English have come to denominate as secondary education, work in sciences, technology and art now given quite extensively as a supplement to the instruction in the elementary schools. In all these typical secondary schools the ordinary age of admission is nine or thereabout. Children are taught before this age in small private schools or by tutors. Very few go from the public elementary system into the secondary schools. The latter remain, therefore, as throughout history, the schools of the aristocratic and professional classes.
Here it is that the system of the United States has come to differ from that of Europe. For the secondary schools in this country are simply one stage in a continuous system. This result has come from gradual growth, for in the beginning American secondary schools were very much like those of Europe. In colonial days they consisted of grammar-schools, which had about the same purpose and curriculum as the English grammar-schools. Especially were they intended to prepare for college. Later they were largely superseded by the academies, which were under private control, although often endowed. These institutions became centers of educational life in various communities, and besides preparing for college better than grammar-schools had done, they constituted finishing-schools for most of those who attended them. Some of them grew into colleges. Their curriculum came to be much more liberal than had been that of the grammar-schools. English, including grammar and, later, rhetoric and literature, geography, natural philosophy, astronomy and, sometimes, chemistry and botany, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, surveying, navigation and history; and, later, modern languages and commercial branches, as well as the classics, were taught. The academies remain an important factor in the education of the United States, but they have been overshadowed by the high schools, the development of which is due to the growth of the idea that secondary education should be supported and controlled by the public. The first of these schools was established at Boston in 1621. Since then they have spread over all the Union, to-day numbering nearly seven thousand. They are supported and controlled by the local communities where they exist. Most of them are coëducational. The course of study usually takes four years, and pupils enter at about 14. As a rule the student may elect among several courses, which are denominated, according to the leading subjects of study in each, as classical, literary, scientific, Latin-scientific, modern-languages or commercial. In recent years there has been some agitation concerning the length of the high-school course. Some would have it cover six years, embracing the work of the last two years in the elementary schools. Others would have it encroach on the college; and graduate, high-school work is actually undertaken in some places, especially where the local facilities for college education are poor. The high schools have been compelled to do very efficient work in college preparatory subjects by the pressure of college demands. In many states, especially in the west — they are inspected by the university authorities, and, if found satisfactory, their graduates are admitted to the university without examination. Thus a system of inspection has grown up, the main one found in the United States for secondary schools. The complaint has become general, however, that high schools are dominated too much by the colleges, so that they aim merely to prepare for the latter and neglect the interests of that vast majority who do not go to college. To-day the tendency is for the high school to become more independent, even to the extent of compelling the college to accept their standards of graduation as qualifying for entrance. Many high schools have been organized to give technical or commercial education. In most cases, however, these schools have simply added the vocational training to a fairly liberal, secondary-school course. Future developments in secondary schools will doubtless comprise far more adequate provision for technical and trade education. In general it may be said that the high school is in a difficult situation, struggling on the one hand with its tradition of classical, disciplinary and aristocratic education and on the other with the democratic demand that it should provide a secondary education suitable for all, taking its students from an independent elementary system and coerced by the need of preparing them for college. It is coming to realize that the solution lies in more independence both in regard to tradition and to other schools. See Education, Modern; Mental Discipline; Schools, Elementary; and Universities.
Schools, Sum′mer. Schools of the Chautauqua type are held only during the summer months, at favorable resorts, and combine study with recreation, although opportunity is also offered for advanced instruction in special branches. Among summer schools and universities, that of the University of Chicago is unique in having the regular work of the entire university carried through the summer quarter. The universities allow credit towards a degree for work done during the summer session. Another important type of summer school is that for the professional training of teachers. There are also summer schools for the pursuit of some branch of natural sciences located at places suitable for their particular purposes.
