given by teachers every one of whom has had a thorough education, and arranged in courses intelligently selected and organically united by the highest learning and skill?
The other section of the secondary education of the country—viz., that which lies within the curriculum of the college, or the highest-class scientific school—is also as truly, if not as largely and obviously, in an unsatisfactory condition. The best fitting-schools, whether academies or highschools, are not infrequently better off, with respect to the character of their teachers, pupils, courses of study, and means for handling their courses, than are the greater part of our so-called colleges. Still, almost all the colleges are constantly making important changes for the better. No doubt the colleges of the first rank are, considering the material from which their pupils must be made, on account of the unsatisfactory condition of the early part of the secondary education, doing excellent work. I think it would not be extravagant to say that the American colleges are now giving to the average pupil a more thorough education than is bestowed upon any but their honor-men by any of the universities of Great Britain. But these colleges, too, are prevented, by certain conditions which lie partly within and partly outside of themselves, from doing the best work in the way of continuing the secondary education. Accordingly,
