UNITED STATES EDUCATION 729 



4,000 inhabitants or more, and not merely have the large cities extended their kindergarten 

 work but smaller cities and country districts have adopted the methods of the kindergarten. 

 In the same period the number of public high schools increased from 6,005 to 10,213 (7P%)t 

 the number of pupils from 519,251 to 915,061 (76%) and that of high-school teachers from 

 20,372 to 41,667. Private secondary schools decreased in number, and the number of teach- 

 ers increased only IO%. 1 Besides there can be no doubt that the public high schools have 

 gained in efficiency absolutely and relatively to the private schools. Indeed it is a common- 

 place among university and college teachers that a majority of the best students come from 

 the public schools and not, as a generation ago, from the private secondary schools. 



During the decade the universities have done increasingly much for the secondary schools. 

 The increasing growth and importance of the state universities and normal schools, in almost 

 every instance under the same control (state board of education) as the public high schools, 

 the dependence in a greater degree of higher institutions of learning upon the public secondary 

 schools for the best part, qualitatively and quantitatively, of their clientele, and, above all, 

 the new and wider study of education as a science and of the interesting special psychology of 

 adolescence, have been notable factors in this change. The unsettled problem of college 

 entrance examinations is not the only one that is being carefully studied by the faculties of 

 the higher schools it is rather a part of the great question of curriculum. 



Even more striking is the independent attitude toward the college of the secondary school, 

 which considers itself more and more as a school preparatory for business and the trades 

 rather than for college. Although the number of pupils in secondary schools increased 200 % 

 between 1890 and 1910 (when the total population increased 50%), only one-fifteenth of the 

 pupils in secondary schools now go to college. First the commercial high-school, or the 

 commercial course in a general high-school and manual-training high-schools, and now 

 agricultural high-schools, mark the progress of this movement toward satisfying the practical 

 needs of the present American population. To a large degree this has been effected by the 

 work of the Morrill "land grant" agricultural and mechanical arts colleges, to a rapproche- 

 ment between state departments of agriculture and education, which was promoted by the 

 mere existence of these agricultural colleges, and to such movements in the schools as the 

 Boys' Corn Clubs and Girls' Tomato Clubs, and the Farmers' Cooperative Demonstration 

 Work, which began in the early part of the decade under Dr. Seaman Asahel Knapp and 

 which at the close of the decade was symbolised in the establishment in connection with Pea- 

 body College for Teachers at Nashville of the Seaman A. Knapp School of Country Life (see 

 TENNESSEE: Education). The spread during the last two years of agricultural and vocational 

 education in primary and secondary public schools, and the provisions for courses in agriculture 

 and domestic science in public normal schools, is shown in the articles on the different states. 2 

 It may be noted here that the General Education Board (Rockefeller Fund) in October 1912 

 appropriated money for agricultural schools in northern New York and in Maine; and that 

 in 191 1 and 1912 Senator Carroll S. Page of Vermont introduced a bill in Congress for Federal 

 aid to secondary schools teaching agriculture, home economics, trades and industries, and for 

 training teachers in state normal schools for these vocational subjects. Similar measures were 

 introduced by C. R. Davis, Representative from Minnesota, William B. Wilson, Representative 

 from Pennsylvania, and Senator L. S. Overman of North Carolina. In 1911, 12 states required 

 instruction in agriculture in the common schools, 4 in rural schools and 3 in rural high schools; 

 1 6 gave aid to special agricultural schools and 12 to departments of agriculture in high schools; 

 and 31 had agricultural colleges maintaining secondary courses (or schools) in agriculture. 

 New York, Ohio, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and Wisconsin had definite sys- 

 tems of vocational education all but the first two the direct result of reports by state com- 

 missions on the subject. In Indiana and in Illinois the legislature of 1913 will be called to 

 act upon reports from similar commissions. 



Especially during the latter half of the decade, state laws have been stricter in regard to 

 compulsory schooling and to such limitations of child labour as literacy requirements for 

 children 's certificates to work. Closely related to the movement for agricultural education 

 is the greater attention paid to rural schools, 3 state aid granted to "weak" school districts 

 to assure full school terms and a fair teacher's wage, and the consolidation of small rural 

 districts, often accompanied by free transportation of remoter pupils. 



Urban schools are being more efficiently organised, school boards being reduced in size 

 and removed from political control, and the appropriations and expenditures are more nearly 

 adequate. Especially in the city public schools have experiments in testing, efficiency of the 

 educational plant been made and provisions made for sub-normal or defective children, 4 



1 The increase of teachers proportionally to pupils, or rather the decrease of numbers in 

 classes, in all branches of education even in the face in large cities of enormous increases in 

 population and lack of class-room is. a significant and promising phenomenon. 



2 See the summary, "Legislation for the Last Three Years on Vocational Education" by 

 R. R. Simpkins, in The School Review for June 1912. 



3 See E. Benjamin Andrews, "The Crusade for the Country School, " Educational Review, 

 Nov. 1912; C. B. Fishpaw, "The Training of Rural Teachers," Education, Oct. 1912. 



4 The National Association for the Study of Exceptional Children (Plainfield, New Jersey), 



