At the general _Skyttefest_ (gathering of rifle clubs for competitive shooting) in 1869 at Horsens the Svendborg county club, the university club from Copenhagen, and others gave exhibitions of gymnastics which must have contributed toward its spread, and this was still more true of the general _Gymnastikfest_ at Svendborg in 1878 and the general _Skytte- og Gymnastikfest_ at Nyborg in 1881, both of them arranged by the Svendborg county rifle club. At the former there were nearly 1100 participants, who came from 16 towns and 110 country parishes. Six hundred were from Svendborg county alone. County and lesser _Skyttefester_ exerted a similar influence. Advantage was taken of the interest thus aroused to seek state aid for the purchase of apparatus. Captain Edvard Nielsen proposed such a measure at the meeting of delegates in 1879, and a motion requesting the _Overbestyrelse_ to take suitable steps led to an initial annual grant of 2000 Kr. from the government, increased to 5000 Kr. in 1882 and to 6000 Kr. the following year. Attempts to obtain similar grants to assist in the erection of _Øvelseshuse_ and the giving of courses of instruction for squad leaders (_Delingsførere_) met with no success at this time. The people’s or folk high schools (_Folkehøjskoler_),[146] like the rifle clubs, date from before the Schleswig-Holstein war of 1864; but their great popularity and rapid spread began with the period of reform which succeeded it. They are not public institutions, though nearly all now receive a certain amount of government aid, but are privately owned in most cases, or belong to a self-perpetuating corporation, and depend for their success upon the personality of the director and his associates. The total number opened in the years 1844-1911 was 143, and 80 of these were in existence at the close of the period. The great majority of the students are young countrymen eighteen to twenty-five years of age, who after completing the required course at free rural elementary schools have been engaged in practical agriculture and household duties, either at home or on some model farm. The attendance in the years 1864-1884 averaged about 3000 annually, but doubled in the following decade, and in the school year 1898-1899 reached a total of 3491 young men and 2646 young women. In 1906 the numbers at the different high schools ranged from 10 to 400; 53 per cent of the pupils were males, and it was estimated that a third of the young people among the rural population passed through these schools, although attendance is altogether voluntary. A few are coeducational, but the usual plan is to offer a winter course of five to six months (November-May) to young men, and a summer one of three months or more to young women. An hour a day is allotted to gymnastics as a rule.