A very important point, recognized by the committee, is the advantage of postponing as long as possible the necessity of making a final choice of courses. In this country we have no fixed conditions of rank, and the poor man’s son has the same privileges as the sons of position and wealth. Hence, the station in life is not determined by the differentiation in courses at an early period. Very few parents decide upon the final character of the child’s instruction much before the beginning of the college period.
For these reasons many would not agree with the conference recommendation to begin Latin at an earlier period. It would not be economy; there is enough else that belongs to the elementary stage of education, and no plan is feasible that is founded upon the foreign view of caste and fixed condition in life.
Uniformity in requirements for admission to college was the subject of the report that finally led to this investigation. Although uniformity is not prominently urged in the report of the Committee of Ten, doubtless the logical outcome of the latter report will be a tendency toward some kind of uniformity. There is a vigorous conflict of opinion to-day as to nationalism and individualism, with a strong tendency, especially in education, toward individualism. In the opinion of many there exists a harmful slavery of the high and preparatory schools to the erratic and varied demands of different colleges, and also a slavery to ignorance and caprice in some schools themselves, which would be removed by a general agreement to uniformity. Men are not enslaved, but are emancipated, by organization, and freedom of the individual is found in the good order of society and government. In a facetious criticism of the committee’s report, arguing for extreme individualism in choice of studies, appears the following query: “Please tell us if you and your colleagues on the conference considered any methods for the encouragement of cranks?” No; for the encouragement neither of cranks, nor of crankiness, but for the encouragement of the best kind of rational education. While there are a few wise, independent investigators who need no enforced uniformity, and will not be bound by the recommendations of others, many of the schools are largely imitators, or, worse, are working independently with limited insight, and these schools would be vastly improved by adopting courses and methods growing from a consensus of the best opinions of the country. The lowest would thereby tend to rise to the highest, and from that plane a new advance could be made. Meantime the original thinkers would be free to push forward toward higher results, to be generally adopted later. Through contact of various ideas some principles are settled, and the world is free to move on toward fresh discovery.
The selection of studies is to be determined largely by the nature of the mind and by the universal character of natural and civil environments, and this fact points toward the possibility of uniformity. The period of secondary education is not the period for specializing, and even if it were, there should be some uniformity in differentiation. In the United States there is, broadly speaking, uniformity of tradition, of government, of civilization, and the educated youth of San Francisco bears about the same relation to the world as the educated youth of Boston; hence, so far as elementary and secondary education is pursued, there is no reason why it should not be substantially the same in various schools—not in details belonging to the individual teacher, but in paper requirements and important features of methods.
Nothing in the whole report is more important than the proposed closer connection between high schools and colleges, and this is clearly and forcibly urged. 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 divorcement between higher education and all lower grade work, except the classical, has been a fatal defect in the past. The entire course of education should be a practical interest of college professors, and there should be a hearty coöperation between them and school superintendents and principals in considering all educational problems.
It is a fact of significance that a committee, on which some leading institutions are represented, urges the professional schools of the country to place their standard of admission as high as that of the colleges; and we hope that aid will thus be given the institutions endeavoring to raise the requirements of law, medical, and divinity schools.
The reports of most of the conferences asked for continuous and adequate work for each subject, that it might become a source of discipline and of valuable insight. No doubt part of the work in high schools is too brief and fragmentary to gain from it the best results.
The aim should be to reduce the number of subjects taken by any pupil, and the number of topics under a subject. It is not necessary that the entire landscape be studied in all its parts and details, if a thorough knowledge of the most prominent features is gained.