478 HUMAN BIOLOGY 



naturally subordinated in education to meet the requirements 

 of the class to which the persons in question belonged. The 

 development of pubhc common schools marked the beginning 

 of a change. The idea of universal education imphes that all 

 persons shall have at least the elements of an opportunity to 

 develop whatever potentialities they individually have. 



In some European countries, it is true that even with 

 universal schooling there are at least two types of schools, 

 designed from almost the first grade, for members of two dif- 

 ferent social classes who are thus regarded as predestined to 

 different spheres of life. But in this country because of the 

 conditions under which the country was settled this idea never 

 obtained. There were the same elementary and secondary 

 schools for all. Different types of courses were developed in the 

 high school, but a youth found his place in one or another 

 according to his own abilities and preferences rather than 

 because of any external class standard. Economic status still 

 largely decides how far in the educational scale individuals 

 will proceed. But by the development of municipal colleges, 

 training schools for teachers and especially state universities, 

 an educational ladder was erected; the parts of it were so 

 articulated that it was made easier for individuals of capacity 

 to rise through its entire length. This tendency was reinforced 

 by generous provision of scholarships; in many of our 

 larger cities there are now organizations, some municipal, the 

 greater number private, that make it possible for children of 

 unusual ability, coming from homes that are not well off, to 

 continue in school; these associations select promising children 

 in the elementary schools and take them on into secondary 

 education, when otherwise they would be obliged to go to 

 work. By means of legislation raising the years of necessary 

 school attendance and forbidding child-labor under these 

 years, the ideal of equal educational opportunities for all 

 approaches more nearly a reality. The fruits of this policy 

 are beginning to be seen in the extraordinary fivefold 

 multiplication of the number of pupils in high schools, 

 colleges and professional schools within the last thirty years. 

 It is impossible to judge the extent of release and development 

 of individual abilities that would otherwise be lost to the 

 world, due to this policy. < 



