WASTE IN EDUCATION 



49 



elementary-school pupils took the same work as those who had had no 

 previous manual training, has also been remedied. 



By using whatever the pupils bring from the elementary school and 

 building upon this their first work in the high school, we have secured 

 a high degree of correlation between the work of the two schools, which 

 has resulted in reducing to a minimum the shock of change from one 

 school to the other. By reducing the amount of unnecessary reviewing 

 and the repetition of material in successive years we have saved one year 

 from the elementary school without undue forcing of pupils, without 

 loss of anything of value, and with positive gain in the mental attitude 

 and habits of the pupils. 



It is probably neither possible nor desirable to save still further 

 time from the elementary school. There remains for us to consider 

 the period of secondary education. It should be observed at the outset 

 that the four-year high-school course does not represent the actual range 

 of secondary education either as regards the natural development of the 

 pupil or as regards the material and method of instruction. Most of 

 the work of the first and much of that of the second year in college is 

 secondary, both in content and method. In earlier times when the range 

 of subjects taught in high schools and academies was small and the col- 

 lege requirements were few in number and specific in content, the 

 student on entering college continued in the same subjects and from the 

 same point at which his work had ended in the lower school. But with 

 the greatly expanded scope of high-school courses and the corresponding 

 increase in the range of subjects accepted for admission to college, it 

 has become necessary for the college to offer elementary courses in 

 almost every subject of the curriculum. We find in college beginning 

 courses in Greek, French, and German, and in Latin the courses cor- 

 responding to the second and third year of the high school ; elementary 

 courses in all sciences; in mathematics one half the courses offered in 

 any first-class high school ; and in history a repetition of most or all the 

 work of the high school. 



The practise of colleges to admit students with conditions some- 

 times equivalent to a year or even more of high-school work indicates 

 the acceptance on the part of the college faculties of the fact that the 

 first year or more of the college course is concerned with secondary work. 

 The latest statistics of the colleges and universities of the North Central 

 Association illustrates this. 



This table shows that of the seventy-three institutions on the list of 



VOL. JLXXXV.— 4 



