Page:Essays on the Higher Education.djvu/29

 elements in so-called "post-graduate" courses, so as to furnish a genuine university education in the greatest possible wealth and solidity. When this problem is practically solved, therefore, we shall have three instead of four grades of education; these will be, the primary, the secondary, and the higher or university education, but the two latter will probably have far more of significance than they now have.

Looked at in the light of the foregoing distinctions, the question of the place and amount of the pupil's choice which should enter into his education appears to me not so difficult of solution. With regard to the strictly primary education no choice whatever should be permitted, either to the pupil or to his guardian,—that is to say, I would have each youth compelled by the state to go to a certain distance along paths common to all, without permission to decide whether he will go at all, or whether, if he go, he will go by just such paths rather than others. Of course, the guardian of the pupil should have the exercise of discretion as to the mode of teaching, whether public or private, and perhaps as to the age at which the primary education shall have been accomplished. Opportunity for exceptions in the cases of the incapable or sickly should also be given. But the State should compel so much of education as seems necessary for the safe and intelligent exercise