Touching the theme of higher education, inquiries were sent to a large number of universities, colleges, and secondary schools. The first two questions related to the work of secondary education, and were as follows: (1) What should the high-school graduate be when entering college? (2) What does he lack of an ideal education when he enters? Considering the general character of the questions, the answers were all that might be expected, and they are valuable for the limit of their range, as well as for what they express, since they show that, concerning the main purpose of education, there is nothing new to be said.
The following are opinions that represent the majority or appear important as individual views: (1) The high-school graduate, when entering college, should possess a mind educated by methods that create interest and make power to think and generalize—power to do original work. (2) He should have an acquaintance with each field of knowledge, and should show a symmetrical development of his mental activities. (3) As tending to produce greater interest, knowledge, and power, he should have been trained in only a limited number of subjects in each field; in these subjects the work should have been continuous
- ↑ Read before the National Association of City Superintendents, at Jacksonville, Florida, in 1896.
