Fredrique Paijkull

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Fredrika Augusta "Fredrique" Paijkull (22 September 1836–1899) was a Swedish educator who helped start the folk high schools in Sweden and opened the first folk high school for women in the country. She was born in Stockholm to lieutenant Carl Broström and Kerstin Schenson and grew up at the Farhsta estate near Fredrika Bremer. She first studied with private teachers and then at Wallinska skolan, and worked as a governess from 1860 to 1862.

In 1862 she married Wilhelm Paijkull, a geologist and early advocate of Sweden’s folk high schools. After a trip to Denmark, they were inspired by the Danish system and wanted to bring it to Sweden. In 1870 she founded the first women’s folk high school in Samuelsberg, Motala; it later moved to Helsingborg in 1873 and then to Tågaborg in 1876, where she ran the school. She was described as intelligent and idealistic. In 1880 financial difficulties forced her to close the school, and she returned to Stockholm to work as a translator.