State. Summary of Table V, Part 3, continued, (schools for boys and girls,) showing number of volumes in libraries, amount of corporate property, &c. Alabama.. 3,000 12 $7,500 Income of productive funds. CITY HIGH SCHOOLS, FROM TABLE II. A special summary is here presented of the high schools reported in Table II. Four hundred and twenty-two cities and villages reported schools of this grade, with 1,613 instructors and 45,302 students. To these are to be credited most of the 4,193 students reported in public schools as preparing for the colleges and schools of science. It will be seen. therefore, that many of the high schools rank, in the training afforded, with the private schools for secondary instruction usually denominated academies. Indeed, in some sections of the country, as in Maine, many of the time-honored academies are being merged in the high schools. But what shall be said of the very small per cent. of the pupils enrolled in the city schools reported in this grade? Hon. J. D. Philbrick, superintendent of schools of Bostou, a city making as ample provision as any for carrying pupils through the primary-, grammar-, and high-school-grades of instruction, remarks, in his last semi-annual report, of the grammar-school-grade: If we go down to the third class in the grammar-schools, we find that it contains only a little more than half the number of pupils admitted in a single year from the primary schools. This shows that only about half the pupils ever reach this class. Certainly this fact cannot be contemplated with satisfaction. The cause of this unsatisfactory state of things is found, in part, in the unwillingness or inability of parents to allow their children to remain long enough at school. But this cause equally affects all schools, which are alike in respect to the social condition of the population from which their pupils are drawn. The tables of the superintendent's report show that, while the whole number of pupils in the grammar-schools of the city in July, 1872, was 17,102, the number of pupils admitted to the high schools from the grammar, in July of the same year, was only 879, or only about 5 per cent. of the number of pupils reported in the next subordinate grade. Hence it appears that the schooling of the great majority of the boys and girls, in one of our oldest and most favored cities, ceases with the second-grade- or grammar-school. And the branches taught in this grade, at least up to the third form, are, for the most part, those generally denominated elementary English studies. This is doubtless true, with equal or greater force, of other cities. The following exhibit, drawn from Table II, shows the proportion of enrollment in high schools of cities in several States, to the total enrollment in the city-schools: Pupils leaving the schools at the age of 12 or under have pretty surely failed to acquire what any system of education should aim to give. They have dropped their studies just at the point where studies begin to have some shaping power on the future man or woman. Primary training does little, often nothing, towards forming intellectual tastes. The perception of principles does not come in early years of instruction. California.. Connecticut. Georgia. Kentucky Maine.. Habits of mind which lead one to find pleasure in intellectual pursuits are not formed at this early age. Thus the great body of our youth leave the school with memories crammed, it may be, with a multitude of facts, isolated, unconnected, but without that training necessary for understanding or appreciating either the leading activities of their own times or the rich and varied stores of the literature and science of their native tongue. TABLE VI.-PREPARATORY SCHOOLS. It seemed desirable, in view of the prevalent discussion by the college-faculties of the subject of preparatory training, to present some statistics of schools devoted wholly or in part to the training of young men for the colleges and scientific schools. Inquiries in regard to the number of students thus preparing, and the number sent up to the colleges and scientific schools in 1872, were also extended to the schools for secondary instruction reported in Table V, as well to the city high schools reported in Table II. 'There are doubtless quite a number of private fitting-schools in the country from which no information has been received, but it is probable that the three tables indicated show pretty nearly the extent of the facilities now afforded for preparatory training outside of the classical and scientific colleges. It will be seen, however, by referring to Table VI, that there are but few schools distinctively and exclusively of this class, by far the larger number included therein having both classical and English departments, and the number of students in the classical section being in many instances smaller than that in the English section. In the 86 schools reporting, there were 690 instructors and 12,487 pupils. Of the 12,487 pupils, 4,992 were stated to be in classical-preparatory, 2,274 in scientific, and 3,716 in English studies; the remaining 1,505 pupils were unclassified in the returns. The following is a summary of Table VI: Summary of number of instructors, students, &c., in preparatory schools. 24 *617 203 74 115 17 2 45 * Includes students unclassified. The table contains the names of seven schools from which no sta tistics have been received, not included in this summary. COLLEGIATE-PREPARATORY STUDENTS IN THE SEVERAL STATES. The following table will bring into a connected view the number of pupils preparing in the several classes of schools in each State for the universities and colleges and for the scientific schools during the year 1873. The total number reported in courses preparatory to the classical colleges was 38,875. Of this number 2,965 were in high schools, (public;) 5,753 were in academies and other private schools; 4,992 were in the preparatory schools embraced in Table VI, and 25,165 were in the preparatory departments of colleges. Value of grounds and buildings. |