Reaching the traditional approach to the School for Life, we should start by introducing the outstanding figure of Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig.

A Dane who, in the course of his work and analyses, created the concept of a people's university as an institution for adult villagers, "which would prepare them to participate in social matters". Grundtvig was a Danish theologian and priest, but also a philosopher, historian, poet, educator and respected social activist. He worked on the concept of the School for Life for nearly twenty years. When the project of the school for the people was completed and King Christian VIII's decision to create the first university - after several years of "fighting" against the opposition - was finally proclaimed by an appropriate decree, the sudden death of the King canceled the possibility of implementing the grundtvigian project.

The historical and political turmoil caused the first people's university, which fully realized (but not from the beginning of the creation) the M.F.S. Grundtvig's ideals was the people's university (Folkehojskole) in Ryslinge, where poor farmers were taught, and it was founded by Christen Kold (1816-1870). It was a landmark in the history of the Danish people's universities, which quickly became very popular. The idea of the School for Life also "emigrated" quite quickly to other countries, where it also enjoyed considerable popularity.

In the history of Polish education, there is a certain difficulty in determining a specific date (including the first place) of the first institution based on Grundtvig's pedagogy. This fact is also pointed out by Tomasz Maliszewski, who - in his numerous texts - considers the answer to the question "how far, how deep can one reach into history to seek either social institutions or other organized forms of educational activity, or native theoretical considerations corresponding to the genetic assumptions of the idea embodied in the idiomatic expression of the people's university? Following Maliszewski's line of thought, it would be worth considering whether, when talking about the existence of the concept of the School for Life in Poland, the date of the establishment of the People's University in Dalki (1921) by Father Antoni Ludwiczak should be given, or rather the People's University of Szyce established in 1924 by Ignacy Solarz, or perhaps it would be more appropriate to go a little further and notice that much of Grundtvig's concept can be found in our native Pszczelin, where Jadwiga Dziubińska established a Horticultural Farm for adults in 1900. It is difficult to accept unambiguously which of these institutions deserves to be called the first Polish people's university. In my opinion (but also in the opinion of other researchers of people's universities in Poland) Grundtvig's pedagogy was realized in all three mentioned institutions, so it can be concluded that the first people's university in Poland - although not bearing such a name - will be the Horticultural Farm run in Mazovian Pszczelin. It was there that Jadwiga Dziubińska ran an institution whose conspiratorial goal "was not only to prepare the students for modern farming on the land, but also to instill the social spirit and educate future community leaders". The activity of this institution, but also of several others established in the following years in Kruszynek, Sokołówek, Gołotczyzna, Krasienin and Bratne (after Maliszewski 2003), was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. From that moment on, the fate of Polish people's universities was different, but they have always (in more or less) been present in the history of adult education in Poland.