SECONDARY SCHOOL PROGRAMMES. 59 



centage of the latter to the whole course is less than on the clas- 

 sical side. 



From the data here given it seems clear that if we are to hope 

 to pnt our schools on anything like an equality with those of 

 France, to say nothing of those of other civilized countries of the 

 world, certain modifications of our school programmes have cer- 

 tainly to be made. First and foremost among those changes there 

 would seem to be indicated a need for a certain specialization of 

 our school courses with reference to the different demands made 

 upon the schools by different classes of pupils. That our schools 

 of primary and secondary grade, as they stand to-day, do not re- 

 spond to the varied requirements of American society, seems quite 

 obvious. The complaint of President Eliot sufficiently indicates 

 their shortcomings, so far as a preparation for college is con- 

 cerned. For many years professors and teachers at scientific and 

 technical schools have mourned the dearth of preparatory schools 

 that should give them pupils not handicapped by great deficien- 

 cies in training of the powers of observation. Business men are 

 quite unanimous in their belief that the schools do not afford 

 a satisfactory training for commercial pursuits, while he who 

 runs may read their many deficiencies for the constantly increas- 

 ing class of pupils whose period of school life terminates in the 

 grammar grade. 



The main cause of the present stage of development of the 

 school system is not so deeply hidden that one has to search long 

 for it. The average American school programme at the present 

 time is simply a living illustration of a development, on Amer- 

 ican lines — influenced and modified by national characteristics 

 — of the old educational theory that literature and language are 

 the basis of all mental culture and training. The educational 

 structure reared on this theory, beset and more or less dam- 

 aged by modern assaults, has been repaired here and patched 

 there, but the old framework and the old foundations have ever 

 remained to cramp intelligent reconstruction and practical re- 

 form. The result is in the main a hotchpotch with which no one 

 is thoroughly satisfied. It would seem to be a clear case of the 

 old house repaired and refurnished, until it is satisfactory to no 

 one. It is passing strange that the school system of the United 

 States, in respect to its want of specialization, should stand almost 

 unique among the many examples of the national aptitude in 

 adopting means to ends. In business life, in professional life, in 

 industrial pursuits, our nation has shown itself peculiarly clever 

 in its concentration of labor in systematic, well-defined channels 

 having special reference to the results to be attained. Yet, when 

 we come to compare our school programmes with those of other 

 nations, we not only find that we do not do as much school work, 



