The working classes have their simple amusements also, and during the summer evenings in every village there is music and dancing, even if an accordion or jewsharp is the only instrument to be obtained.  The national dances are quite energetic, and furnish a form of exercise which lazy people would not admire, but both the men and women of Sweden are famous for their muscular strength, and the young woman who can dance down her companions is as much of a hero as the champion wrestler of the town.  Those who can not enjoy the opportunity of visiting rural Sweden will find in the suburbs of Stockholm, at the favorite resort and place of amusement of the common people, a perfect representation of Swedish country life.  It is called Skansen, and is rural Sweden in miniature.  It is a patriotic and scientific enterprise, conceived and undertaken by the late Dr. Artur Hazelius, an eminent ethnologist, for the purpose of preserving the habits and customs of the Scandinavian races.  In no country of Europe, excepting perhaps Russia and Turkey, have the people adhered to the manner and costumes of their fathers so tenaciously as in Sweden, and the life of past generations is preserved in its picturesqueness.  The conservatism of the people, their tenacious preference for their own ways and means has kept out innovations, and very few changes have been made since the beginning of the eighteenth century.  But fearing that the peasants of Sweden, like all other peoples, would sooner or later surrender to modern fashions, Dr. Hazelius attempted to collect at Skansen actual types representing every industry, activity, and national trait.  His thought was expressed in a motto inscribed over one of the gates of this outdoor museum: 

“The day will come when all our gold will not be sufficient to buy an accurate picture of the times long past.”

He procured from the king a rocky plateau on the edge of a royal park known as Djurgarden, covered with crippled pines and resembling the wild, uncultivated, neglected landscape in Dalecaria or Norrland, the two most interesting portions of Sweden.  By careful landscape gardening, without destroying its natural beauty, he introduced broad paths, restaurants, cafes, band stands, and other places for the merry to meet and hold their festivals, and for the students to sing their songs, and he reserved a part of the grounds in its natural condition, where the lovers of nature can find a quiet retreat among the gloom of a pine grove.  It has become the most popular resort in Sweden, particularly in the long summer evenings, and when a man can not reach the country, Skansen is never too far.  It is accessible by street-cars and by boats, and is not more than half an hour’s walk from the palace.