training. The demands of present methods are imperative for improved power in instruction. Science is not well taught in all schools. There is a school which teaches biology from a manual without specimen, microscope, or illustrations. It was a humiliating confession of the committee that the classical course is superior, for the reason that it is difficult to find enough instructors competent to teach modern subjects by modern methods.
A very important point, recognized by the committee, is the advantage of postponing as long as possible the necessity of making a final choice of courses. In this country we have no fixed conditions of rank, and the poor man's son has the same privileges as the sons of position and wealth. Hence, the station in life is not determined by the differentiation in courses at an early period. Very few parents decide upon the final character of the child's instruction much before the beginning of the college period.
For these reasons many would not agree with the conference recommendation to begin Latin at an earlier period. It would not be economy; there is enough else that belongs to the elementary stage of education, and no plan is feasible that is founded upon the foreign view of caste and fixed condition in life.
Uniformity in requirements for admission to college was the subject of the report that finally led to this investigation. Although uniformity is not prominently urged in the report of the Committee of Ten, doubtless the logical outcome of the latter report will be a tendency toward some kind of uniformity.
