Page:Essays on the Higher Education.djvu/83

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THE FITTING-SCHOOL
67

of the fitting schools of the country. A closer and more intelligent alliance must somehow be effected between the earlier and the later parts of the secondary education. As the case now stands, this is equivalent to saying that the colleges and advanced scientific schools on the one hand, and the preparatory schools on the other hand, must enter into a closer and more intelligent alliance. The connections existing in reality between the instruction of the last years of the preparatory school and the instruction of the first years of college are much more intimate than those existing between any other parts of our entire system of education. As the courses of instruction in almost all our colleges are now arranged, and as they probably will be arranged for a long time to come, the youth passes from the preparatory school to the college with no break whatever in the character of his education. He continues the study of the same subjects, in about the same way, for two years or more longer. His staple daily tasks in the earlier part of the secondary education were the classical languages and mathematics; they are the same now that he has achieved the distinction of passing under the college curriculum.

And indeed there is no good reason why the character of the instruction should be greatly changed when the youth enters college. There is