Page:Essays on the Higher Education.djvu/48

 of fine writing or generous planning will do away with the necessity of encountering these problems one by one, and of giving them a progressively better and better practical solution. The whole condition of education in this country, as it stands in the minds of the people and in the existing educational institutions, from highest to lowest, is concerned in the development of the university. I shall treat of only two of these problems. But these two are perhaps the most difficult, and they are so closely related to each other as to constitute in some respects one and the same problem. They are, the present condition and future development of the secondary education of the country, and the constitution and fate of the American college.

No one would contend that the secondary education in this country is in a satisfactory condition. It is undoubtedly lacking in thoroughness, in balance, in organic unity, and progressive character. By the "secondary" education I now mean such education, in addition to that primary education required of every one by the State, as the university must require for admission to its privileges. But—as has already been pointed out—the whole circuit of secondary education is at present, in this country, divided into two sections, one of which lies in courses preparatory for college or for the highest-class scientific school, and the other in the curriculum of the college or of the scientific school.