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THE HIGHER EDUCATION

cation of the university should leave every learner free to follow any special examples of one or more of them, according to his aptitude and choice. At the same time, even in the secondary education, a generous allowance should be made—as I have already said—for differences in aptitudes, in view of the twofold aim of all scientific culture. But this allowance should not be made subject to the choice of the pupil from term to term, or from year to year,—if for no other reason, still because a real continuity or organic and vital connection cannot be secured in this way for the different parts of the secondary education. Nor should the allowance be made in the form of a great variety of parallel courses among which the pupil must choose. This plan is open, though in less degree, to the same objection as the foregoing. Moreover, unless it is further limited, it does not secure thorough training in the four great branches of learning and discipline of which I have spoken. And, finally, it inevitably results in the repetition, in the small, of the same attempt at compulsory imparting of a smattering of many knowledges, of which the unrevised college curriculum in this country has been accused. The secondary education should, then, consist of required studies in all these four branches; but it should be arranged in such a way as to be thorough in a very few examples under each, and it should be divided into