"A line of work in elements of agriculture may run through the entire two years; another line in manual training for the boys, covering the use of wood-working tools, elementary blacksmithing, and including some work in the architecture of farm buildings will be given. Such high school studies as will be most profitable, and as can be carried in connection with the other subjects will also be taken. For the girls, a line of work in domestic science will run through the entire two years. They will also be given some manual training, and some instruction in horticulture and floriculture. They will take the same academic studies as the boys."1 Minnesota has maintained a state system of high schools since 1881. At the head of this system stands the State High School Board, consisting of the superintendent of public instruction, the president of the University of Minnesota, and a city superintendent appointed by the governor. This board appoints a high school inspector and a graded school inspector. Any public high school in the state may become a state high school. Such schools, to the number of not more than seven in any one county, are entitled to receive each the sum of $1,000 annually from the treasury of the state. A state high school must admit students of either sex from any part of the state without charge for tuition, must provide a course of study covering the requirements for admission to the University of Minnesota, and must be subject to the rules and open to the inspection of the high school board. This board determines, on the basis of the reports of its inspector, what schools are entitled to the bounty of the state. Provision is also made for state graded schools, of lower rank than the state high schools; and for the promotion of such schools to the rank of state high schools when they have attained a suitable degree of advancement. The state high school board conducts annually a written examination of classes in the schools. The taking of this 1 Letter from State Superintendent L. D. HARVEY, to whom I am indebted for recent statistics of the Wisconsin system. Mr. Harvey published a valuable Report on schools of agriculture and manual training, in 1901. LATER STATE SYSTEMS state examination is ordinarily optional with the school, and no grants of money are based on examination results. The state board may, however, require a school to take an examination as part of the annual inspection. "The main purpose of state examinations," as set forth by the inspector of high schools in his report for 1898, "is not to test the students, but to promote the general efficiency of the schools." All state high schools are fully "accredited" by the university and the normal schools of the state, whether they have taken the examination or not. One interesting provision of the Minnesota law is that under which laboratory apparatus for the high schools is made at the state prison and sold to the schools at cost. But perhaps the most significant thing about the whole system is the encouragement it gives to high schools in Communities all over the state tax the smaller towns. themselves freely to supplement the bounty distributed by the state high school board. There are now (spring of 1902) 129 of these high schools. The number is steadily increasing, and is expected to come near to 140 by the close of the current school year. Other state systems are slowly taking form. Already there are noteworthy enactments relating to secondary education in the statutes of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Illinois, Nebraska, Kansas, California, and several other states. From the simple provision, usually found in state school laws, that the school authorities in districts of sufficient size may extend the course of instruction in their schools beyond the range of the elementary branches, various states are going on to encourage the establishment of the higher schools by larger administrative units, and by union districts entered into for this express purpose by contiguous smaller districts. Special state funds are made available for the reinforcement of local enterprise in this matter; and with the distribution of state funds goes some form of state inspection. Special provision is making for the encouragement of instruction in "domestic science" and in commercial and technical branches. Care is taken that even the more sparsely settled regions shall have schools which prepare students for admission to normal schools, colleges, and universities. The requirement of high qualifications on the part of teachers who aspire to high school positions, still lags behind other lines of this forward movement, but even in this particular progress may be noted. Massachusetts stands nearly if not quite alone in its requirement that high schools shall be established in all towns having a specified population. Such a requirement, however, is now of minor importance when communities all over the land are showing great zeal in the establishment of such schools apart from any legal prescription. The later requirement in Massachusetts that free secondary instruction shall be made accessible to every boy and girl who is ready for such instruction, has set up a new standard for all of our states, the influence of which may be seen in much of our recent legislation. NOTE It is important that those who are seeking to secure legislation for the improvement of high schools in the several states should become familiar with the history of recent movements of a similar character in other parts of the country. Perhaps the simplest way to get a comprehensive view of this movement is to read the Digest of public school laws. Rept. Comr. Ed., 1893-94, ch. 9, pp. 10631300; and in connection with this the annual Comparative summary and index of legislation, published by the University of the State of New York (Albany). These summaries make it easy to discover the states in which important education bills have been passed, and facilitate the search for the text of such laws in the session acts of the several legislatures. Beginning with the year 1901, a supplemental bulletin is issued under the title, Review of legislation. CHAPTER XVII RECENT TENDENCIES THE study of the more recent tendencies in our secondary education, leads us, almost before we are aware, into a consideration of our present educational status. In the chapters which follow, as in that just finished, the history of movements is mingled freely with accounts of presentday conditions. So enormous is the mass of facts which presents itself for review in this place that only a very superficial and selective survey can be taken. In general, we may say that the later movements have been mainly directed toward the better adjustment of our secondary schools (a) to schools above them and below; (b) to the changing needs of American life; and (c) to the individual capacities of the students found in those schools. These movements have been dominated by the American aspiration after completeness and consecutiveness in the organization of educational institutions; by the determination, that is, that there shall be no cul-de-sac in the educational systems of the republic, but that instead every child, to the remotest district of our land, shall find the humble school of his neighborhood opening up into the higher schools, and so on up into the highest universities. This aspiration has led to some incongruities. Nevertheless, there is in it a lofty idealism and an inspiring greatness of purpose. We may justly regard it as one of the great, formative influences at work in the making of the American character. In our public school systems the gap which has been bridged with the greatest difficulty is that between the high schools and the colleges. The high schools were, as has been shown, an outgrowth of the elementary schools. Their relations with the schools below them have presented serious problems, which have called forth much discussion and made readjustment necessary; and the end of all this surely is not yet. But the relations of the high schools with the colleges have been different, and very much more difficult. We take for our point of departure the period of the Civil War, or let us say a time not far from the middle of the nineteenth century. In the most of the leading states of the east, the chief, or indeed the only, provision for higher education was in institutions managed by private corporations. In many of the newer states there were growing up universities under full state control. The growth of state universities was greatly accelerated by grants of land made under the Morrill act of 1862. But these universities were supported out of funds separate from those devoted to the common schools, and were controlled by separate administrative boards. The requirements for admission to higher institutions of either sort were determined by the college faculties, with only incidental reference to the purely educational problems confronting the secondary schools. The fitness of candidates for admission was determined by an examination, conducted at the college, by college instructors, and covering the requirements which the college had prescribed. This system, to be sure, possessed great advantages. It compelled every school which would prepare students for a given college to come up to a definite scholastic standard imposed upon it from without. It exercised no authority over the schools, but exerted an influence which a preparatory school could not escape. Besides, the standard set for classes preparing for college had an indirect influence on classes in the same school which were pursuing other lines of study. So the most powerful single agency affecting the course and the methods of instruction in the better secondary |