Secondary

“ Such training prepares for a special vocation; but our system tends to hand that over to the secondary school, reserving for the elementary school only that preparatory and liberal training that enables one to get some appreciation of the various lines of human culture before entering upon a course calculated to prepare for a trade, business or a profession. See Education, History of; Education, Modern; Normal Schools; Schools, Rural and Schools, Secondary. ”

“ As the result of much discussion, contention, and wordy warfare, we have, however, to-day, certain secondary school programmes, generally speaking quite similar in their character, marking in a more or less defined manner the routes along which our boys are traveling on their respective journeys to college, to scientific school, or to practical business life. ”

“ With regard to secondary education, we may anticipate that to meet varied needs three different courses will be provided. A curriculum of roughly the same type as the present will be retained for those boys and girls of the highest grades of intelligence; that is to say, those who have the ability to proceed to university studies and who, in favourable circumstances, intend to do so. ”

“ The Secondary Class is composed of men less puissant in faculty, but genuine also in their way, who travel along the paths opened by the great originaters, and also point out many a side-path and shorter cut. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the second place, one object of any organisation of the means of education should be the selection of the best ability from amongst the children of our Elementary Schools and the further education of this ability at some one or other type of Intermediate or Secondary School. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thus, since all education is the acquisition of experiences that will render future action more efficient, the nature of the secondary education given must depend on the nature of the services to which the systems of knowledge are the means. A classical education may be a good preparation for the after-discharge of the duties of the theologian or the jurist ”

“ All other uses of knowledge are secondary. It scarcely needs saying that the primary use of work is that of supplying the materials and aids to living completely; and that any other uses of work are secondary. But in men's conceptions the secondary has in great measure usurped the place of the primary. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Suppose that, after some years, these theories undergo new tests and triumph; then our secondary education will incur a great danger: certain professors will doubtless wish to make a place for the new theories. ”

“ The history of education in this country shows that our system of organization, assigning eight years to elementary, four years to secondary, and four years to collegiate education, was not based on any rational theory, but was rather the result of accident. ”

“ In proceeding to sketch the French system of higher primary and secondary schools, it may be observed that European systems of higher education have generally been framed upon the view that the divisions of education are longitudinal, not latitudinal, and that secondary education is a training complete in itself Conception of secondary education.from the preparatory stage to the university, with aims and ideals of general culture which differentiate it radically and at the very outset from education of the elementary type. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That 'ladder' includes our secondary schools, in which a selected body of youth are collected who have been found, by a sort of evolutionary selection, to be exceptionally well fitted to receive that higher sort of instruction. ”

“ The most marked progress has undoubtedly been in secondary education, and in no direction has the act of 1902 proved more fruitful. At the end of the 19th century secondary instruction in England was still provided chiefly by endowed grammar-schools, by proprietary schools established by religious bodies or joint-stock companies, Secondary education.and by private enterprise. ”

“ It thoroughly explored the field of secondary education, discussing all the problems, administrative and pedagogic, which the subject presents, and “its luminous and exhaustive report” (to quote the words of Mr Bryce’s Commission of 1894) remains the best introduction to the problem of public secondary education in England. The existence of numerous and frequently very wealthy endowments arising from private benefactions and bequests has at all times been a feature in education as in other departments of English social life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The varieties of secondary education in the former of these main divisions would have to be determined generally by considerations of age. There must be different courses of study for those whose education is to terminate at sixteen, at eighteen and at twenty-two or twenty-three. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It will be remembered that the undergraduate courses constitute for many of those who plan to teach in the secondary schools the sole opportunity for specialization. For them the undergraduate curriculum affords essentially a professional training, and subserves exactly the same function as does the graduate school for those who are preparing for collegiate positions. ”

“ These [Pg 54] aspects of the work must be emphasized with equal force for all students; no differentiation need be made for future medical or engineering students or for prospective teachers of the subject in secondary schools. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What of the pupils who are judged unfit for education of a secondary type? Those who are likely to profit by some sort of further teaching will not be dismissed at the age of fourteen to the workshop or the office; but it will be recognised that their interests can be best served by giving them training of a frankly vocational character. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The spread of popular secondary education, the rapid increase and distribution of wealth, have placed a college education within the reach of those lacking both scholarly ambition and the traditions of culture, but to whom have come the opportunity and desire for social betterment. ”

“ The first plan is followed by a number of institutions which conclude, because of the general practice of offering courses in drawing in the secondary schools, that pupils entering college have a knowledge of the fundamentals ordinarily included in an elementary course. ”

“ School economy, though a factor of great importance in the teacher’s training, can be best studied by the teacher of some maturity and experience, and is of more value in the equipment of secondary than of elementary teachers. ”

“ I have presented these detailed facts regarding the requirements for teaching in the German secondary schools in order to indicate clearly one cause of waste in our own school system. Some cities require of candidates for high-school positions graduation from college and some professional training; the state of California requires for a high-school certificate a college training and one year of professional training. ”

“ It is a widely prevalent doctrine, to which the customs of our best schools conform, that teachers of elementary schools should have a secondary or high school education, and that teachers of high schools should have a collegiate education. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What is to be the occupation of the pupils leaving the secondary schools? Those who have remained at these schools until sixteen or more acquire a certain social tone which causes them to despise manual toil, and so they aim at the professions, the Civil Service, posts in banks and stores, and, failing all else, the perennially respectable junior clerkship in any kind of office. ”

“ When a child is capable of appreciating institutions, he is capable of seeing what special institutional idea each historic nation stands for, and what factor it has contributed to the present complex of institutions. But this period arrives only when the child is beginning to be capable of abstracting causes in other realms as well; in other words, when he is approaching the time of secondary education. ”

“ We cannot aid all, and to select a few would he injurious. In regard to elementary education, the Northern, the Middle, and the Western States, are able and willing to do their duty. I venture to propose that in these the unappropriated lands be devoted to the encouragement of secondary schools. ”

“ But then I see no reason why in secondary schools, and in the science classes, which are under the control of the Science and Art Department—and which, I may say, in passing, have, in my judgment, done so very much for the diffusion of a knowledge over the country—I think that, in those cases, we may go further, and we may hope to see instruction in the elements of biology carried out, not, perhaps, to the same extent, but still upon somewhat the same principle, as we do here. ”

“ Out of the efforts of Italian scholars to resurrect, reconstruct, understand, and utilize in education the fruits of their legacy from the ancient Greek and Roman world, arose modern secondary education, as contrasted with mediaeval church education. ”

“ This surprising growth in the number pursuing an ancient language can hardly be accounted for by increased stringency in college entrance requirements in Latin, but must rather be ascribed to a growing conviction among the people that the study is indispensable in secondary education. ”

“ First-grade Schools.—One of the most striking features of German secondary education is the careful differentiation of schools according to the type of curriculum adopted. Thus, every German school is a homogeneous unit with a definite educational aim and organization, conforming to a common standard First grade secondary schools.approved by public authority for the particular type to which it belongs. ”

“ 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. ”