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BY PROF. WM. W. GOODWIN, OF CAMBRIDGE.

[A paper read at the late meeting of the High School section of the State Association, Oct. 22, 1869.]

THE question of university reform is every year assuming greater importance, but its discussion has been confined chiefly to academic bodies, and to those immediately interested in promoting higher scholarship. I shall attempt to show, in the present paper, that this question concerns also those who have charge of our High-school education, and that the High Schools must play an important part in carrying out any successful plan of university reform. What I have to say applies especially to those schools which are devoted mainly or entirely to preparing boys for college, and, with more or less qualification, to all High Schools.

It is only by a most absurd perversion of ideas, and completely losing sight of the purpose for which both school and college exist, that even a suspicion of mutual antagonism or diversity of interests could arise. The notion, for example, that a standard of admis sion to college can be so set as to be at the same time beneficial to the college and injurious to the school, is one which ought to need no refutation in an assembly of scholars. The best interests of sound learning - which are the same for both schools and colleges should decide this question, and no subordinate interests should be considered. Indeed, where all the schools are under

the same direction, and a uniform standard can be assumed in all (as in Germany), it is found best to give over the whole business of examining for admission to the university to the authorities of the schools, who are justly supposed to be best qualified for the task by their knowledge of the pupils and of their studies. And I never heard a complaint that the Abiturient-examen of a German gymnasium erred on the side of lenity.

But although the general principle may be admitted, still complaints are often heard from the schools of the requisitions of the colleges, and other equally loud complaints come from the colleges of what are deemed shortcomings in the schools. If the college raises its requisitions for admission, the schools sometimes feel that there is an attempt to impose on them work which the college ought to do for itself; and when boys come to college imperfectly prepared in Greek or Latin declensions and conjugations, or in decimal fractions, the college complains that school work is unfairly imposed on it, which it has no time or means to perform. Now this state of things will never cease, until teachers on both sides are agreed at least upon the general principle of division of labor between colleges and schools. One thing, however, is beyond dispute: if we assume that there is to be progress in the higher learning in this country, it follows that there must be equal progress in our schools. There is an immense gap between the best American college and the university of Berlin. But there is a gap of exactly the same width between an American High School and a Prussian gymnasium, and you cannot bridge over the former gap unless at the same time and with equal care you bridge over the latter. If the universities of Germany could be brought to America to-morrow, and put in the place of our present colleges, with all their professors changed to English-speaking Yankees, they would die for want of support, like so many trees cut off from their roots. Unless the German schools were imported also, the universities would be so much useless lumber. I would here remark that I am not one of those who believe in the importation of either a German or an English university to meet our wants. The prominent features of the English university, those by which we are accustomed to recognize it, are at this moment exposed to

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such severe criticism at home, that it would seem at least hazardous to import a system upon which reformers are at work even more vigorously than they are upon our own. And before the German university could be domesticated here, with its entire freedom from restraint and from all attempt to regulate directly either the nature or the amount of a pupil's study, the institutions of our country would require a change which the most ardent university reformer would shrink from suggesting. In Germany, the absence of direct control over the university studies which strikes some

foreigners with horror, and others with sentimental enthusiasm is more than made up by indirect government control, which is rigid and effective, though distant. In fact, there is no country in the world where such tangible rewards for scholarship and learning are held out for the competition of students at the universities as are offered in Germany. It is not by importing a university system, but by slowly developing our own college system, and by adding to it whatever single advantages are presented by various foreign systems, that we can hope to see an American university established which shall be worthy of the name.

But although I believe that we can develop from our own resources a form of university better suited to our wants than either the English or the German would be if imported bodily, I am sure that in some way the standard of our scholarship is to be raised to a level with that of Europe, not in this generation, perhaps not in the next; but it will be done in time. And it must be done by slow and steady progress, and by the united efforts of the whole body of our teachers. There must be no uncertainty and no dispute between teachers in different institutions as to the great end to be attained, however much there may be as to the details. I will here refer for an illustration to the relation of a German school to a German university, not with a view of recommending the details of either, but because there we find the highest standard of scholarship, and also the most perfect understanding as to the exact province of the public school and the university.

I have here one of the latest programmes of the Friedrichs-Werdersche Gymnasium at Berlin, one of the best Prussian schools, where Tumpt was once Professor, and where the present Prime Minister of

Prussia was educated. It appears from the report of the Director (Dr. Edward Bonnell, well known as a Latin scholar, especially for his labors in Quintilian), that the pupils receive twenty-eight or thirty hours instruction in each week, of which time less than a half is occupied with Latin and Greek.* The full course of study now occupies nine years (the pupils generally leaving school when they are nineteen), although very many shorten the time by doing extra work. Latin is begun in the first year, and Greek in the third. During the first four years Nepos and Phædrus are the only Latin authors mentioned by name in the course of study; but extensive compilations and readers are used from the first. During the last five years, however, and often in less time, the following Latin is read: Cæsar (7 books of Gallic War); Virgil's Eneid and some Eclogues; the whole of Curtius; Cicero (4 orations against Catiline; against Verres, book V.; orations for the Manilian Law, for Archias, for Roscius of Ameria, for Milo; De Oratore, 2 books; De Officiis, 3 books; and some Epistles); Tacitus (3 books of Histories); Horace (4 books of Odes); Quintilian (book 10th); several books of Livy; and parts of Ovid. In Greek the course for the last five years (or less) includes 20 books of the Iliad, 18 of the Odyssey, 6 books of the Anabasis, 1 book of Thucydides, 7 orations of Demosthenes, the Antigone of Sophocles; and the Apology, Crito, Protagaras, and 2 books of the Republic, of Plato. Mathematics occupy three and a half hours a week, for nine years; Physics or Natural Science two hours a week for five years; History and Geography three hours a week for eight years and four hours for one year. studies, as Hebrew and Drawing, are optional; and many pupils accomplish much more work than is required in the regular studies.

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Those who have passed this course of school-study are admitted, after a severe examination, to the university. Most of the instruction there is adapted to those who bring this amount of preparation, and it would be of no use to those who were merely fitted to enter an American College. When we see the rich choice of lec

* I speak especially of these departments, because I am better acquainted with the manner of teaching in them, in the gymnasium and in the university.

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tures in every department of science which is offered in the university programmes, a choice so rich that even the specialist finds it hard to select from those offered in his speciality, - and reflect that this would be as impossible in Germany as in America, were it not for the schools, we feel that no small portion of our thanks should be given to the system of government supervision, which has filled Germany with public schools of so high a character.

The relation here described will show us what must be the position of the American school when our standard of university education is raised to the point at which we should aim; and (in my opinion) no teacher in our country does his duty, either in the college or in the school, who does not exert all his influence in favor of raising both our colleges and our schools to the highest rank that has ever been attained anywhere, no matter if ultimate success seems impossible in this, or even in the next, generation.

What now should be the main principle on which we should aim to distribute our work between the school and the university? This is, after all, the great practical question. It seems to me that it is this: it is not the business of a university to teach the elements of any science which can be begun and studied to advantage at school. The simplest doctrines of economy teach us that it is a wicked waste of our resources to use a costly and complicated machine for work which a cheaper and simpler one will do as well, or better. Now a university is an expensive institution, and instruction costs three or four times as much there as it does in a school. Harvard College in 1867-68 spent about $100,000 in educating four hundred and seventy-nine undergraduates, or more than two hundred dollars on each. This includes $20,000 paid directly to meritorious students in the shape of scholarships, prizes, and gifts, amounting to more than two-fifths of the tuition fees; but it takes no account of property valued at more than $1,000,000, in the form of buildings, land, and library, of which the students enjoyed the use. It is only by help of its endowments that the college can afford to give this education for less than half of its actual cost. Now on what principle can we justify the use of an institution thus endowed and thus costly, even with the most economical management, in teaching boys to construe Xenophon or

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