cation should require of all their pupils at least a certain amount of particular kinds of mental acquirement and culture, as a prerequisite to entrance upon university studies. This amount should be notably greater than that now exacted for admission to our highest-class colleges. In my judgment, it should be even somewhat greater than that now attained by the average junior in such colleges.
It is at once objected, to the proposal to enforce a considerable amount of training in definite branches of learning and culture upon every pupil, that the number of modern sciences is far too great to require even a smattering of them all in the secondary education. And, it is added, a smattering of many sciences is equivalent to no science; it is even positively injurious to the mind of the learner, while the attempt to enforce it makes a potpourri of education which is quite as unreasonable as that composed for themselves by some of those pupils who enjoy the freest exercise of choice. All this and more is undoubtedly true in objection to a certain way of working the principle of compulsion through the whole of the secondary education. But I have not urged that a certain large number of particular sciences should be enforced in the secondary education of every pupil. I have only spoken of an amount and number of knowledges and disciplines which are requisite for such a secondary education as will serve for a
