590 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 931 



is small, there the proportion of secondary 

 students pursuing algebra tends to be large. 

 One is reminded of Booker Washington's 

 remark about the freedman's penchant for 

 studying Latin and holding office — but the 



Chart III. 



black dots on the chart represent mainly 

 white education. 



The method of this last chart may be ap- 

 plied as well to other studies and to the per- 

 centage strength of the various years of the 

 course, all of which are shown to be more or 

 less strongly related to the number of students 

 per thousand of population. An attempt to 

 correlate these statistics with urban conges- 

 tion has, however, failed, as urban density so 

 crosses state educational systems, and counts 

 for so much more in some states — as Rhode 

 Island — than in others, that a satisfactory 

 disentanglement of the relations is practically 

 impossible. 



I would draw one general conclusion from 

 this study. Our impressions of secondary — 

 and other — education are strongest as they 

 are derived from our own experience as stu- 

 dents. Most college and university men, even 

 those who have the closest relations with the 

 work of the secondary schools, have done little 

 actual secondary school teaching, and hence 

 are very likely to be strongly under the influ- 

 ence of impressions received twenty, thirty or 

 more years ago. Such impressions are, how- 



ever, nearly valueless as guides in dealing 

 with the present situation. The tabular and 

 graphical representations of statistical facts 

 show at a glance that since 1890 the problem 

 of the secondary school has changed from that 

 of the fitting school to one of a decidedly non- 

 fitting school — some bigots would say a de- 

 cidedly unfitting school; a school in which 

 only 6.8 per cent, of the pupils anticipate col- 

 lege work of any sort. This being the case, 

 the colleges and universities can not lead the 

 way in the fashion of 1892 and the Committee 

 of Ten; the problems of secondary educatioH 

 can be solved only in the schools. 



WiLLARD J. Fisher 



Ithaca, N. T., 

 June, 1912 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 

 The American Society of Naturalists will 

 meet at Cleveland on Jantiary 1 and 2, 1913. 

 The session on January 1 will be given to the 

 reading of papers on genetics, and that of 

 January 2 to a symposium on adaptation. 

 The annual dinner, open to members of the 

 affiliated societies, will be held on the evening 

 of the second, with the president's address by 

 Professor E. G. Conklin. 



The American Society of Zoologists will 

 hold a joint meeting of its eastern and cen- 

 tral branches in conjunction with the meeting 

 of the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science at Cleveland, Ohio, during 

 convocation week. Notice of this meeting, 

 together with a request for the titles of papers 

 to be presented, will shortly be sent to all 

 members. Communications from members of 

 both branches should be addressed to Professor 

 Winterton C. Curtis, University of Missouri, 

 Columbia, Mo., the secretary of the Central 

 Branch, since the constitution provides that 

 " the meetings of the societies shall be ar- 

 ranged for and conducted by the officers of 

 that branch in whose territory the meeting is 

 held." The president of the Central Branch 

 during the current year is Professor Henry B. 

 Ward, of the University of Illinois, Urbana, 



m. 



