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EDUCATION, NEW AND OLD
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more safely be left to choose for himself. One's eyes must be already well opened to hop about, fetter free, from twig to twig, upon the tree of knowledge. But our freshman has had no such mental discipline; he has made no such acquisitions. The graduate of a German gymnasium knows, indeed, more of some subjects than the majority of the professors of the same subjects in not a few of our so-called colleges. Two years more of continued study in prescribed lines is certainly little enough. [It will be noticed that this statement is quite independent of any opinion as to what should be taught in fitting-school and early college years; it implies only that something should be secured as thoroughly taught.]

We are afraid of the effect of the New Education upon the academies and fitting-schools of the country. Slowly but steadily the quality of the work done in the preparation of boys for college has been improving. The colleges have continually made increased demands upon the preparatory schools; these schools have been continually responding better and better to the demands made upon them. But now they are to be called upon for a bewildering variety of "courses." How shall they meet the demands made upon them by the many ways amongst which a boy may make his choice to enter the college doors as thrown open by the New Education? What interest will boys continue to take