The people’s high schools and the rifle clubs have stood in close relation with each other, some of the former organizing clubs of their own, or supplying leaders for neighboring clubs, and others, like the ones at Askov and Vallekilde, arranging for teachers’ courses in gymnastics and rifle-shooting under professional instructors from the army. The aims of the two institutions are similar in many ways. Although the people’s high schools all give instruction in handwork and household economics for women and many offer courses in agriculture, horticulture, masonry, carpentry, etc., their chief purpose is cultural—to mold character and ideals, inspire patriotism, train the students to think for themselves, reveal the dignity and possibilities of country life, and lay the foundation for later work in local agricultural schools and schools of household economics. The lecture method prevails in the classroom. Courses in history and literature may be considered the backbone of the curriculum, with frequent discussion periods and much singing of folk and patriotic songs and hymns. Students room in the school dormitories, and are thus brought into close and sympathetic association with each other and with their teachers,—the foundation of that spirit of coöperation which is so characteristic of rural life in Denmark today. The revival of general interest in physical education in Denmark had its origin thus among young adults, and not in the schools. At first it was the GutsMuths gymnastics as developed by Nachtegall which they practised in the rifle clubs and the people’s high schools, with the gradual addition of exercises borrowed from the Jahn _Turnen_; but beginning in 1884 the Ling or Swedish system was introduced, and made rapid headway until by the close of the century it had been generally adopted in the people’s high schools, had outstripped its Danish-German rival in the rifle clubs, and formed the basis of a new official manual for the schools.[147] It was not to be expected that the friends of the GutsMuths-Nachtegall gymnastics would watch the encroachments of the foreign system without a vigorous protest. The struggle began as early as 1885, with army officers almost without exception opposed to the innovation, and a few years later was at its height. The attention of school authorities was drawn to the subject by conflicting claims put forward in the press and by what the followers of Ling were already accomplishing in Denmark, and some of them recognized that with the help of the new exercises school gymnastics might perhaps be resuscitated, especially in the country, where conditions were quite unsatisfactory.