pedagogical training, the kind at which people nowadays turn up their noses. Perchance we did not get much training in applied pedagogics, but we did acquire a sound foundation of knowledge and ideal models which probably was not enough for excelling at an official examination but did constitute a sound and solid foundation on which we could continue to build in our teaching careers. The value of such a foundation, and the consequences of not having it, has been made ever so clear during my career, when I have been confronted with people starting out their teaching career without this didactic foundation. With this kind of people I have very often, and during extended periods, observed such a hesitation and diffidence, such huge pedagogical blunders, coupled with a long time of daily grind before the job could be done, that I on numerous occasions during my long teaching career have had ample reason to be thankful for my pedagogical training. And on that score I am sure we can all join in a: Thank you, old Jonstrup!    And brothers: It was in the heyday of our youth that we were spending time here. In spite of toil and trouble these were surely the happiest years of our life: In this respect Old Jonstrup was only on the surface a strict mother, she would turn a blind eye to many a youthful prank and was happy about the many friendships for life created here. Friendships that will endure forever. It is in all our minds to nurse and nurture the happy memories, even if distance and time has put us apart, - hence our Thank you, Jonstrup!    Looking back at the teaching activity of the college throughout 100 years, we must thank Jonstrup, because it can be credited to a very large degree with the fact that the teaching profession, which towards the end of the last century and the beginning of this century was behind the times, now for a long time has been ahead of its time. It was not the teaching profession that created the college or who proposed and emitted rules for the teaching cause. The teaching profession merely followed in the old groove. But during the last 20 years the teaching profession has lead the way, pointing with vigour and fervour towards the need for us teachers to aquire further education, but above all more time, more teaching time for the children of the rural school, who are certainly not “overloaded”. The teaching profession is now realizing and pointing forcefully towards the phenomenon that the railroad and the telegraph have brought people together, even glued them together, made the earth small, but at the same time it has become more difficult to conquer a position in life, the struggle for survival is more difficult, necessitating that education and the weapon – the weapon of the spirit and of the heart – that the school provides for life become more plentiful and sharper – and yet: the progress of school education is way behind the demands that life today presents to the individual. Old Jonstrup has contributed to opening the eyes of her sons for this aspect and therefore our ‘thanks’!    And when we contemplate the Danish teaching profession throughout the 100 years, we find way back in time a profession of very low standing, yet nowadays we find a teaching profession that is meeting pretty much the appreciation it deserves. Let me state that this is probably a general rule: A country should be judged by how it appreciates its teaching profession. In this regard, huge progress has been made over time, and to this effect old Jonstrup has certainly contributed. Therefore: Thank you!    A mother becomes young through her children! – But then again, Jonstrup is not exceedingly old, rather – in spite of her age she is thinking in a vigorous and youthful way, and this is, of course, as it should be. A person ages, but an institution should not grow old and decrepit – on the contrary: With time it should become increasingly youthful, i.e. more and more strong and energetic. And I do believe this can be said about this castle. If this is a beautiful testimony, it should also be added that it would be no less wonderful if finally from the teachers of this country a new vigour could be infused into the foster mother. Pray that it may happen!    Thank you wholeheartedly and I wish you all success! Long live the Royal Teacher’s College of Jonstrup”

(Vigorous cheering).   

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    The words of Malling-Hansen met with sympathy with all the people present, and he was thanked with a clamour of “long live the famous Jonstrup student”. No one knew at the time that this was to be his “swan song”. He died scarcely two month afterwards, on September 27.

 

 

 

 

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