tors is about equal to the salary of an assistant professor. The aggregate of the time required each year by all departments for the purposes of the examination of schools is not far from three full academic years. Counting the average salary of the inspectors as that of an associate professor, we have here an approximate total cost for services and traveling expenses of between $8,000 and $9,000 annually. It is, moreover, impossible so to conduct the inspection that all departments of all schools shall be tried by uniform or even consistent standards of excellence. Nor does the accrediting system wholly obviate the evil of subjecting the secondary schools to tests and influences somewhat foreign to the real purposes of secondary education. It cannot be regarded and is not generally regarded as a final solution of the problem with which it deals. But it marks a very great advance toward that end; and it is safe to say that its present advantages greatly outweigh its obvious disadvantages.

SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ASSOCIATIONS

Parallel with the later development of the accrediting system, there have grown up important voluntary associations of instructors, in which representatives of the colleges meet with representatives of the secondary schools for the discussion of topics of common interest. The parent society of this sort is the New England association of colleges and preparatory schools, organized at Boston in 1885. The object of this association was declared to be, “The establishment of mutually sympathetic and helpful relations between the faculties of the colleges represented and the teachers of the preparatory schools, and the suggestion to that end of practical measures and methods of work which shall strengthen both classes of institutious by bringing them into effective harmony."

This organization grew out of a previously existing state association of secondary school teachers in Massachusetts. It in turn prompted the establishment of the commission of colleges in New England on admission examinations. This

commission, formed by agreement among the several New England colleges, and possessing no authority, has by its recommendations done much to unify the requirements for college matriculation. Its most notable achievement has been the mapping out of requirements in the English language and literature. It has made important recommendations also with reference to courses in the ancient classics and the modern languages.

The example of New England has been followed by other sections of the country. The association of colleges and preparatory schools in the middle states and Maryland came into existence in 1892, growing out of the college association of Pennsylvania, established five years earlier. The north central association of colleges and secondary schools was formed at Evanston, Illinois, in 1895; and the association of colleges and preparatory schools of the southern states, at Atlanta, Georgia, later in the same year. State organizations somewhat similar in character are found in a number of the states, as in New York, Ohio, Tennessee, Colorado, Michigan, and both Dakotas.

These various societies, through their discussions and recommendations, have exercised a vast influence upon the development of our secondary education.

THE COMMITTEE OF TEN ON SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDIES

But the chief landmark in the recent history of this grade of school is the work of the committee on secondary school studies, appointed by the National educational association in 1892, and commonly known as the "committee of ten." This committee was the outcome of a movement within the national association in the direction of uniformity of college entrance requirements. Its chairman was the president of Harvard university. In its membership were included the United States commissioner of education and some of the foremost representatives of both secondary and higher education in America. Not limiting itself to the mechanical adjustment of relations between the high school and the col

lege, this committee proceeded to consider the problem of secondary education from an educational point of view. Nine sub-committees of ten members each, were appointed to prepare reports on the several ordinary departments of secondary school instruction, viz., Latin, Greek, English, other modern languages, mathematics, physics (with astronomy and chemistry), natural history (biology, including botany, zoology, and physiology), history (with civil government and political economy), and geography (physical geography, geology, and meteorology).

The committee of ten, having secured carefully prepared reports from its sub-committees, and having examined a large number of the courses in actual use in secondary schools, drew up a report which was published by the United States government in December, 1893, together with the reports of the several sub-committees. The contents of this document may be briefly summarized as follows:

In all of these discussions, the distribution of the years of school life now generally followed in the educational administration of the American states is assumed as a datum. The demand for an earlier introduction of secondary school studies is, however, reiterated by several of the sub-committees. They call attention to the disadvantage to students pursuing, for instance, the study of Latin, which results from postponing the beginnings of that study to the ninth year of the school course, when the student has already passed the most favorable time for memorizing paradigms and a strange vocabulary. The committee of ten, while approving strongly of these recommendations, confine their proposals to improvements in the ordinary four-year secondary course.

After discussing the principles which should guide in the framing of courses of study, the committee present four sample courses, which may be taken as illustrations of the application of those principles. These sample courses are, however, generally regarded as the least successful and significant outcome of the committee's labors. The portions of the report which represent the most mature deliberation

are those which propose general principles for guidance in the making of such courses.

The committee lay great stress on the correlation of studies in secondary schools: the unifying of many subjects into a well-knit course of instruction, through the recognition of their numerous inter-relations. They endorse the unanimous recommendation of the sub-committees that the instruction in any given subject shall not be different for a student preparing to enter a higher institution from that for students who go no further than the high school. They make an urgent plea for more highly trained teachers. They declare against a multiplicity of "short information courses," such as have been given in many high schools in times past: a dip into one science followed by a dip into another, and no deep draught from any. Instead, they recommend that such subjects as are studied be pursued consecutively enough and extensively enough to yield that training which each is best fitted to yield. They would have continuous instruction in the four main lines of language, mathematics, history, and natural science. In particular, they recommend that in the first two years of a four-year course, each student should enter all of the principal fields of knowledge, in order that he may fairly "exhibit his quality and discover his tastes." They recommend the postponement of the beginning of Greek to the third year, in order that the student may not find himself at the bifurcation of the course into classical and Latin-scientific courses, before he is ready, or his advisers sufficiently informed as to his capabilities, to make an intelligent choice. The committee would require in each course a maximum of twenty recitation periods a week; but they would have five of these periods devoted to unprepared work; and would reserve double periods for laboratory exercises whenever possible.

Within the limitations indicated above, as to continuity and extensiveness of studies in each of the broad divisions of knowledge, the committee would leave to the individual student and his advisers the largest possible freedom in the

choice of studies. With reference to requirements for admission to college, the committee recommend "that the colleges and scientific schools of the country should accept for admission to appropriate courses of their instruction the attainments of any youth who has passed creditably through a good secondary school course, no matter to what group of subjects he may have mainly devoted himself in the secondary school." Describing more exactly what might be considered "a good secondary school course" for this purpose, they propose that it shall consist of any group of studies from those considered by the sub-committees, "provided that the sum of the studies in each of the four years amounts to sixteen, or eighteen, or twenty periods a week,— as may be thought best,— and provided, further, that in each year at least four of the subjects presented shall have been pursued at least three periods a week, and that at least three of the subjects shall have been pursued three years or more."

This report called forth a very active discussion, which has not yet come to an end. The definite courses of study which it suggested have not been widely adopted; nor have college admission requirements been made uniform in the manner which it proposed. But its influence has been farreaching and, in the main, highly beneficial.

THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM

Since the early days of the academies, it has been customary in many schools to offer alternative courses; one of them classical, the other "modern." Other options have been added from time to time, so that now a large school commonly offers several parallel courses. But especially within the last twenty years, there has appeared a strong demand that instead of a choice of courses the students be offered a wide range of choice in particular subjects.

Several influences have combined to bring about this demand. The general adoption of an elective system in the colleges may be mentioned. Teachers have objected to close prescription in high schools when freedom is increasing