| Blog Post Published on: | 9th November 2022 |
| Title: | Co-op Folk College to Open this Fall |
| Lead Author: | Dave Sonquist |
| Type of Blog Post: | folk_school_movement |
This article appears in the 60th Anthology of Circle Pines Center (1938-1998) as an addendum on page A-5.
This article was written in 1945 and has been posted here for its historical significance. Attempts were made at the time to start the school, but they did not come to fruition.
Co-op Folk College to Open this Fall
by Dave Sonquist
June 15, 1945
Special to the Post-Dispatch
A cooperative people’s college will be started this fall at Circle Pines Center here “to create, establish and maintain a center of cooperative culture in the central United States” and teach the advantages of cooperation as a way of life.
Although the school will have a small beginning with a maximum of 15 students, its sponsors plan to devel a postwar folk school which will demonstrate to adults as well as youth the benefits of Rochdale consumer cooperation.
The purposes of the school are:
1) To demonstrate the advantages of cooperative living by offering the student the opportunity to create for himself and others a flexible environment designed to meet human needs through the use of creative imagination based on practical experience.
2) To make critical evaluation of modern living by obtaining and integrating the necessary facts, adoption workable plans, acting on them and checking results.
3) To prepare the individual for participation and leadership in the cooperative movement through recreation, construction, farming, native industries, business training and cultural achievements such as folk lore, literature, philosophy, etc.
The function of the new school will be to teach people rather than subjects. Primary emphasis will be on guidance of students in facing the varied situations and projects that arise out of life in the modern world.
The people’s college is an outgrowth of the Ashland Folk School at Grant, Mich. which early became the center of cooperative adult education through the Cooperative League of the United States and the Central States Cooperative League.
Circle Pines Center was established in 1937 and now conducts summer camps for training in cooperation divided into the family camp, youth work camp, junior work camp and children’s camp.
The center is a farm operated as a cooperative recreation place owned by its members. It is open to people of all races, creeds and political beliefs. Activities include folk dancing, swimming, hiking, singing, boating, building, farming, gardening, arts and crafts, camp fires and trips.
The people’s college will be under the direction of David and Dorothy Sonquist. It will give no credits or grades, and will accept students who are 18 years old or have a high-school education. A fee of $10 per week will cover board, room and tuition.
The advisory board of the college includes: