200 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
by Harvard a generation ago not only ushered in the dawn of the new edu- 
sation in this country, but it definitely gave the leadership in education to 
the university and -college, and forced secondary schools to follow in a 
large way the course marked out by the higher institutions. While the 
secondary school that has individuality—and to be excellent its personality 
must be vivid—will always have a curriculum that will mark its identity, 
still, from its very terminology and from its place in the scheme of educa- 
sion it is ever a preparatory school, following in a large degree the lines 
marked out by the higher institutions. To be preparatory it must do 
much of its work with full reference to that more advanced life of the 
scholar into which it seeks to introduce its pupils in the college and 
nniversity. In other terms, the work of the college and university inevit- 
ably determines very largely the character of the work in the secondary 
school. With the intimate relation between the higher and lower institu- 
sion thus established, we draw near the statement of the first reason that 
compels a readjustment of the studies in preparatory schools. 
When the writer passed the entrance examinations to Harvard Univer- 
sity twenty-one years ago there was one prescribed way of admission, and 
only one. His preparation was gained in the Cambridge Latin School, 
confessedly as good a school as sent boys to Harvard at that time. The 
requirements were as follows : The merest smattering of physical geography, 
gathered from verbatim recitations from alittle manual, the time for which 
was stolen from the first or last ten minutes of a three-quarter-hour recita- 
tion in Latin, Greek, or mathematics. This was the full extent of a boy’s 
sraining in the sciences required for admission to Harvard twenty years 
ago. To complete the course there were four years’ study of Latin, three 
of Greek, a year’s work in the classical history of Greece and Rome, 
arithmetic through mensuration, algebra through quadratics, and plane 
geometry. No French, no German, no English, no science ; for the require- 
ment in physical geography, already referred to, cannot be mentioned seri- 
ously except to emphasize with a keen sarcasm the complete absence of 
all scientific training. This preparation admitted a boy to a college where 
the elective system was already sufficiently in operation to dominate all of 
the work of senior and junior years, and all but four hours a week of 
sophomore year, with the exception of three or four themes and forensics 
a year. 
Oould the Cambridge High-School, which may be fairly regarded a type 
of the schools of its class, be reasonably called a preparatory school to 
Harvard University, in view of the meagre preparation it gave a boy to 
make a wise choice and selection of the rich volume of elective studies 
‘nvitingly spread before him on the university schedule ? 
But it is to preparatory schools as they now are that our argument in 
behalf of an extension of science studies and a limiting of language 
studies is to be directed. It will be found, however, that this same dis- 
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