to Harvard College, or to any other college in the State which enforces its requirements for admission as stated in its catalogue. * If this is the condition of things in what may be called an urban State, what must it be in a rural? If a patriot were compelled to choose between two alternatives, one that the less intelligent half of his countrymen should be completelly illiterate, the other that half of the select children capable of receiving the highest instruction should be cut off from that instruction, which would he choose? He would find the decision a dreadful one to make; for either alternative would entail an incalculable loss upon his country. Yet in the present condition of secondary education one-half of the most capable children in the United States, at a moderate estimate, have really no open road to colleges and universities. I rehearse these well-known facts that we may appreciate the gravity of the problems presented by the subject. * * Recognizing the plain fact of to-day that secondary schools are sufficient in number and defective in quality, what can colleges do, under these adverse circumstances, to make themselves as useful as possible to the population while awaiting a better organization of secondary education? Is it not their plain duty to maintain two schedules of requirements, one for the degree of bachelor of arts, the other for the degree of bachelor of science (or some equivalent), the latter demanding much less preparatory study than the former? The American colleges have been severely criticized for offering to receive students of confessedly inferior preparation to that required of candidates for the degree of bachelor of arts; but even the oldest and strongest of them have done this, and from a genuine desire, as I believe, to be serviceable to as large a proportion as possible of American youth. One, lower grade of admission examination, leading to a distinct degree, is an expedient concession to the feeble condition of secondary education throughout the country. That grade of secondary schools which can not prepare pupils for the bachelor of arts course, but can prepare them for the bachelor of science course, will so be brought into serviceable connection with the colleges. * * * I venture to think that some colleges have gone unnecessarily far in offering different courses with descending requirements for admission and different degrees. They seem to say if a candidate can not get into our classical course, perhaps he can enter the literary course; if not the literary, then the scientific; if not the scientific, at any rate the agricultural. The value of all degrees seems to me to be diminished by this unnecessary multiplicity of titles and conditions, and the standards of good secondary schools must needs be unfavorably affected by a long sliding scale of admission requirements to the several courses offered by a single institution. Turning now from the consideration of the palliatives which colleges may resort to in the present feeble and distracted condition of secondary education, I pass to the more attractive study of the remedies for existing evils and defects. To improve secondary education in the United States two things are necessary: (1) More schools are needed, and (2) the existing schools need to be brought to common and higher standards, so that the colleges may find in the school courses a firm, broad, and reasonably homogeneous foundation for their higher work. 1. More schools.-Secondary schools are either day schools or boarding schools, the urban school being primarily a day school and the rural a boarding school. The public secondary school is now urban almost exclusively, and it must be admitted that it is likely to continue so, for no promising suggestion has as yet been made of a rural area of support for a highly organized secondary school. It is admitted that neither a rural township nor a union of contiguous rural districts can support such a school. The county has been suggested as a possible area of support, but there is no sufficient evidence that a rural county, apart from its town or towns of dense population, could support a good high school. To increase the present number of secondary schools which can really fit pupils for college, what are the most hopeful lines of action? In the first place every effort should be made by school authorities, the press, and all leaders of public opinion to promote the establishment of secondary urban day schools, both public and private, and to adapt the programmes of existing schools to the admission requirements of some college course which leads to a degree. It is noticeable that in the older cities, and to some extent in the younger also, the best private schools exist right beside the best public schools. The causes which produce one class of schools simultaneously produce the other. Secondly, rural communities ought to be authorized by suitable legislation to contribute to the establishment (including in that term the provision of building) and annual support of urban secondary schools which are conveniently situated for their use. Thirdly, there should be created by law special secondary school districts much larger than the areas which support primary and grammar schools and taking account of railroad communications. It is much easier for a boy or girl to go to school 15 miles by rail than to walk to school in all weather 2 miles by country lanes. The rural population has something to hope from legislative recognition of railroads as chief features in secondary school districts. The Massachusetts normal schools illustrate this principle, for they are really high schools, partly boarding schools, and partly local and railroad day schools. Fourthly, every effort should be made to stimulate private benevolence to endow rural secondary boarding schools or academies under corporate management. A boarding school ought always to be in the country and a rural secondary school would almost necessarily be, in part at least, a boarding school. 2. Common schools.-The existing means of elevating and regulating secondary school instruction may be conveniently considered under two heads: (a) State aid and supervision, and (b) college admission requirements. Both agencies are already useful, but both may be greatly improved and extended. (a) State aid and supervision.-It seems to have been the object of high-school legislation in some States, as, for example, in Massachusetts and in Maine, to encourage the creation of a large number of low-grade high schools without really expecting them to effect any junction with colleges. Such at any rate has ten the effect of the mandatory legislation of Massachusetts, and such must be the general result of the aid offered to free high schools by Maine. This unprosperous State now offers to give any free high school as much money per year as its supporting area annually appropriates for instruction in the school, provided the State grant shall not exceed $250 in any case. No inspection or examination of aided schools is provided for. Such legislation encourages the establishment of numerous weak schools, without helping appreciably the schools already strong. Much wiser is the legislation of Minnesota, which established twelve years ago a State high-school board, and offered $400 a year to any high school which was found by the board after competent inspection to fulfill the following conditions: The aided school must receive both sexes free, and nonresident pupils also without fees, provided such pupils can pass examinations in all commonschool subjects below algebra and geometry, and must maintain "regular and orderly courses of study, embracing all the branches prescribed as prerequisite for admission to the collegiate department of the University of Minnesota not lower than the subfreshman class." * * * This high-school legislation seems to me the wisest which has been adopted in the United States. It encourages only schools which are already well organized; insists that aided schools shall connect directly with the university; avoids expensive examinations, provides any needed amount of inspection; grades schools by their programme and gencal efficiency, not by individual examination results; gives no pecuniary advantage to a large school over one equally well conducted but smaller; requires aided schools to take nonresident pupils without charge; and applies almost the whole of the State's grant to the direct development of instruction, which is by far the most productive application of any money intended to benefit schools. It is unquestionable that the New York State regents' examinations have tended to raise the average standard of instruction in the academies and high schools, to extend and improve school programmes, to bring schools and colleges together by doing away with useless diversities of programmes in secondary schools and useless diversities of admission requirements in colleges, and to stimulate some of the communities which maintain these schools to give them better support and to take pride in their standing. These are great services which deserve the respectful attention of the other States of the Union and of all persons interested in the creation of an American system of secondary education. The regents have proved that a State examining board can exercise a stimulating, elevating, and unifying influence upon hundreds of institutions of secondary education scattered over a large State, and can wield that power with machinery which, considering the scale of operations, may fairly be called simple and inexpensive. * * * * * (b) Let us turn now to the consideration of college admission requirements as means of raising and controlling secondary school instruction. College requirements for admission act effectively only on those secondary schools which prepare some of their pupils for college; upon that large propor tion of high schools and academies which do not they have only an indirect although sensible effect. For the broad purposes of the State the influence of colleges, even if they were associated together, could not be so immediate and potent as the influence of the State, whether the latter were exerted by inspection or by examination. It is in a narrower field, therefore, that the higher institutions of education can act on the lower. At present they act in three ways. The feeblest way is by prescribing for admission a knowledge of certain books or of certain well-defined subjects, and then admitting candidates on the certificate of any schoolmaster that they have gone over all the prescribed books or subjects. If the prescriptions of the college are judicious, they are not without some favorable effect on the curricula of the certifying schools; but it may be reasonably objected to this method that it gives the college very inadequate protection against incompetent students and the public no means of forming a just estimate of different schools. Certificates are apt to be accepted from good and bad schools alike, the anxiety to secure students in a struggling college overriding every other consideration. Particularly is this apt to be the case in a small college in which the president has succeeded in getting the subject of admission out of the hands of the faculty and into his own. Under this system a really good school has no means of proving itself good, and a bad school is not promptly exposed. Within a few years the feeblest of all methods has come into use, without any safeguards whatever, in the large majority of New England colleges, no system of State inspection or examination existing there, and no pretense being made that the certifying schools are examined, or even occasionally visited, by the colleges. A more demoralizing method of establishing a close connection between secondary schools and colleges it would be hard to imagine. Nevertheless, even under this loose and unguarded method, which only the two largest New England colleges have completely resisted, some good has resulted from cooperative action between preparatory schools and colleges to make admission requirements, on paper at least, uniform for the same subjects. The uniform requirements in English, which prevail all over New England except at Yale University, and have lately been adopted by some institutions in the Middle States, supply a noteworthy case in point. The method just described is a corruption or degradation of a somewhat safer method of securing close connection between secondary schools and colleges which was first adopted twenty years ago by the University of Michigan. This safer method, as developed by that university, amounts to this: The university admits candidates on the diplomas given by any schools, near or remote, within the State or without, which are visited once in three years by a committee of the faculty, or by other persons designated by the university. The visit may be repeated if any important changes take place in a school within the three years. The diplomas must specify that the candidates have sustained examinations at school in all the studies prescribed for admission to one or other of the university courses leading to a degree. There were in 1839 seventy schools holding this diploma relation" to the University of Michigan. It can not be doubted that this method is well adapted for recruiting rapidly a single dominant State university; but its value as a method for general adoption obviously depends on the thoroughness, impartiality, and publicity of the inspection which it provides. To me the inspection seems to fail on all three points. Considering the rapidity with which teachers are changed in American schools, an inspection once in three years seems too infrequent. I am wholly at a loss to understand how a busy college faculty can get time to inspect properly any considerable number of secondary schools, or how it can furnish a sufficient number of inspectors competent in all secondary-school subjects. * It is also obvious that the method is not public enough in its processes to demonstrate its fairness and sufficiency, and therefore to command general confidence. The single acting authority obviously has interests of its own to serve. I am not maintaining that this diploma method, as conducted in Michigan, has not worked well, or even that it has not worked so well as the method of admission by examination, as conducted in Michigan. It is some gain to establish friendly relations between seventy secondary schools and any university. I am urging that it lacks adequate securities, and is therefore not fit for general adoption. The Minnesota method, which provides in the State high-school board an independent inspecting authority, is in my opinion greatly to be preferred. * * There remains the most effective mode in which colleges act on the superior sort of secondary schools, namely, the method of conducting careful examination in all the subjects acceptable for admission. These examinations have a fair degree of publicity; for the most colleges circulate freely their question papers. Harvard College also publishes in detail the results of its examinations for admission. Such examinations are no longer, as formerly, he'd only at the seat of the college conducting them, but may be held simultaneously at as many places as the convenience of candidates may require. Several Eastern colleges now conduct examinations at numerous places widely distributed over the country. Yale University distinctly announces that it will hold an admission examination "in any city or at any school where the number of candidates and the distance from other places of examination may warrant it." The method can easily be given a national application by any institution which has prestige and a numerous staff. In the long run it grades schools fairly, and it is very stimulating to the older classes of secondary schools. Like all examinations conducted by an authority independent of the schools, it also protects the masters of schools, both public and private, against the unwarrantable importunities of parents, trustees, and committeemen. Nevertheless it is open to some serious objections. In the first place it is not sufficiently public. The question papers may look well; but the standard for passing may be unreasonably low, the public having no means of estimating the degree of strictness with which the answer papers are marked. Secondly, the colleges have, until lately, acted singly, each for itself, without consultation or concert. Each college or university is, therefore, naturally supposed to be seeking its own interest rather than the common welfare. Thirdly, in a small college a few men, who perhaps have peculiarities or whims, may control all the admission examinations for many years to the disadvantage of the college and the annoyance of schools. All these evils would be removed or reduced by a system of coöperation among several colleges. At the conclusion of this rapid survey I venture to suggest that there are three directions in which patriots who desire to see American secondary schools improved and connected more closely with colleges may look for progress: 1. I may expect State examining and inspecting systems to improve and extend, for they have demonstrated their utility; and remembering the extremes to which examination methods have been carried in England, we may reasonably hope that State boards will inspect institutions more and more thoroughly, as well as examine individuals. In this connection we expect that the profession of school inspector will become well recognized as a separate and honorable calling. 2. We may hope to see formed a combination of four or six of the universities which have large departments of arts and sciences to conduct simultaneously, at well-selected points all over the country, examinations in all the subjects anywhere acceptable for admission to colleges or professional schools, the answer papers to be marked by persons annually selected by the combined universities and announced to the public, all results to be published, but without the names of candidates, and certificates to be good anywhere for the subjects mentioned in them. We see reason to believe that such a cooperative system would be simple, though extensive; that it would present no serious difficulties, mechanical or other; that it would be very convenient and economical for candidates, and self-supporting at a moderate fee; and finally that it would be authoritative, flexible, stimulating, unifying, and just. 3. We may expect to see a great extension of the scholarship system, whereby promising youth are helped through secondary schools and colleges. States, cities, towns, and endowments provided by private benevolence will all contrib ute to the development of this well-proved system. Principles which may govern an attempt to bring about uniformity of college admis sion. From a report to the National Council of Education, James H. Baker, chairman of committee (1891): (1) By comparison of the requirements of leading colleges a standard classical course may be selected which could at once be adopted without essential modification by those colleges. (2) A preparatory course omitting Greek may also be recommended in which the substitution for Greek shall fall within regular high-school work. Such a course may be made up from the catalogues of those colleges which do not require Greek. It may here be noted that in this country, in Germany, and in England there are indications that Greek is no longer to be compulsory for college and university degrees. But at the same time the advantage of taking at least one classical language, especially the Latin, is strongly urged. The head master of Harrow, while he would not make Greek a compulsory study, urges the desirability of retaining Latin about as follows: "For scientific study a dead language possesses an advantage in that it does not invite the sacrifice of accuracy to utility. Latin is the language of law, of liberty, of religion. It is the parent of half the languages in Europe. It is strong and precise in grammatical idioms. It is furnished with the necessary means and appliances for teaching. I can not help thinking it would be an educational mistake of serious magnitude to lose the universality if the Latin language as an element of the higher education." We may add that Latin is required or advocated by most scientific schools and that its retention is generally desired, (3) Colleges and preparatory schools not at present able to adopt standard preparation in full should pursue standard lines so that the work would all count toward the desired end, if the pupil wished to supplement it for an institution of the best class. (4) A complete adjustment of the relation between high schools and colleges should be sought on the basis of a general high-school course. This idea will be subject to special consideration. The committee will venture to suggest a classical preparatory course made up from the catalogues of several of the best colleges. In this course a little is taken from the Latin required by some colleges, and a concession is made to those which demand a modern language and some science and literature. Physics is selected because it includes more generic principles than any other science. The committee believes that this course thus made up is not a jumble of fragments, but that it has a natural coherence in plan and purpose, as much as any one of the courses upon which it is based. It should be especially noted that this course is suggested, not as the best possible one, but rather as an example of a course that might be established. It is also intended to show the folly of the present variations. cises). CLASSICAL COURSE., Mathematics.-Algebra (elementary, complete); Plane geometry (with exerGreek.-Four books of Anabasis; 3 books of Iliad; limited amount of sight reading; composition. Latin.-Four books of Cæsar; 7 orations of Cicero; 6 books of Æneid; limited amount of sight reading; composition. French.-Easy translation. Science.-Physics, with experiments and notes. History.-Greece and Rome (geography incidental). English.-As recommended by the New England Association. The colleges admitting without Greek substitute increased amounts of mathematics, of science, or of the modern languages. Therefore the following substitutes for Greek may be suggested, the rest of the course remaining the same as the regular classical course. The additional sciences selected have the prestige of influential recommendation. COURSE-OMITTING GREEK. [Substitutions for Greek.] Solid geometry and plane trigonometry. Additional year of French. Chemistry (with experiments and notes) and botany. A careful comparison of the courses above suggested as a provisional basis for uniformity with the courses of standard colleges will show that most colleges, high and preparatory schools could at once afford to agree to some such uniform requirements, and that the changes necessary for an adjustment would in no instance be vital or even important. Could uniform courses once be recommended by an influential convention of colleges and schools, every fitting school could adopt the one standard and say to the colleges, "Take our students if you wish them." Most colleges would be compelled to adopt the courses recommended. But by far the most important and most troublesome problem is the complete adjustment of higher to secondary education. In the opinion of the committee the connection must be made by adjusting the colleges to the secondary schools and not the secondary schools to the colleges. President Eliot some years since pointed out that a good high-school finishing course must become more and more a good preparatory course. Mr. Harris is understood to maintain that the studies adapted to the age of secondary education should also furnish a good college preparation. This is in accord also with Mr. Hill's principles in the "True order of studies." It would be unsafe to deny that secondary education; which is adapted to the development of the mental powers and the enlargement |