PREPARATION FOR COLLEGE. 15 



PREPARATION FOR COLLEGE BY ENGLISH HIGH 



SCHOOLS.* 



By JOHN F. CASEY, 



MASTER IN ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOL, BOSTON, MASS. 



rpHE times in which we live are in many respects unlike any 

 -L which have preceded them. New professions have arisen, old 

 ones have lost their prominence ; we live more in the present and 

 less in the past. Recent investigations and discoveries in pathol- 

 ogy and bacteriology have done much to increase the respect for 

 and confidence in the practitioners of modern medicine, and have 

 made of modern surgery almost a new science. Quacks may be 

 as numerous as ever, but they rely for patronage upon the igno- 

 rant and credulous. The legal profession has taken no backward 

 steps. But with those who undertake the formation of opinions, 

 both spiritual and temj^oral, the condition of affairs is in many 

 respects different. All the great questions relating to the welfare 

 of the modern intellectual, social, and political world are now 

 being brought up for discussion, and the traditional answers to 

 them are no longer convincing or satisfactory. In the lack of 

 respect for authority, which is so marked a characteristic of the 

 present time, no person's mere dictum is obeyed, or accepted as 

 true, unless he has the power to enforce or the ability, through 

 knowledge, to establish the truth of his statements. 



Journalism to-day does much of what was wont to be done by 

 the clergyman and the schoolmaster. While there is no diminu- 

 tion in the respect paid to the sacred office of the preacher, his 

 teachings upon doctrinal points are received cum grano, and each 

 one for himself modifies pulpit teachings according to his own 

 views. The world has become more liberal and tolerant. Mate- 

 rial of which martyrs were wont to be made is becoming less and 

 less abundant. The parson is no longer the chief source of sup- 

 ply of ideas, social, moral, and political, and is no longer ex officio 

 chief man of the parish. 



So, while the teacher of secular learning holds as teacher a 

 higher place than ever before, yet, when he undertakes to act as 

 adviser and tries, to lay out a course of studies, his dictum does 

 not obtain that confidence which it used to obtain. There arise 

 doubts as to the soundness of the advice given, and suspicions 

 that time and labor may be wasted through misdirection. 



In elementary schools, and in technical and professional 

 schools, the ends to be attained and the methods of attainment 



* An address delivered before the Massachusetts Association of High and Classical School 

 Teachers. 



