perhaps in Massachusetts, which is believed rightfully to boast of the best 

 system of public schools in the country — it is yet true that in no part of the 

 entire country are there so many private schools in proportion to the inhabi- 

 tants as in Massachusetts. And they have increased more rapidly within 

 the last fifteen or twenty years than ever before. What is true of Massa- 

 chusetts and the East is going to be true of California and the West, indeed 

 is already becoming so, that a large proportion of our best-to-do people look 

 to private schools for the special preparation required for admission to our 

 best colleges and schools of science. They do this for two very good 

 reasons. One is that in most private schools pupils are given just what 

 parents wish. The main and in some private schools the sole purpose is 

 preparation for colleges and schools of science, and it has been found here, 

 as in the East, that that sort of work is best done in schools whose only 

 purpose is preparation for college. Division of labor is just as profitable in 

 education as in manufactures. The school does best as a rule that which 

 It does as its main purpose. The public schools do an admirable work and 

 do it well, but are of necessity limited in what they do to the needs of the 

 people at large. 



A second reason for turning to private schools is the belief that not 

 only the intellectual but the moral and social demands of our well-to-do 

 people are better met in them. But it is not the purpose of this article to 

 discuss the comparative merits of the public and the private school. Each 

 has Its own merits, and both are necessary. We do believe, indeed we think 

 we know, that the home-seeker will find in California public schools that 

 give much the same kind and quality of instruction as that given in the 

 public schools East, and we certainly know that some of our private schools 

 do work of as high a grade as the best private schools in the East, because 

 graduates from them make as good a showing In examinations for admis- 

 sion to Eastern colleges and schools of science as is made by graduates of 

 the best Eastern schools. 



In the matter of college opportunities not much need be said, for our 

 two great universities, Stanford University and the University of California, 

 are well enough known to make discussion of their merits uncalled for. 

 And If any one claims superiority for some of our Eastern universities be- 

 cause of age, wealth and development, the ready reply is that it would be 

 difficult to conceive of a finer preparation for life, and consequently a finer 

 education, than that resulting from the Western spirit of push, of hospitality, 

 of ideals tempered or refined, may be, by the finish that comes of completing 

 one's education at an Eastern college, for after all he is best educated who 

 has the broadest sympathies, the sympathies that come best from knowing 

 the habits of thought and the standards of different people. And that 

 cosmopolitan sort of sympathy is pre-eminently the sort of thing that Ameri- 

 cans should have. The ludicrous ignorance of the West in the minds of 

 otherwise well-informed Easterners was well illustrated a little while ago at 

 a social gathering in Boston. A young lady, an intelligent and well-informed 

 young lady of Boston, inquired of her partner in a dance where his home 

 was. His reply that he was from California evidently surprised her. He 

 took in the situation and begged her not to be alarmed, and assured her that 

 he had left his bowie knife and his revolvers in his room. This is possibly 

 not the current estimate, but the belief in many Eastern circles is that we 

 still belong to the "wild and woolly West," and yet it is true that we have 

 in our communities some of the very best Eastern blood, best because it 

 brings with it not only the refinement of the East, but in addition the enter- 

 prise that is not content with too well established condition of things. And 

 the spirit of push, the spirit of enterprise, find expression in California not 

 merely in money-getting, as so often seems to be thought, but better than 

 all, in the development of our educational interests — the very thing that is 

 most desired. 



14 



