Statistical summary showing proportion of pupils in secondary schools. Elevation of standard.-There are grounds for believing that, unless secondary instruction receives a better organization, raises its standard, and modifies its aims so as to secure a more real and systematic co-operation with the higher classical and scientific education, the better class of colleges will be obliged in the end to recede from the advanced positions already taken. Such a result could not fail to have a deplorable influence on every grade of instruction. Many of the leading schools, especially in the Northern and Eastern States, already recognize the necessity of preparing to meet the new and increased demands upon them, especially in the departments of elementary science, modern languages, and English studies, by instituting thorough scientific preparatory courses to run parallel with the course in classical studies. Additional endowments needed.—As has been said, an obvious hinderance to the thorough reorganization and improvement of a great majority of the schools is the lack of pecuniary means. They need additional resources, and measures should at once be taken for increasing existing endowments. New schools should be established and endowed in the South, where at present there is a great lack of provision for secondary instruction. The colleges and professional schools have hitherto been most favored in respect to gifts and legacies. Only here and there have the wealthy bestowed of their abundance on the academies and high schools. When it is more fully understood how dependent the colleges are for success and efficiency on the secondary schools, the secondary schools will become more frequently the objects of private and associated munificence. Even when considered apart from their relations to the higher institutions, our endowed schools are worthy of every kind of aid and encouragement. Arguments against private endowments for the furtherance of education and culture are out of place in America. The wide publicity of every interest, the slight influence of traditions and old customs, and the disposition of society to find in present conditions of life the rule of judgment in respect to the utility of political and social arrangements are sufficient guarantees against abuse of foundations for such ends. It is, moreover, desirable that, in addition to the public high school, where a thoroughly good education can be acquired, there should exist a class of endowed and chartered schools of the same general rank, not under the immediate control of the State nor dependent on it, for the sake of variety of means and modes of education and of the mutual influence of schools differently organized in competition for excellence. It is not well that the schools should be all of one uniform type, nor that all youths should be trained and molded in one way. The high school is usually the home-school. It is often a great advantage to the young student to be thrown during some portion of his secondary schooling into new scenes and new associations, among youths gathered from various communities, under teachers having new and important relations to him. In these new circumstances many narrow, home-bred fancies, unfavorable to intellectual development, are dispelled, and the youth receives perhaps his first impressive discipline in manliness and self-control. Harvard examinations in 1876, as a basis for the reorganization of secondary instruction.-The Harvard entrance-examination for 1876 points to a course of studies which will commend itself to educators and which will doubtless be adopted as the basis of the reorganization or modification of the present curriculum of the best-appointed schools. In addition to the requirements in the classics, in French or German, and in English, all candidates will be required to pass an examination in one of the three following branches of elementary science: Elementary botany, rudiments of physics and of chemistry, or rudiments of physics and descriptive anatomy. The curriculum here outlined harmonizes essentially with that of some of the bestorganized high schools, especially those of the New England cities, of St. Louis, and of a few other western cities. It aims to secure a thoroughly good education for young men in English, classics, history, modern languages, and in the subject-matter of elementary science. Although the aim of the university in the changes and additional requirements has been "to make the preparatory course correspond more nearly with the best possible course of study for young men up to an average age of 18, who purpose to pursue non-professional studies four years more, it will probably be found that such a course, with the exception of a portion of the classics, would prove to be best for those whose instruction terminates with the secondary or preparatory school. President Eliot, in his report for 1872-73, says: That teachers and pupils in preparatory schools should direct their efforts mainly to meeting these specific demands of the colleges, [in classics,] and should subordinate the intrinsic importance of studies to their serviceableness in securing admission to college, is the only result that could be expected. Neither teacher nor pupil could be much blamed, for instance, for practically setting the writing of good Latin above the writ ing of good English. It is plain that the only remedy for this grave evil is for the colleges to show by the nature of their admission-examinations that they will not accept the rudiments of scholarship as amends for deficiencies in the rudiments of education. The colleges, as the representatives of the value of the study of the classics, should be especially careful not to give plausibility, by any act or neglect of theirs, to the groundless assumption that the discipline of mind secured by the preliminary classical training must be purchased by the sacrifice of some knowledge which a well-educated young man of 18 ought to possess. Secondary technical schools.-The changed and rapidly changing conditions of productive industry, involving the applications of scientific processes to every department of labor, and the confessed unsuccessful competition of our artisans with the large number annually coming to us who have been trained in the industrial schools of Europe, are awakening educators and others to the need of a class of technical or semi-technical secondary schools for teaching the elements of the sciences which underlie the industries and the arts, as well as their practical application. Steps have already been taken in several of our cities, especially in Boston, Philadelphia, Toledo, and San Francisco, for establishing such schools, those in Boston and Philadelphia to be supported by city-appropriations, those in Toledo and San Francisco by individual gifts or endowments. It is to be hoped that the other cities and more populous towns may speedily follow the example and secure, either through municipal appropriation or individual liberality, one or more technical schools where youths may have the opportunity of discovering and developing their special aptitudes— nature's appointment to the avocations of life. Connection of high schools with State-universities.-In the West the experiment instituted in 1871, of admitting to the University of Michigan the graduates of State high schools, without other examination than an inspection by the faculty of the course and methods of instruction in these schools, has been watched with interest. And as the report of the results of this experiment has been quite favorable, there has been a kindred linking of the high school with the university in Indiana and Wisconsin, though apparently without the careful guarding of it that prevails in Michigan. The educational reports and journals from Minnesota, Nebraska, Missouri, and Kansas indicate that the same system is either adopted or likely to be adopted in those States, the idea being that the State-university is the climax of the State-schools and that all in these schools who may be certified by competent authority to have mastered the studies which fit them for the university should be admitted to it without further questioning. TABLE VII.-SUPERIOR INSTRUCTION OF WOMEN. Statistics in detail of schools for the superior education of women will be found in Table VII of the appendix. In respect to this class of institutions, the work of the Office shows most gratifying progress. Statistics of only 33 were given in the report of 1870. The number of institutions reporting in 1873 was 205, with 2,120 instructors and 24,613 students. The following is a comparative summary of institutions, instructors, and pupils, from 1870 to 1873, inclusive: Of the students reported, 6,321 were in preparatory departments, 17,267 were reported to be in regular or advanced courses of study, and 1,025 in special and postgraduate-courses. The number of volumes reported in the libraries was 213,675. Statistical summary of Table VII, showing number of volumes in libraries and amount of .corporate property. Corporate property, &c. NOTE.-The names of 17 schools from which no statistics have been received will be found in Table VII. They are not included in the summary. It should be remarked here that the five colleges for women in the State of New York, being included in the institutions composing the university of the State, are not embraced in this summary. The statistics of these will be found in Table VIII. Organization of the schools.-These schools, like those for secondary instruction, are for the most part private incorporated institutions. Those having endowments or permanent funds received them mainly from individuals and societies. They are sustained partly from the permanent funds, partly from individual contributions, and from tuition, and have not been aided to so great an extent as the institutions embraced in Table VIII. They are not subject, generally speaking, to supervision by the State-schoolboards, nor to visitation other thau such as may be provided by the order of the trus Receipts for last year from all other sources. |