A Proper Norwegian-Lutheran Education: The Academy in Scandinavia, Wisconsin, 1893-1932

Abstract

3 A Proper Norwegian-Lutheran Education: The Academy in Scandinavia, Wisconsin, 1893-1932 by Art Lee Before the turn of the twentieth century, a successful Norwegian- American Lutheran academy operated in a central Wisconsin rural community named Scandinavia. In 1875 this tiny town could also boast of having the largest Norwegian Lutheran church in the country in the size of both the building and the congregation. More prestige came to Scandinavia when the Academy added two years of college curriculum in 1920 and was renamed Central Wisconsin College. Progress. Success. A sense of permanency for the church, Academy, and community, or so it seemed. On the surface it appeared that the Academy now CWC - would be a long-term achievement. But by 1928 the school was fading; in 1932 it folded. Moreover, the once biggest Lutheran church structure in America would be totally dismantled and razed in 1929, the still solid wood reused in part in the building of two large barns in the area. The community itself also began to fade as its schools, after the Academy's demise, closed one by one. The devastating loss of Scandinavia Academy in 1932 was more than the end of one institution; it was the beginning of the end for nearly all midwestern Norwegian Lutheran academies. Among the important institutions adopted by Norwegian immigrants in the latter nineteenth century was the academy, 57 58 Art Lee Central Wisconsin College. Courtesy Art Lee. then considered a form of higher education and only much later commonly labeled a high school. Some seventy-five Lutheran academies once served first and second generation Norwegian Americans well. These academies had their special moment in history, making contributions both for the nation and for Norwegian Americans.1 Churchmen perceived academies, promoted and led by Lutheran pastors, as multiple in purpose. These private church schools instilled and maintained Christian doctrines and virtues along with perpetuating ancestral traditions, while at the same time offering a curriculum which would lead students to become good Americans and educated citizens who were prepared for desirable employment. The academies had their most important years in that time in Norwegian-American history commonly referred to as the Golden Age, roughly the years 1875-1925. In this half-century when public high schools were scarce in rural areas, academies made good sense.2 Churchmen had already lost the fight for religious instruction in the American public elementary schools. Hence on the next level of education, the high school, academies allowed concerned religious leaders - both clergy and laity an opportunity for achieving their educational goals. These A Proper Norwegian-Lutheran Education 59 private schools made available to the sons and daughters of mainly rural immigrants a form of inexpensive higher education controlled and operated by their own Lutheran churches. Thus, for many men of the cloth, the academy became a kind of educational panacea. And a strong case can be made that early arriving Norwegians eagerly sought an education above and beyond that sought by other foreign-born groups.3 Norwegian Americans did not invent the academy. The institution can be traced back to colonial times, with credit usually given to Benjamin Franklin for starting the first one in Philadelphia. Academies grew in number so that both denominational and secular schools would be commonplace by the end of the Civil War, coinciding with the beginning onrush of Scandinavian immigration into the Upper Middle West. The immigrants faced educational issues not easy to decide . Certainly divisions evolved among them over the types of available schooling in their adopted country, private and public . Although the arguments carried over both decades and geographical regions, one special meeting is perceived as the seminal event for the launching of the Norwegian- American academy movement. This meeting began in Madison, Wisconsin , on March 4, 1869. Some 300 Norwegian Americans came to this Dane county convention for the announced purpose of forming a Scandinavian Lutheran educational society. However, any ostensible unity on the school question was not there at either the start or the end of this meeting.4 The divergent views of the delegates would be reduced to three. One element wished to convince the others to pledge in writing their support for...