53© POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



courses of instruction, standards of scholarship, and general efficiency. 

 Each state is supreme in the control of education within its own borders, 

 and there is apparently little danger that public education will be made 

 subject to the interstate commerce law and thus become subject to 

 federal control. Although state organization is not equally thorough 

 in all sections, the actual condition of public education in any selected 

 state can be well ascertained by comparison of the reports required 

 by law from all superintendents. Without the power of federal control 

 the national bureau of education prepares and issues an annual report 

 embodying a large mass of statistical information and discussion on 

 education, most of which is gathered by voluntary contribution or by 

 study of reports from all parts of the world. 



When we pass from the domain of public education to that of 

 private schools a change becomes perceptible. In the public schools 

 there is well-defined gradation into primary, grammar and high schools, 

 the high school generally including four years of well-adjusted work. 

 In the private school there is no responsibility to the state, and each 

 school fixes its own standards. There is more elasticity than in the 

 public school, better opportunity for adaptation to individual needs, but 

 less opportunity for an outsider to form a judgment of the pupil's 

 attainments on presentation of a certificate of graduation. Much ex- 

 cellent work is done, but the opportunities for comparison between 

 private schools are limited, and the opportunities for undue claims to 

 excellence are great. These schools must continue so long as the need 

 for unusual personal attention remains, or as parents are disposed to 

 pay for the privilege of social exclusiveness. As they are usually not 

 incorporated institutions, they can not be held responsible to the public 

 for their standards, and are hence free from such inspection as is not 

 specially invited. Some of them advertise largely, and pretentiously 

 assume the name of colleges, institutes or military academies. In 

 many parts of our country this is done apparently in obedience to 

 popular demand, and is an index of the lack of local demand for 

 standardization. 



When we begin to consider the vast conglomerate of institutions 

 that are incorporated as colleges, universities and technical schools we 

 enter a region of chaos. If a school applies to a state legislature for a 

 charter of incorporation as a college there is at present no standard 

 generally recognized by legislators to determine what is a college. To 

 most of them it means merely a school controlled by trustees who 

 form a corporate body, and whose liberty must not be limited so long 

 as they obey the existing laws of the state. It is greatly the exception 

 to find in any state a law intended to protect the public from fraudulent 

 colleges. Such a law was passed by New York a dozen or more years 

 ago. Its main features are as follows : 



For an institution to be chartered as a college, (1) it must have at 



