


1822: To The "Latin School" in Slagelse

1822: 1822: To The "Latin School" in Slagelse

9 August

A scene from "The Vissenberg Robbers on Funen; a dramatic poem" is printed in the aesthetic periodical Harpen, published by A.P. Liunge.

3 September 1822

Alfsol is deemed unsuitable for the theatre. But the rebuff includes a recommendation that HCA be sent to a "Latin school", the equivalent of a grammar school today, for basic education. This recommendation is repeated at a meeting of the theatre's board of directors on 6th September.

13 September

HCA is called to a board meeting, where the offer is put to him. He accepts gratefully. It is left to Jonas Collin to organise the matter. The money is granted from the trust fund; ad usus publicos, which is situated directly under the king and for which Jonas Collin is secretary. In his application to the trust, Collin states that the purpose of HCA's education is that he "become a useful citizen". This is repeated in the board members' recommendation to the directors, Prime Minister Schimmelmann and Møsting, the minister of finance

"As the said Andersen, who is completely without means, and lives entirely at the mercy of private benefactors, procured via his good-natured character, would become miserable and disappear from civil society, if he thus continued a languishing existence (pursuing a career in the theatre to no avail), and as there is in fact reason to believe that he, scientifically trained, could become a useful citizen, the board of directors (for the theatre) clarified for him the mistaken literary road upon which he had embarked, and promised him that it would, most humbly, recommend that he be granted humble support for the purpose of studying, on the condition that he solely devote his time and diligence to the necessary scholastic sciences".

400 rbdlr "notes" were sought for his annual expenses and education for three years, but the grant was set at 350 rbdlr. for three years. By ordinance on 19th August 1826, the allowance was extended by 2 years as a result of an application from Jonas Collin, and on 15th November 1828, by yet another year. It was decided that HCA be sent to the prestigious "Latin School" in Slagelse (equivalent to a grammar school) where the poets Jens Baggesen and B.S. Ingemann had previously been students. (Regarding Ingemann's impressions of the school, see his memoirs Levnedsbogen (The Autobiography), published posthumously in 1862). The philologist Simon Meisling, who was considered an authority in teaching methods, had recently been made principle at the Latin School. Shortly before his departure, HCA visits Collin at his private home. Collin was to be his guardian and HCA promises to write to him regularly.

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