HIGH SCHOOLS

The high school in the United States has developed as a stepping-stone to enable pupils of the pupil or elementary schools to reach college if they want to continue their education on the higher levels. It has grown on lines that make it a distinctive outgrowth of American education. Generally it provides a four-year course of secondary education. In practice this tuition, added to the eight years primary instruction. imparted by the lower schools, suffices in the majority of cases for pupils whom the nece ity of earning a livelihood prevents from taking up college studies. In the early days of pubiic education, the academies, which ousted the oid Latin grammar schools, served the purpose of high schools. The academies prepared elementary pupils for college, but they were private institutions charging fees that were prohibitive except for students who had parents of means. The growth of public instruction proceeded for some time without poor elementary pupils having any facilities for continuing their education, either to fit them for practical pursuits or to-prepare them for college. The high school came to supply the first-named need and slowly displaced the expensive academjes. The latter could not compete with new institutions, which provided 2 similar secondary education without fees. Private academies survive, but for the most part they are select preparatory schools catering to a restricted cla . The high school did not primarily set out to prepare students for college, but their deposition of the academies left a gap in middle education which the growing educational requirements of the people at large duly called upon the high school to fill. ‘To-day the high school has an extensive curriculum, embracing courses in the cla ics, literature, languages, arts, sciences, commerce, technology and manual training. In large communities several of these departments, such as the commercial, mechanical and manual training, called for separate buildings, and have developed into important institutions. The high schools have attained such a distinguished place in the country’s educational system that they rank with, where they do not eclipse, many seats of higher learning, so much so that they have become known as ‘people’s colleges’. In 1922 there were 14,000 such institutions. See EpucaTION.