Page:Essays on the Higher Education.djvu/31

 "aptitudes;" these are, the aptitude for the more subjective and reflective studies, and the aptitude for the studies of external observation. In other words, among youths who take to anything in the way of study, some take more naturally to letters and philosophy, and some take more naturally to physical and natural sciences. The secondary education should recognize this difference in aptitudes for one or the other part of the prime twofold aim of education. Such recognition should provide for two main courses of study, in one of which letters and the so-called humanities should predominate, and in the other mathematics and the physical and natural sciences. These courses should themselves, however, be fixed without making a frequent appeal to the choice of the pupil; they should be fixed in accordance with the world's accumulated wisdom as to the best way to teach a man "to know himself and the world," in harmony with his particular aptitude. The secondary education, in all cases where it is to lead up to a university education, should be long and thorough enough to secure what the Germans strive to secure as a preparation for their universities,—namely, the general scientific culture, or formation (allgemeine wissenschaftliche Bildung), of the pupil.

The higher or university education should permit and encourage the greatest possible freedom