Secondary school

“ College sits in excelsis. The topmost turn of the educational system, it sets the standards and defines the ideal both of knowledge and conduct. Secondary-school students consequently prepare for college in a far completer way than is recognized. They emulate and reproduce the whole pattern and structure of “college life,” with its fraternities and other societies, its athletics, its hidden sex interests, and all the rest. ”

“ The great body of normal and training schools in the United States are secondary schools. Those who are to teach in these schools need broad scholarship, thorough understanding of educational problems, and trained experience. To put into these schools teachers whose scholarship is that of the secondary school and whose training is that of the elementary is to narrow and depress, rather than broaden and elevate. ”

“ The fact is that the ordinary secondary school is attempting—unsuccessfully, of course—to give the same treatment to pupils of various types who, owing to lack of sufficiently varied provision for higher education, now find themselves herded together. ”

“ The training of teachers for secondary schools is in several essential respects the same as that for teachers of elementary schools. Both demand scholarship, theory, and practice. The degree of scholarship required for secondary teachers is by common consent fixed at a collegiate education. No one—with rare exceptions—should be employed to teach in a high school who has not this fundamental preparation. ”

“ Schools that ought to be strictly secondary in character will be made secondary, while schools of a primary type will be compelled to keep to that type, but will also be dove-tailed into the nearest strictly secondary school. ”

“ With a view to supplying teachers for the secondary schools, the state maintains the École Normale Supérieure, a college in which instruction, board and lodging are given free to a number of scholars selected by competition from the best secondary school boys, though residence in the institution is no longer compulsory. ”

“ Whatever course of study properly belongs to a secondary school is also a good preparation for higher education, else either secondary or higher education is seriously in error. Whenever a youth decides to take a college course, he should find himself on the road toward it. No one can doubt that in the coming years pupils having pursued properly arranged high-school courses must be admitted to corresponding courses in higher education. ”

“ The secondary school, therefore, should be given a large opportunity to work out its place in the scheme of education and to determine for itself, more than it has been able to do thus far, just what scope and methods of vocational training should be introduced in its course. ”

“ Within each of these divisions, also, there would be at least two types of instruction, mainly according as the student devoted himself chiefly to literature and language, or to mathematics and science. But a general characteristic of all secondary schools is that their express aim is much more individual than that of the primary school: it is to develop the potential capacity of each individual scholar to the highest point, rather than to give, as does the elementary school, much the same modicum to all. ”

“ The student of general problems of education or of elementary education finds an extensive literature of varying worth. In the last decade our secondary schools have undergone radical reorganization and have assumed new functions. A rich literature on every phase of the high school is rapidly developing to keep pace with the needs and the progress of secondary education. The literature on college education in general and college pedagogy in particular is surprisingly undeveloped. ”

“ What are the aims? At present the secondary school’s main function is to give sufficient training in the humanities, in mathematics and science, to enable pupils to pass the entrance examination of a university. (We may for the purpose of the present [23] argument disregard the social activities of the school.) In other words, its business is to produce scholars of the intellectual type fitted for university training. It is true that art, handicraft, domestic science, and physical exercises appear in the curriculum but they occupy more or less subordinate places. ”

“ The secondary school course is normally four years in length. The principal subjects studied are Latin, Greek, French, German, algebra, geometry, physics, chemistry, physical geography, physiology, rhetoric, English literature, civics and history. Secondary schools. Although but 11.36% of the students in public high schools and 25.36% of those in private secondary schools are preparing for a college or scientific school, yet the conditions prescribed by the colleges for admission to their courses affect powerfully both the secondary school programme and the methods of teaching. ”

“ The secondary school course, on its academic side, is directed to one main end, and any pupil who enters such a school is regarded, irrespective of his natural aptitudes, as a prospective candidate for matriculation. Teachers may demur to the suggestion that their horizon is dominated by an examination: they may talk hopefully about a test which their pupils can take “in their stride.” But the fact remains that the work [24] of the upper part of the school is determined by requirements of an external body. ”

“ They would recommend that the specialization of teachers’ work should not be attempted before the seventh or eighth year of the elementary school and in not more than one or two studies then. In the secondary school it is expected that a teacher will teach one, or at most, two branches. ”

“ Both experience and observation seem to justify this widespread adoption of the elective system, in some form, in secondary schools and colleges. During the years of secondary school and college education the pupil passes through the important stage of adolescence and youth. He emerges from childhood to manhood. ”

“ Besides the Lycées, every school established by a municipality, or kept by an individual, which gave instruction in Latin, French, geography, history, and mathematics was designated as a secondary school, or Communal College. These institutions usually offered but a partial Lycée course, and were tuition schools, being patronized by many parents whose tastes forbade the sending of their children to the lower-class primary schools. A license from the Government to operate was necessary before masters could be employed. ”

“ In the second place, whatever the area of control chosen it should be of such a nature as to admit within its bounds of schools of different grades and of different types, so that children may pass not only from the Elementary School to the Secondary, but may pass to the particular type of Secondary or Higher School which is best fitted to prepare them for their future life's work. ”

“ We are still confronted with the problem of what we are to do with those pupils who do not take kindly to the secondary school curriculum but who, by their very presence in secondary schools, show their readiness to undergo some form of higher instruction. ”

“ On the other hand, in the United States the view has prevailed that the divisions of education must be latitudinal, that the secondary school must be complementary to the elementary school, in which even the élite must receive their preparatory or elementary training. ”

“ The committee recommend that any study, included in a given list regarded as suitable for the secondary-school period, and pursued under approved conditions one year of four periods a week, be regarded as worthy to count toward admission to college; they recognize that not all secondary schools are equipped to offer all the subjects, and that the colleges will make their own selections for admission ”

“ He finds that the few children of the type who win scholarships to secondary schools and thence to the universities, and who are fitted to seek higher professional and Civil Service posts form about one per thousand of the child population. About two per cent. come into the second grade, which includes those who win scholarships to the secondary school but not to the university, and who are suitable for lower professional posts: they may become, for instance, elementary teachers, clerks holding responsible posts, or successful tradespeople. ”

“ Furthermore, the secondary school, as organized, offered no opportunity to boys and girls of 13 and 14 years to choose the advanced courses and vocational training for which they felt an aptitude, and so to secure adequate preparation for the university studies or for advanced technical, industrial, and commercial schools. ”

“ In connection with higher education there are such new tendencies as university extension, correspondence courses, summer sessions, university interest in the practical problems of the people, the correlation of the first two years of college with the secondary school, more flexible entrance requirements, an increasing number of fields of professional work, and, above all, the professional training of teachers through Departments of Education, Teachers Colleges, and Schools of Education. ”

“ To-day, in nearly all lands, we find secondary-school courses in science, or special secondary schools for scientific instruction, occupying a position of at least equal importance with the older classical courses or schools. ”

“ Before University Education can be widely efficient, it is indispensable that Secondary Education should be fairly well developed and organised. Secondary Education should be intelligent,—liberal in spirit,—not too much trammelled by the somewhat mechanical uniformity apt to result from working for external examinations, but sufficiently elastic to allow for different aptitudes in the pupils, and to afford scope for the free initiative of able teachers. It is a gain for the continuity of education when a school-leaving examination can be accepted as giving admission to the University. ”

“ It is to be noted that the curriculum in girls' schools is of a much more reasonable character than that which is commonly provided for boys, and that the more completely it is fitted to supply a good general education, the better it would be adapted to the special needs of those who wish to become clerks or secretaries. It would seem eminently desirable that such aspirants should continue at the secondary school between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, being provided with a specialised course of study ... ”

“ Public educational policy during the last quarter of a century has provided for higher education mainly by the foundation of secondary schools of a single type, controlled by the local authorities; and those who demand more secondary education generally mean more schools of this kind. The secondary schools are filled partly by scholarship-holders who represent the cream of the elementary schools, and partly by fee-payers who, as they do not usually have to pass a stringent [18] entrance-examination, may represent all grades of ability. ”

“ Our normal schools and teachers' colleges have proved this possible. They are turning out excellent high-school teachers, and, if that can be done, then at least good teachers for the first two undergraduate years are makable. The difference between high school and college is narrowing. The National Association of State Universities, in its efforts to create a Standard American College, aims to "differentiate its parts in such a way that the first two years shall be looked upon as a continuation of and a supplement to the work of secondary instruction, as given in the high school." ”

“ The government promises to encourage the establishment of Secondary Schools, and reward the good instruction that shall be given in them, either by granting a spot for keeping them, or by the distribution of gratuitous places in the Lyceums, to such of the pupils as shall have distinguished themselves most, and by gratifications to the fifty masters who shall have qualified most pupils for the Lyceums. ”

“ Later, for civic purposes, primary education has become compulsory in most states. Following the development of the primary grades, a complete system of secondary schools has been provided. Beyond these are the state schools of higher education, universities, agricultural and mechanical schools, normal schools and industrial schools, so that a highway of learning is provided for the child, leading from the kindergarten through successive stages to the university. ”

“ It is not in the least degree necessary, for this purpose, to go into minute comparisons of the various types of secondary schools and colleges that have been established in this country. In the actual method of teaching there is little to choose between them. All have practically a common aim, namely, the preparation of boys and young men for examinations. ”

“ According to this law, primary schools must be so organized that the first four years may at the same time serve as a preparation for secondary and higher education. Every child who has successfully graduated from the highest class of the elementary school must be sufficiently prepared to enter immediately a secondary or a higher school. ”

“ The chief function of a college department of pedagogy is to turn out well-prepared teachers, enthusiastic, and with the right attitude toward their work. It should not, in my judgment, lend itself to cheap advertising, or drumming up students, or making a hit with the high schools and academies. Those imbued with the social spirit will find the hundred problems of adjustment of the college to the secondary schools too vital to be dealt with in a narrow or commercial spirit. ”