EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL PRO<; 



Ml 



s were established since 1800. Two 



oth.T, tn ne:ir!\ ready for oi-rani/.atioii. Ha- 

 lf Music, Architecture, anil the 

 Arts so liberally endowed by George 



at Baltimore, and tln I'olyfechnic 

 In-i!i; eMabli-hed Ity tin- Institute of 



iii the vicinity of Now York City. 



In addition to tin--.', most of the Northern 

 - havo accepted tin- Congressional grants 

 nf land-; for agricult nral colleges, and havo 

 eith. I tin-in upon existing colleges, 



requiring that they should establish a depart- 

 ment of agriculture and technology in connec- 

 tion with their present course, or have estab- 

 lished separate agricultural colleges. These 

 lands will, in some of the States, provide event- 

 ually an ample endowment for these institu- 

 tions. Vale College has established, through 

 i. he muniticence of A. R. Street, Esq., a School 

 of the Fine Arts, with a considerable gallery 

 of paintings and statuary. Both Harvard and 

 Yale are to have soon, on the Peabody founda- 

 tion, Departments of Archreology and Ancient 

 History. The introduction of gymnasia and 

 other appliances for physical development is 

 another new feature with several of the larger 

 and older colleges. The cultivation of the 

 physical sciences and the study of modern, liv- 

 ing languages, have both taken a much higher 

 position among the prescribed studies of the 

 college course than formerly. 



Professional education also made a very de- 

 cided advance, both in the number of schools, 

 and in the extent of the requirements both for 

 admission and for graduation. The number of 

 law schools has been greatly multiplied, and 

 the examination for admission to the bar as 

 well as that for the degree of LL. B., now 

 usually conferred on the graduates, is no longer 

 a mere form, but is calculated to test with 

 some thoroughness the attainments of the ex- 

 pectant lawyer. In medicine the qualifications 

 for admission are more carefully insisted upon, ' 

 and the courses of lectures lengthened and 

 supplemented by special lectures, chemical in- 

 struction, instruction in private classes, and a 

 more extended course of dissections. Attend- 

 ance upon the hospitals, dispensaries, etc., has 

 come to be considered necessary to a thorough 

 medical education; and the training of some 

 thousands of medical students, as assistants, 

 dressers, and medical cadets, during the war, 

 gave a new impulse to the study of both medi- 

 cine and surgery. The number of theological 

 schools has been greatly increased, and the fa- 

 cilities for thorough and extensive instruction 

 in biblical criticism, interpretation, ecclesiasti- 

 cal history, theology, and the history of doc- 

 trines have been largely augmented. The in- 

 crease in the number of theological students 

 has hardly kept pace with these added oppor- 

 tunities, other professional or scientific callings 

 ottering such inducements as to draw many 

 from cleric:-.! life. 



The attention given to the higher education 

 of women has been another feature of the edu- 



cational progress of the past seven years. With 



hardly more than half a do/t-n exception 

 female seminaries and high M-hool- 

 merly content with imparting: a showy but super- 

 ficial education to their pupils; there was a 

 fair amount of musical training, though thi 

 not often thorough, a little French, a little 

 drawing :md painting, with the show-pieces 

 finished by the teachers, a mere smattering of 

 physical science, half learned and soon forgot- 

 ten, and a very little mental philosophy and 

 Butler's Analogy. Composition was practised 

 to some extent, but the young lady who had 

 finished her education knew a little of many 

 things, but nothing thoroughly. We did not, 

 indeed, have^ like the French, a series of text- 

 books made purposely superficial solely for the 

 education of girls, but we had the superficiality 

 even with the be<t text-books. There is still 

 too much of this mere surface teaching, but we 

 have now a very considerable number of schools 

 or colleges for women, where the course of 

 study, if not identical with that for young men 

 in our best colleges, is at least equally thorough, 

 and intended rather to make the pupils women 

 competent to till any position to which they 

 may be called. The sphere of active exertion 

 now open and opening to woman rendered this 

 higher and more thorough culture a necessity. 

 Women are occupying, to a constantly increasing; 

 extent, positions as editors, authors, compilers, 

 lecturers, teachers of the higher branches, ac- 

 countants, physicians, clergymen (not as lawyers 

 yet, we believe), merchants, mechanics in the 

 lighter trades, clerks, etc., etc. For all these 

 positions they require a more thorough train- 

 ing and a higher grade of attainment than here- 

 tofore. Such institutions as the Vassar Col- 

 lege, the Elmira Female College, the Pittsburg 

 Female College, the Packer Collegiate In-ti- 

 tute, and the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, 

 as well as several others of perhaps equal merit, 

 will do much toward elevating the standard of 

 female education. Two of these have been or- 

 ganized within the last three or four years, 

 and all have maintained a high grade of schol- 

 arship. 



But great as has been the advance in higher 

 education, it has been more than equalled in 

 the progress of public school and primary edu- 

 cation. The efforts of the American Institute 

 of Instruction, of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Education, of the National 

 Convention of Teachers, and of the State 

 Teachers' Associations, for the promotion of the 

 best methods of teaching, the multiplication of 

 normal schools, the devotion of the best ener- 

 gies of a body of men like the State Superin- 

 tendents to the improvement of their State 

 systems of education, and the other agencies 

 which have been brought to bear on this work, 

 havo caused the progress of the public schools 

 to be rapid beyond all former precedent. In 

 many of the States, the systems of graded 

 schools, rising in regular succession from the 

 primary through the intermediate, grammar, 



