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1 1
HIGH SCHOOLS
BY
B. G. NORTHROP,
Secretary op Connecticut Board op Education.
SYRACUSE, N. Y. :
DAVIS, BARDEEH & CO., PUBLISHERS.
1 8 8 0.
I
31 Gil SCHOOLS.
BY
B. G. NORTHROP,
Secretary of Connecticut Board of Education.
SYRACUSE, N. Y.:
DAVIS, BARDEEN & CO., PUBLISHERS.
1 8 8 0.
HIGH SCHOOLS.
The late financial depression furnished an occasion for a
general attack upon High Schools "along the whole line."
Stern necessity demanded the closest scrutiny of all public ex¬
penses, the lopping off of all superfluities, and the practice of
rigid economy. Hence the question of Free Schools and High
Schools has been discussed of late by the Press more fre¬
quently and earnestly than ever before. Public Schools con¬
cern everybody, for as scholar, teacher, school-officer, parent,
friend, or tax-payer, every one has some connection with them
and feels prepared to pass judgment upon them. It is for¬
tunate that they must bear the keen sunlight of publicity. In
our country, where public sentiment is the ruling power
that creates law and repeals it, no institutions can stand which
cannot bear the closest scrutiny, while those which do stand
the test of time and command the confidence of the people
are sure to endure. Within narrow limits, passion or faction
or party may rule the hour. But with intelligent people the
sober second thought brings reaction, and the right prevails.
The sharpest criticism, unjust though it maybe, is more whole¬
some than indiscriminate praise. The blows which our schools
get, like the ha,mmer of the car-wheel inspector, serve by the
ring of the metal to prove, their strength and not to destroy
them. These discussions, though often hostile, have awakened
new interest and led to a better understanding of the aims and
results of High Schools. The recent opposition to them seems
to be prompted by no political or sectarian aim. Thus, while
Governor Hubbard ably defended High Schools, Governor
Robinson, of Hew York, and Governor Garcelon, of Maine,
strenuously opposed them. The earnest blows of ex-Governor
Robinson for a time threatened disaster to the system in New
York, and the High School in one of her cities was abolished,
but only to be reestablished the following year on a more lib¬
eral basis; while the opposition in Maine succeeded in securing
a suspension of the High School law for one year, but under
such circumstances as to neutralize the influence of their action
as an example.
The leading objections urged against Secondary Education
are the following:
C2
4
1. The High School is an excrescence on our school system,
which has thus been extended beyond the original design of its
founders, hence it should be cut off.
2. It is unjust to support the High School by a general tax,
because it is patronized by few, and the majority receive no
benefit from it.
3. The State has the right to educate its children only so
far as will enable them to understand and perform their
duties as citizens.
4. The High School tends to create a distaste for labor, and
to make the children of the masses discontented with their lot.
5. The support of the High School is communistic in its
principle and tendency.
6. The High School tends to disparage the common school
studies and promotes superficiality in these fundamental
branches.
7. It tends to pauperize the people by a sort of alms-taking
that impairs their manliness and self-respect.
8. High Schools prepare few graduates for College.
Having aided in organizing many High Schools in Massa¬
chusetts and Connecticut, I have carefully watched their prog¬
ress and results. On this subject the lessons of experience
outweigh the speculations of theorists. Free high schools
have been maintained in Massachusetts for a longer time and
on a broader scale than in any other State or country of the
world. The devotion of that State to high schools is not a
sudden or transient outburst of enthusiasm due to any educa¬
tional reformer. It is the growth of more than two centuries.
The basis of the present High School law was laid in 1647,
when the General Court made education universal and free,
and required that every town containing one hundred families,
should set up a Grammar School, which was substantially, the
modern High School, the master whereof " should be able to
instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the University."
In 1789 this law was made binding only upon towns having
two hundred families. In 1826 all towns containing five hun¬
dred families were required to maintain a High School of the
second grade, and every town containing 4,000 inhabitants was
required to maintain a school of the first grade, in which the
Latin and Greek languages should be taught.
5
To further meet the assertion that " the High School has
been ingrafted upon the system, contrary to the original de¬
sign," I condense the following from an address of Hon. P.
Emory Aldrich, of Worcester, Massachusetts:
"It has been the settled and prevalent policy of these States,
as well as of the General Government, to grant State and Gov¬
ernmental support to schools of every grade, from the primary
up to and including the university, and this was the
accepted theory and practice of the Colonies before the
States were organized as they now exist. Sagacious and far-
reaching views as to the necessity and extent of popular edu¬
cation were deliberately expressed by the men by whose wis¬
dom and foresight States were formed and a nation created.
The founders of our Republic clearly perceived that knowl¬
edge, and not merely the rudiments of it, generally disseminated
among the people, is essential to that form of government
which depends for its existence on the will of the governed.
Nor were these views first expressed by the founders of our
Republic. They were among the rich inheritances of civil
wisdom derived from the Colonial period of our history, as
shown by the celebrated ordinance of 1647, passed by the Gen¬
eral Court of Massachusetts Colony. These are not the views
of an accidental majority, of a sect or party, but the long-
cherished principles of a whole people, who placed the duty
of promoting education on the same footing as that of pro¬
moting trade, commerce and manufactures. It is too late to
deny that superior education is necessary to the State, and it
is precisely on this ground of State necessity that the public
support of schools should be made, and not on the ground
that they are mere benefactions. This policy should not now
be abandoned, but, on the contrary, should be continued and
extended to meet the growing necessities of the greatly en¬
larged and ever-expanding field of human knowledge and
acquisition."
Judge Aldrich substantiates these views by the following
quotations from the fathers of the Republic :
Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially of the
lower class, are so extremely wise and useful, that to a humane
and generous mind no expense for this purpose would be
thought extravagant.— John Adams.
6
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who
mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with
the power which knowledge gives. Every class is interested
in establishments which give to the human mind its highest
improvement. Learned institutions ought to he favorite objects
with every free people. -They throw that light over the public
mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous
encroachments on the public liberty.—James Madison.
John Adams, the second President of the United States,
after graduating at Harvard College, taught for two years the
Grammar School of Worcester, and his cousin, Samuel Adams,
in his message to the Legislature deprecating the increase of
Academies supported by tuition, advocated the ancient and
beneficial Grammar schools, in which he says (! the poor and
the rich may derive equal benefit, while none except the
wealthy can avail themselves of the Academies." As Governor
Adams feared, the High School law in many towns remained
a dead letter. In 1838 only fourteen high schools were main¬
tained in that State. When I entered the service of Massachu¬
setts in 1857, the number had risen to eighty. At the present
time Massachusetts sustains 216 High Schools with nearly 600
(595) teachers, and nearly 20,000 pupils. Ninety per cent,
of her population is in cities and towns supporting High Schools.
In reviewing ten years of hard work, while officially visiting
every town of that State, my thoughts recur to the High Schools
then organized with lively interest. The struggle which they
had to wage for existence is over. They have stood the test
of time. No town within my knowledge, after fairly trying its
working, has abolished its High School. Nulla vestigia retror-
sum is their m^tto. Experience has vindicated the wisdom of
their founders. Their results in many towns have disarmed
opposition and converted doubters and foes to believers and
friends. Their graduates especially are everywhere their advo¬
cates. In Massachusetts, as well as elsewhere, a few able and
earnest opponents have recently appeared. But they have
made little impression upon the popular mind. Opposition
and discussion will ultimately help our High Schools, as they
do any measure which can bear discussion and stand the ordeal
of experience.
As the whole school system naturally culminates in the High
7
School, it furnishes the best and cheapest leverage for uplifting
all the lower grades. As a center of interest and influence,
it stimulates in them a healthful ambition for thoroughness
as the condition of admission and promotion—a better tonic
than the false hope held out by the stupid flatterer, who
says in all schools and to all scholars, " if you try and aim
high, you may each become President or Senator of the United
States." It is ridiculous and harmful thus to encourage ambi¬
tions impossible of attainment, or awaken aspirations to posi¬
tions for which nature has given no qualifications. To turn
those fitted to be good mechanics, or farmers, into poor doctors,
lawyers or ministers, is a wrong both to themselves and the
community. The High School, by its sterner tests and harder
competitions and rigid examinations tends to dissipate such
dreams. It works like a sieve through which the little and
heavy minds drop, or rather on the plan of the survival of the
fittest, it helps the ablest to go on and'up.
It is the testimony of the most competent observers that
the High School gives increased efficiency to the elementary
schools by its standard of admission, thus presenting in them a
strong stimulus to studiousness and fidelity. Francis Adams,
long the secretary of the National Educational League of
England, says: " Experience has proved that elementary edu¬
cation flourishes most where the provision for higher education
is most ample. If the elementary schools of Germany* are the
best in the world, it is owing in a great measure to the fact that
the higher schools are accessible to all classes. In England not
only have the aims of the elementary schools been low and
narrow, but an impassable gulf has separated the people's
schools from the higher schools of the country. In the United
States, the common schools have always produced the best
results where the means of higher education have been most
plentiful." It has been often remarked that " educational im¬
provement works from the top downward and not from the
bottom upward, and that the common school is always feeble
where High Schools, Academies and Colleges are wanting."
It is unquestionably due to the influence of Yale College that
n her early history the public schools of Connecticut were, by
* The elementary schools of Holland and Switzerland seem to me not to be sur¬
passed by those of Germany. Mr. Adams' remarks fully apply to those countries.
8
common consent, the best in this country, and so pronounced
in all the geographies of those days.
The High School benefits the common schools by improving
the grading of all the district or lower schools of a town, and
thus increases both the economy and efficiency of the system.
In many towns containing from eight to eighteen districts,
where all were formerly taught by male teachers in the winter
and females in the summer, on the establishment of a High
School, permanent female teachers have been placed in all
the others, obviating the evils of a semi-annual change of
teachers, while the most advanced pupils from the whole town
have been brought together in a central High School especially
adapted to their wants, and all this with little or no increase of
cost and sometimes with an actual saving of money. Such, for
example, has been the case in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where
during the first year after the establishment of an efficient High
School with the union of the districts and better system of
gradation, there was a saving of more than ten thousand dollars
in the educational expenses of the city. The conviction be¬
came well nigh universal among the people of that city that the
new system promoted the efficiency of all the schools as much
as it did the economy of their management. In the Beport of
the State Board of Education for 1877, it is said, " no town in
Connecticut has witnessed so great and general improvement
of its schools during the last year as Bridgeport." In the city
of New Haven, Connecticut, what was formerly the upper grade
in the Grammar schools, is now transferred to the High School,
where, to say nothing of the classics and higher mathematics,
such studies as book-keeping and the practical sciences and
even the finishing lessons in drawing and writing, are taught
better and cheaper than they could be in the separate Gram¬
mar schools, and the efficiency and usefulness of all the other
schools is thus increased. Nearty all the teachers of that city
are now graduates of this High School. Its cost, therefore,
is fully justified on the ground of economy and the improve¬
ment of the other grades, and the same is true generally. The
School Board of another Connecticut town, after two year's trial,
say : " The advantages of the High School to all the other
schools is surprising. Never before has such a spirit of study
prevailed among them. All, even the remotest districts, are
9
represented in the High School where the more advanced pupils
are brought into one school, graded according to their acquire¬
ments, so that on the principle of the division of labor, the
effectiveness of one teacher is multiplied many times. Here
our promising and ambitious scholars, even from the remotest
sections of the town, are enjoying advantages never offered in
the several district schools, made up of all ages and over-bur:
dened with classes and studies."
High Schools are essential for the training of teachers. The
Normal Schools can supply but a fraction of the great army of
teachers in our land. The High School course constitutes the
best preparation for that of a Normal School. The normal
graduates who have achieved the highest success are those who
had previously completed the High School course. All experi¬
ence verifies the motto of Gruizot, that " every teacher should
know far more than he will be called upon to teach, for the
more he knows of everything, the better he can teach any¬
thing." As a matter of fact, those who have had the fullest
previous instruction most highly appreciate the advantages of
the Normal School, while the greatest hindrance to its most
complete success is the want of proper preparation of candi¬
dates. There is a wide and growing demand for a higher grade
of teachers than the district schools can supply.
When High Schools are disparaged on the ground of the
limited number going directly from them to college, the fact is
overlooked that a large proportion of college students receive
their first start college-ward in their local High School. The great
advance in the requirements for admission to our colleges has
increased the demand for sub-collegiate schools like the Hop¬
kins Grammar School of New Haven, the Free Academy of
Norwich, the Suffield, Andover, Exeter, and Easthampton Sem¬
inaries, which make a specialty of preparing for college. There
is here a great gain in the stimulus and rivalry of large classes,
unattainable with the smaller classical classes in local high
schools. Those who merely "finish off" for the last one or two
' years of preparation in some favorite academy, naturally report
themselves to the college examiners from the school where they
graduated rather than from the humbler High School where
their main preparation was really made. Thus, in college sta¬
tistics the High School fails to get the recognition it deserves.
10
But it does accomplish a most important work in discovering
and developing what otherwise would continue latent talent. A
scholar does not really know what is in him, what he can be,
till he reaches the harder studies and sharper rivalry of the
High. School. Many a bright but modest and discouraged boy
has here been made conscious of his powers, and the assurance
that he can do, has become the parent of the purpose that he
will do. Many gifted minds thus roused to higher life ultimately
fill positions of great usefulness whose talents would other¬
wise have been buried in obscurity. Those who have risen
to be the benefactors of the race have come as often from
humble cottages as from princely palaces. Indeed, history
proves that from the industrious classes have arisen by far the
greatest part of the energy, talent and genius that has enriched
the world. Says Dr. Leonard Bacon, " It is for the interest of
the State that no talent which Grod gives to any child should be
lost. If a poor boy, the child of a dependent widow, or an un¬
fortunate immigrant, has any extraordinary talent which being
developed would add to the wealth and welfare of the State,
and if that talent, for want of opportunity to discover itself, is
lost, like a gem in the unfathomed caves of ocean, the State is
the loser."
The wealth of a State consists in its men, in its treasures of
mind. True men are worth more to it than money. The man
who rears a large family of well trained children renders a greater
service to the State than the millionaire who leaves untold wealth
to unknown heirs. No town, city or State can afford' to abolish
its High School. Liberal and wise expenditures for education
always prove profitable investments. It has been well said,
" taxes raised for purposes of education are like vapors which
rise, only to descend again in fertilizing showers, to bless and
beautify the land." Though apparently the work of to-day,
the High School is really laying the foundations of the social
fabric for coming generations.
If New England is to maintain her influence, certainly the
opportunity for a High School education should here be held as
the heritage of the people, alike their interest and their right,
the source of private thrift and success, and of public safety and
prosperity. "While the center of population and power is rapidly
11
drifting toward the far West, New England can maintain her
influence only " by better education of the people, better intel¬
ligence, better skill in the arts of invention and discovery, and
in the processes and economies of production," and all these
are dependent on our schools.
The education which was ample for our fathers is insufficient
for their sons, who must be better equipped for the sharper con¬
flicts and rivalries of modern life, or failure awaits them. Men
who were relatively prominent fifty or seventy years ago could
win no success to-day. The business and industries of the
country and of the world involve far more application of sci¬
ence and skill than was demanded then. Our modern civiliz¬
ation requires enlarged opportunities of education for the whole
people. The rivalry of States and nations hereafter is to be in
inventions, in technical skill and in the dignity and efficiency of
labor. The great international expositions of industry during
the last twenty years, especially the Centennial at Philadelphia,
and the last Paris Exposition, are bringing the nations of
the world into sharper rivalry, and yet fraternizing their
diverse peoples, broadening their views, and inspiring them
with new ideas of modern civilization. The proudest exhibit at
Philadelphia, and the grandest product of American Education
was the people themselves. This product was as directly trace¬
able to our schools, as were the fabrics there shown to the mills
that made them. That so many millions of people attended
our exposition (over 260,000 in a single day), not only without
violence, but showing proofs of self-command, decorum, and
education, reflected more honor upon our nation than did all
the works of art and inventive talent there displayed. Visitors
from abroad were struck by the self-poise and orderly bear¬
ing of our people, and by the absence of the gendarmes so
conspicuous everwhere in the old world. Nowhere in Europe
would so large a throng be allowed to assemble without the
presence of the military which ever masks the necessity of thus
guarding the State under the semblance of giving eclat to all
public occasions. The public school was a leading factor in the
results seen in all our broad displays of inventive genius. But
for the work which the American High School has done,
Machinery Hall would have been meagre in size and mean in its
C3
12
exhibit. Oar country has been already enriched by its High
Schools. The money expended for their support has proved a
wise and profitable investment. Their results show that they
are demanded by a true and intelligent regard for the material
interests of the country.
A Pittsburgh writer, with no Puritan proclivities, says:
"New England early adopted the theory that it is the duty of
the State to support both common and High Schools, and as a
result of that education she presents to-day the most prosper¬
ous, intelligent and the freest people on the face of the globe.
Can her prosperity be justly attributed to any other cause?
Her climate is cold, her soil barren and stony, and she possesses
but few of the natural advantages which are the pride of other
States. Compare this section with the two Virginias, States
possessing as many natural advantages as any others, and see
if the great difference in their prosperity can be attributed to any
other cause than their difference in education. The area of New
England is about the same as that of Virginia—a little over
60,000 square miles. The population of New England is over
3,000,000, while that of Virginia is but one and a half million."
A striking illustration both of the difference and power of
public sentiment on education was furnished nearly two cen¬
turies ago by the replies given by two American colonies to
the English Commissioners of Foreign Plantations. The Gov-
ernor of Virginia replied, " I thank God we have no free schools
or printing presses, and I hope we shall not have these hundred
years." The Governor of Connecticut answered : " One fourth
the annual revenues of the colony is laid out in maintaining
free schools for the education of our children."
The main argument urged by the ablest opponent of our
High School system is that it is communistic in its principle
and tendencies. When I advocated the passage of a Free
School Law in Connecticut a dozen years ago, the bugbear
of Communism was the main reliance for the defence of the
old and odious rate-bill. Free schools would surely encourage
socialism in its most baneful form. Time tests all theories bet¬
ter than arguments. In Connecticut a decade of free schools
has witnessed no new tendencies to communism. Recent
elections in our State showed plainly the popular dread of all
13
socialistic dogmas, which were repudiated alike by both polit¬
ical parties. In Massachusetts, where free High Schools have
been maintained for more than two hundred years, there is as
little socialism as in any land in the world. Throughout the
Eastern States there is no tendency to communism among the
descendants of the genuine Hew England stock. The mini¬
mum that exists, is limited to a small fraction of the foreign
element. Though curiosity attracted crowds to hear Dennis
Kearney in the autumn of 1878, it is due to the intelligence of
the people, that his communistic tirades disgusted all classes,
and prompted the candidate who first sought his alliance
to disown his dogmas and disfellowship him.
Communism is an exotic in this land. It does not easily
take root in our soil, and our climate is uncongenial. Its chief
advocates are homeless foreigners. Even the immigrants long
domiciled here have become so schooled by public sentiment,
and by our free institutions, as to be well nigh assimilated and
Americanized. Schools and the diffusion of property are our
safeguard against socialistie extremes. In like manner, Swit¬
zerland, with institutions free as ours, is safe from communism,
for she has free schools and the general ownership of land.
Her common schools are absolutely free and her High Schools
charge a merely nominal tuition. Twenty dollars a year admits
a Swiss even to the National University. The Internationals
may meet in free Switzerland and nobody is frightened or dis¬
turbed by their vagaries. The communism now rampant in
Germany certainly cannot be due to free High Schools, for her
gymnasia and all higher schools charge tuition, and only the
lowest grade of schools is free. Her vast standing army, with
its enormous expenses and exactions, repressing the liberties
of the people, crushing their industries, embittering their
social life with sharp class distinctions, and transforming the
whole population into a camp, has created a great revulsion of
feeling. The glory of conquest, and the untold milliards of
the French Indemnity, mainly expended on new fortifications
now bristling with cannon, do not atone for the mourning and
bereavement brought to so many desolate homes. The heavy
burden of taxation, the dread of conscription, the fear of new
wars, and the inexorable law that every boy shall spend three
14
weary years in the camp, and the countless and constant other
reminders that the empire rests solely upon force, naturally
exasperates the people because it looks to force alone for its
supremacy.
It is objected that High Schools tend to pauperize the peo¬
ple, providing a kind of alms that no one can accept without
impairing his manliness and self-respect. But the High School
is no more a charity than is the free public road or bridge. It
is the interest of the State to adopt those plans which will pro¬
mote the greatest good for the greatest number, and especially
to furnish substantially equal school privileges to the children
of all classes. If I never use the mails, I may not oppose the
support of the postal department by the general government,
since it contributes to the highest good of the nation.
The right of a State to self-existence implies its right to sustain
such schools as are essential to its preservation and prosperity.
States and towns have the same right to support High Schools
as common schools, for the former provide the best and cheap¬
est means of increasing the efficiency of the latter. The State
need not and should not interfere with those enterprises and
institutions which are likely to be amply supported from the
expectation of gain, but all history shows that both,high and
common schools are not of this class. Of physicians, lawyers
and ministers, the demand will create a supply, but this is not
so in regard to schools and teachers, for the need is least felt
where that need is really greatest. One of the baneful and
blinding effects of ignorance is insensibility to the evils it
induces.
Educational taxes are founded primarily, not on the idea of
benefiting parents and children, but the broader view that the
State has a proprietary interest in all persons and property
within its bounds, and especially has a stake in her youth that
they may be well qualified for her service, whether that shall
be civil or military—on the farm, in the factory or counting
room. It was the better education of the masses in the North
that saved the Union during the late civil war, as it was the
ignorance of the " poor white trash," making them the dupes
of ambitious leaders, that rendered the rebellion possible in
the South.
15
An eminent opponent of High Schools, discarding the idea
that the republic can be saved by the general diffusion of pri¬
mary' education, advocates the special training of the wealthier
and higher classes to become leaders of society, as " there is
power in the spread of higher education and the sentiment of
honor associated with culture." But invaluable as is the high¬
est culture, the general diffusion and equalization of intelligence
is far more essential to the public welfare than the highest
•culture of a few aspiring to be leaders. Disseminate general
intelligence, and men of special gifts will arise, called out by
special emergencies. Thus you avoid the tendency character¬
istic of all past history, to separate society into diverse strata,
"in which a favored few and the masses figure as extremes of
intellect and ignorance, leadership and vassalage." In America,
experience has proved that it is safer to trust the people than
the politicians. Our intelligent yeomanry are, as a rule, just in
their sentiments, and their honest judgment must in the end
govern those who aspire to be leaders. Some, boasting of rank
or fortune, proud of their aloofness from the masses, deprecate
this equalizing of conditions which is the glory of the Amer¬
ican High School. But in this democratic country such snob¬
bishness is beneath argument or notice.
It benefits all classes thus to mingle together. Those whose
temptation and weakness come from undue reliance on rank or
riches, may learn a needed lesson of humility and energy, as
they wrestle with some bright and studious sons of penury.
On the other hand, the boy all his life, pinched by poverty,
dispirited by his hard lot, his humble parentage, his plain
home and plainer garb, gets a beneficent lesson of hope and
encouragement, as he wins the prizes for scholarship. The
High School is truly democratic, it is a great leveler, and the
best of it is, it always levels up. Money and station no where
count for less than in the recitation room. Here caste is
unknown. The children of the rich and poor sit side by side,
and work hand in hand, forgetful of all social distinctions.
That privilege, to my certain knowledge, has gladdened many
an obscure household. The richest prizes I have often seen
carried to the humblest homes. For in my official work it has
16
been my duty—or rather privilege—(and I ought not to think
myself a disciple of him who ever went about doing good,
unless I deemed it a privilege), to mingle much' wit^ the
masses,—with plain people. My sympathies have been deepty
enlisted as I have often found among their children earnest
scholars, gifted by nature, eager for improvement, hungering
and thirsting for knowledge, against whom, if you close the
High Schools, you bar the way to further progress.
It should be frankly admitted that some errors of School
Boards have given occasion, if not good reason, for dissatisfac¬
tion and complaint. In some High Schools the curriculum has
made them seem to be mainly feeders for the colleges, merely
preparatory departments for higher institutions, prescribing
studies of little practical use except to those who complete the
course. However close the sympathies of High Schools may
be with colleges, their sympathies should be still closer with
the general public, for the great majority of their scholars are
preparing, not for college, but practical callings upon which
they will enter on leaving the High School. There should
therefore be provided two courses of study—one full and com¬
plete for those who evince the fit taste and talent therefor, and
another designed for those who can take but a partial course.
It is a serious mistake.to encourage all in these schools to study
Latin or Greek. So far from disparaging classical culture, I
hold that there is no substitute for it in a full course of study.
But with the certainty of premature graduation of the majority
who enter High Schools, I strongly condemn the practice of
merely beginning the ancient classics or any modern language,
when the pupils' circumstances and settled plans permit only so
brief continuance in school that this smattering of a new lan¬
guage is gained at the expense of more essential and practical
learning. This common error is due to the ambition both of
scholars and teachers, the one aspiring prematurely to pursue
high sounding studies, and the other eager to swell their
classes in the classics, as if the reputation of their schools was
to be measured by the number of their students in Latin and
Greek. Sometimes a graduate fresh from college, well up in
the classics, eloquent on the advantages of their study and
ambitious to be a classical teacher, makes a whole school
17
giddy with dreams of Latin lore. To guard against such mis¬
takes and test the adaptations of pupils, I recommend that the
first two or three months in the High School he devoted to a
review of English branches, and that none begin the classical
course without a written request from their parents or guar¬
dians, and without showing aptitude for such studies.
A little preliminary drudgery over the Latin Grammar and
First Lessons, with no such facility in translation, or insight
into the forms and philosophy of the language as to make it
valuable as a discipline, or suggestive in other studies, to be
dropped forever when school days end, will poorly compensate
for the practical sciences thus displaced, or for that study of
our own language and unequalled English classics which would
foster a love of literature, healthful and lasting as life. It
should always be kept in mind by both scholar and teacher,
that the object of the High School is not to finish the edu¬
cation of any one, whether his course is partial or complete,
but to lay the foundation for future and higher attainments,
to teach the pupil how to study and inspire him with love
of learning. If this be done, he will for the rest, educate
himself, fully realizing' that his education is only begun when
his school days are ended. To complete it, will be the
ambition and pleasure of his life. Place him where you will,
let his calling be what it may, he will find leisure for study,
and occupy the intervals of labor or business engagements in
the cherished work of mental improvement.
While the study of ancient or modern languages is to be dis¬
couraged where school privileges are to be limited, a taste for
English literature and the natural sciences can be awakened
with a reasonable prospect of continuing the study in after life.
The most plausible objection to High Schools is that they
tend to make the children of the masses discontented and
averse to manual labor. So universal is the necessity of labor,
that this charge—were it true, should everywhere condemn
these schools. Nature and history alike confirm the old decree,
"in the sweat of thy face, shalt thou eat bread." But it is
a great mistake to suppose that education need create any aver¬
sion to labor.
Under the old system of slavery in the South and serf-
18
dom in Russia, and in relation to the equally illiterate farm
hands of England, it was held as an axiom that schooling
would make laborers discontented, restless and unprofitable
servants. But education may be the auxiliary of labor. In
room of the silly and baneful notion that labor is menial, or a
degrading drudgery, education may render it more productive,
profitable and inviting. More should be said and done in
our schools to dignify labor, and train our youth to become
cunning craftsmen. Pride in one's work leads to higher ex¬
cellence, both in his craft and character. The artizan who
delights to do his best to-day, will aspire to do still better
to-morrow. On the other hand, the theory that labor is a
degrading drudgery will demean any artizan and bar improve¬
ment in his trade.
Thus Germany, where education is carried to the highest
degree, honors and encourages industry. In like manner in
America the great problem of our day is to elevate work by first
educating and elevating the workman. We are, or certainly
should be, a working people, and the cause of the workman is
the cause of all. The masses are learning that mere muscle is
weak, that brains help the hands in all work, that knowledge
multiplies the productive power of labor. If knowledge is
power, ignorance is weakness and waste. What a man is,
stamps an impress upon what he does, even in the humblest
work. Whatever elevates the laborer, improves his labor.
You can dignify labor therefore in no way so surely as by edu¬
cating and elevating the workman. The wealth and welfare
of individuals and states, always dependent on labor, can be
most fully secured only by educated labor. If rightly con¬
ducted, therefore, our High Schools, so far from breeding dis¬
content with the humblest pursuits, will prepare for success in
the ordinary callings of life.
To intelligent foreigners, our High Schools present a most
striking feature of our educational system. The recent report
of F. Buisson, of the French Commission appointed to examine
the American School System, comprising the fullest and ablest
investigation of this subject ever made by any European, gives
an interesting description of our High Schools, a single para¬
graph from which deserves reprinting in this connection.
19
" No part of the American School System is more essentially
national than are the High Schools. No part of the system
presents features that are more original, or in some respects
further removed from European ideas, no part of the system is
worthy of more profound study. Peruse the course of study
in these High Schools, think of those children of workmen
passing four or five years in adorning, strengthening and cul¬
tivating their minds by studies that everywhere else are reserved
for the well-to-do classes, and tell us, if these institutions do
not bear the seal and impress of American civilization. Has
not the American a right to be proud when he shows us the
son and the daughter of the humblest artizan so mentally
elevated that between them and the privileged of fortune, no
difference of culture is to be discovered ? If it is glorious to
see society freely giving to the poor the benefits of a public
school education, is it not a still more extraordinary spectacle
to behold a nation that deems it would wrong its humblest citi¬
zens, were their children denied any opportunity for the full and
free expansion of their minds. Here is a country where there
are hundreds of free High Schools on the same footing as the
most primary establishments. They are not professional
schools, but in the fullest sense popular schools, intended to
give the people the best and loftiest results of liberal education.
They open up no special pursuits, they lead to all pursuits,
without distinction, forming bright, intelligent youths trained
to studies of every kind, qualified to select for themselves
among the various callings and skilled to succeed therein. So
far as social equality can be reached on this earth, it is attained
by the American High School. In other countries, the chil¬
dren of different classes of society, though brought together
for a while in the public school, must soon be separated by the
whole distance between their respective families. In the
United States every effort is made to diminish this separation
and to carry as far as possible that common instruction which
effaces the distinction of rich and poor. If it be true that the
prosperity of a republic is proportioned to the replenishment
of its middle classes, then the High School of the United States,
whatever it may cost, is the best investment of capital that can
possibly be made."
20
Professor Huxley strongly puts a kindred thought. " No
system of public education is worthy of the name unless it
creates a great educational ladder, with one end in the gutter
and the other in the university."
A paragraph from an address of Ex-Gfovernor Hubbard is
worth repeating here: "I want to see labor which is the
first interest of society, the government, of the world, made to
think as well as work—to think first for political uses, that it
may learn to govern itself; next for industrial uses that the
working brain may lend cunning to the working hand, to think
at the plough, at the anvil, at the forge, at the loom, as
Blanchard thought out the turning-lathe, McCormick the
reaper, Howe the sewing-machine, Hoe the printing press,
Bigelow the power-loom, Groodyear the vulcanization of India
rubber, and Edison's thinking out from day to day inventions
and discoveries which almost outrun the dreams of professional
scientists. These sons of the common schools are the true
artists, and their works the true fine arts of the world, compared
with which the so-called artists and fine arts of painting, statu¬
ary and music are barren and secondary creations. So then I
stand for the common schools as the life of free government,
the friend, educator and uplifter of the laboring classes, the
defence of the people against themselves, and so in a.large
sense, a substitute for standing armies, and the best possible
solution of the much vexed labor question. Abolish free
schools, or starve and cripple them, and free institutions will
go down with them. On the other hand, increase the number
of High Schools, multiply free libraries, make education not
only gratuitous but universal, and you shall have more school
houses to build, to be sure, but fewer jails, more Benjamin
Franklins, but fewer Dennis Kearneys, more honest voters,
but fewer repeaters and ballot-box stuffers, better laws, better
administration, and with these, better liberties, better justice
and a better social and intellectual life."
High Schools benefit not their graduates only but the whole
community. They are essential to the efficiency of the com¬
mon schools. They promote the greatest good of the greatest
number. They are far more useful even than military, naval
and agricultural schools. The latter are properly supported at
21
public expense, though attended by very few. The benefit
they confer on the whole community, not the number of their
graduates, is just ground for their support by general tax. The
opportunity of free and full education is the corner stone of
American civilization and progress. The present remarkable
demand for American inventions, machines and fabrics in
nearly all the markets of the world should stimulate increased
interest in secondary education, and commend our High
Schools more than ever to the hearts of the American people.
On this subject the lessons of experience should be heeded.
I give, therefore, in a condensed form the following testimony
from gentlemen who have had the widest opportunities of ob¬
servation in regard to the results of High Schools—
More than all, High Schools are important because they
constitute the only trustworthy agency to bring worthy
representatives of the lower classes into the councils of
the State and the organism of society. Abolish the High
Schools and at once you draw a broad line of separation be¬
tween the rich and the poor. You limit the higher education
to the well-to-do, who only have the means to pay for it,
and this would prove a damaging venture for the State.
Mainly the cultured classes are found to be the governing
classes, and among its governing classes society needs the
representatives of the poor. It needs them that there may al¬
ways be strong men coming to the front, with powers so tem¬
pered by culture as to make them wise, to represent the humble
class from which they sprung, and demand the consideration
due to their needs and their rights. These are the men, too,
in the social exigencies which sometimes occur, when passion
becomes rampant among the masses, and the restraints of law
are defied, to throw themselves into the track of the storm and
allay its violence. Far better this than the alternative, if
you do not bestow the culture ; for those who are born to be
the leaders of men, will assert their prerogatives, whether or
no, and the born leaders from among the poor, if they be not
tempered by culture, become the ignorant demagogues, whose
leadership is anarchy.—II. I\ Harrington, Supt. of Schools, New
Bedford.
If the High School is open to all, that, in connection with
the lower schools, will have a tendency to preserve a repub¬
lican equality, which is always disturbed when the advantages
of a higher education are limited to a few. It is true that not
all the pupils of the elementary schools will attend the High
Schools, but the latter are open alike to all who choose to
22
avail themselves of their advantages. There will be more
educated people in every town maintaining a High School
than there would be without it; and the more educated people
there are, the greater will be the development of material re¬
sources, the more perfect the security of property and of per¬
sons, the higher the civilization and the more complete the
facilities for the unmolested enjoyment of all the objects of our
natural rights.
High schools in our public-school system hold the relation of
a part to the whole. Without them the pupils of the element¬
ary schools would be sent out into public life without a
proper training of their reflective faculties, and there would no
longer be open to all, the means of obtaining that knowledge
which directs to a successful life. Free instruction in the
higher branches of learning is necessary to prevent those class
distinctions, that are sure to spring up, if such instruction can
be obtained only by a favored few. A republican state and
republican society are both impossible unless the children of
the state are educated together in the same schools. Rank in
human society has nothing to do with the right or the import¬
ance of human culture. Wherever there is a human being,
there should be furnished an opportunity for the highest cul¬
ture, and in this country, at least, we should not for a moment
admit that the advantages of birth have anything to do in
determining what are our natural rights. The laboring classes
of the country should be especially interested in supporting
the secondary schools, for unless higher instruction is free
alike to all, their children may be deprived of it, and with its
loss will be taken away the possibility of their holding equal
rank with the more fortunate, even in our American society.
Give a boy a good education, and, though wanting in wealth or
ancestral renown, he will take his place among his fellows, the
peer of the richest and the noblest. Hostility to High schools
is therefore hostility to the best interests of all classes, but it
is dangerous to the vital interests of that large class that must
depend on free public schools for their education.
The opulent should be interested in these schools, for, by
their influence on the education of the masses, the civilization
of the state is exalted, life and property are more secure, and
all the good ends for which human society was instituted will
be more fully secured. Neither private interest nor political
ambition, nor sectarian zeal should move us to waver for an
instant in the full and cordial support of these educational insti¬
tutions established by the fathers and which in time of peace
and war, in times of plenty and want, have been thus far so
nobly maintained by their children.— Hon. J. W. Dickinson,
Sec. State Bd. Ed., Mass.
28
The demand for educated directive power is on the increase,
by reason of the fact that machinery is taking the place of
mere hand-labor; and as a result, a grade of intelligence is
necessary that can understand and manage complicated labor-
saving contrivances.
If a town sends its own native-born youth into the sub¬
ordinate positions, and hires at a higher rate of wages the
directive skill which is needed to lay out and supervise their
work, it will find itself obliged to pay a much higher sum for
the supervisory work than would suffice to train its own pop¬
ulation for the purpose.
The protection of the community' as a social body—its
common weal—is now generally recognized as a duty of gov¬
ernment as important as the political necessity for diplomacy
and military defense. A State that allows its population to
be starved into the necessity of migrating to another land,
while it could prevent this by founding industries and a sys¬
tem of popular education, violates to its own cost the plain
principles of political economy and social science. A State
that allows itself to go to decay socially will perish as certainly
as if it allowed a foreign State to overrun it.
The necessity of free primary education for social prosper¬
ity is well enough understood in the United States, but the
justification of free higher education is not understood, al¬
though widely conceded. The psychological relation of a
knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic to the practical
success of a common laborer is easily seen by an average mind ;
but the relation of higher studies to success in directing the
labor and in controlling the political policy of the entire com¬
munity, is not seen except by those minds that can take in
and comprehend the scope of the general process which the
community as a whole is involved in.
We have heard it said that education unfits the common
people for their vocations—that it makes them seek a livelihood
in the professions, and causes them to aspire above and be¬
yond their sphere. Nothing could intimate a more profound
ignorance of the revolution that is in progress in the realm of
productive industry, than this utterance of the opponents to
popular education. The progressive change in society involves
a process of substituting machinery for hand-labor ; hence the
change of vocations constantly occurs. The man not able to
understand and direct machines cannot gain as a common
laborer a decent subsistence. More than this, if he cannot
learn readily the direction of a new machine—cannot change
the minor details of his vocation—he is liable at a moment's
warning to be thrown out of employment by the invention of
a new labor-saving machine that will render useless his already
acquired skill.
24
The distress of the laboring population is well known to
the students of social science; its chief source is this one of
the change of vocation rendered necessary by the progress of
invention. Science and the useful arts are making sure ad¬
vance at an accelerated speed; the emancipation of the race
from drudgery, on the whole, is rapidly going forward; but
the uneducated laborer—that is to say, the laborer whose
education is only special, and includes only a form of skill
or of manual dexterity, instead of a general intellectual train¬
ing—is continually thrown aside, just as antiquated out-of-
date machines are thrown into the lumber-room. Ability to
readjust one's vocation belongs only to those who have gen¬
eral intelligence—such intelligence as school-training gives, or
rather such as the insights of science give, whether acquired at
school or elsewhere.
This general consciousness of the possibility of rising above
the stations into which they were born is the heritage of all
people who know the meaning of the new industrial evangel
that Providence has sent to this age. The conquest of nature,
the subjugation of the forces of nature and their employment
to provide the means for food, clothing and shelter—the
three material wants of man—keep equal step with the march
of science. The individual laborer is continually pushed up¬
ward to vocations that are ministrative to the spiritual wants
of man—those of amusement and culture—and to such mate¬
rial vocations as require more intellectual versatility and alert¬
ness of mind.
Our systems of education not only do not over-educate the
children of the people, but they scarcely equal the most urgent
demands of society. Every day it happens that society suffers
by the incompetence of persons in places of directive power;
every day it suffers by reason of the inability of the human
laborer to readjust himself to the rapidly-moving tide of pro¬
ductive industry that makes his vocation no longer needed.
More general culture—the elevation of all minds to the plane
of generalization, of thinking-activity instead of mere imagina¬
tion and conventional opining—is what is required.— W. T.
Harris, Supt. of Schools, St. Louis.
It has been objected that " the High School provides facili¬
ties for education which the common people do not need and
ought not to have. Too much education makes a man restless
and discontented with his inevitable lot, and makes him disin¬
clined to labor. Man was born to obey, too much education
makes him self-important, ambitious, unwilling to obey, but
desirous to command." Most of those who thus say there is
too much education for the masses are, in principle, monar¬
chists or oligarchists who believe in the divine right of the few
to rule the many and who hold that "the minimum amount of
25
education that will make good citizens is the maximum amount
' which the State may give, and the knowledge of the primary
branches being all that is essential to good citizenship, the State
may furnish this and nothing more." The grand purpose of life
is not that we may be governed, not that we may govern, but that
we may become happier, wiser and better, and all associational
enterprises should have, this end in view. But how much in¬
telligence is necessary t(5 enable a man to perform the functions
of citizenship? The intelligence that manifests itself in a wise
system of laws must necessarily reside in the people. Good
citizenship requires intelligence enough to make good laws and
patriotism enough to obey and defend them. To obey is the
duty of the subject, neither great wisdom nor a high degree of
civilization is necessary to perform this duty. An ignorant
man can be a good subject, thinking the opinions and executing
the will of others, but he cannot properly execute the functions
of good citizenship. The highest form of citizenship necessi¬
tates the highest form of intelligence. A limitation of intel¬
ligence is necessarily an abridgment of citizenship. Every
voter of the State is a lawmaker. He expresses his thought
through the ballot, and thus his intelligence manifests itself in
the laws of the commonwealth. The more intelligence we put
behind the ballot, the more stable will our institutions become,
and the more ignorance we suffer behind the ballot, the sooner
will they show signs of weakness and decay.
It is objected that only the rich few enjoy the advantages of
the High School. But the claim that it is patronized by the
wealthy and not by the poor, is wholly without foundation; in fact
the majority of its patrons are of the poorer classes. It may be
said that this is an argument which the large taxpayers may turn
against the High School. But it is one of the best agencies by
which property is protected. Every poor man knows that his boy
has an opportunity to occupy a higher position in life than he oc¬
cupies himself, he knows that means are provided by which his
son may have an equal chance in the race of life with the son
of his wealthy neighbor. This is the chief glory of our coun¬
try, and this feeling, more than anything else, makes him a
good citizen, contented with his lot. He feels that the govern¬
ment does something for him and more for his children. This
makes him obedient to the laws and a patriotic defender of
them when they are assailed. Take away the hope of the poor
man that his child may occupy a higher position than his own,
and the rights of property will not be as secure as they are to¬
day. The High School is one of the means by which the sons
of the poor may climb up in the world. If the wealthy pay
for the High School, it is a good investment for them, for it is
a better protection to property than a thousand policemen.—
James H. Smart, Supt. of Schools, Indiana.
26
The High School may educate a small percentage of our
youth and still be a necessary agent in the system, reflex in its
influence on the schools below it, elevating their scholarship,
inciting their pupils to high endeavors, and furnishing to the
aspiring and energetic a culture, without which their intellectual
progress would be arrested at a very early stage.—Hon. D.
Burt, Slate School Supt., Minn.
The usefulness of the High School is beyond expression,
wielding an influence for good over the district schools of the
town—an influence which would not be seen except for its
presence. There would be, of course, excellent district schools
without it, but not as excellent or as perfect in their usefulness
and work. The High School beyond them of necessity makes
their undertakings more active and more substantial. Their
scholars look forward to the High School as a goal to be ob¬
tained, and their teachers give them all aids within their power
to render them successful in reaching it. If there were no other
influences which it exercised but this alone, the High School
would be worth unmeasured values for the cost at which it is
maintained.—J. H. Brocklesby, Acting Visitor, Hartford.
The wisdom of the establishment of the High School becomes
more and more apparent. If argument were needed for its
continuance and liberal support, this is found in the stimulus
it presents to the pupils of the Grammar Schools for faithful
work, in order to get the benefit of the higher training. The
graduates of the school will furnish the other schools with
teachers as vacancies occur, so that we shall not need to look
to other places for a supply, as has been necessary in the past.
—H. M. Harrington, Supt. of Schools, Bridgeport.
The members of our High School are largely composed of the
children of the poor, and in scholarship they are equal to the
children of the rich. Many of those who are now pursuing
their studies in our schools are fitting themselves for positions
of usefulness which would have been entirely beyond their
reach if it had not been for these beneficent provisions.—Geo.
W. Pike, Acting Visitor, Killingly.
The Legislature of Rhode Island not long since instructed its
committee on education to inquire and report whether the public
money now expended on High Schools might not be used oth¬
erwise more to the public advantage. The report of the com¬
mittee in response to this inquiry stated that " The higher ed¬
ucation is the fountain of popular education. In all countries
where great success has attended the efforts to instruct the
masses, it has been due to influences emanating from higher
seminaries of learning. Whatever influences operate detri¬
mentally to the High Schools, in the same degree militate against
the real efficiency of the elementary schools."
is?:;;!;,
Caylord Bros.
Makers
Syracuse, N. Y.
WW. AM. 24,1908
Date Due