program. Modern languages do not as yet occupy a large place. Comparatively few of the public high schools are taught by one teacher, as was often the case in the old academies. The number of pupils and the variety of subjects taught in them require more teachers. In most of them the work of teaching is divided by subjects, instead of by classes. With the almost numberless professions and vocations inviting to them young men of force and capacity, relatively fewer men make teaching their life work than in ante-bellum days. In consequence nearly one-half of the high school teachers are women. In many quarters this is regarded as unfortunate so far as it concerns the boys in the high school, not that the woman teacher is the inferior of the man, but because the boy loses the companionship and influence of a strong man as his teacher at a critical period in his life. Nearly all the public high schools are coeducational. Since the high school has come into existence in response to the demands of the people, and since only a small proportion of pupils go beyond the high school in their education, it has been called the people's college. Only in limited circles is the high school any longer looked upon as simply a preparatory school for college. The masses here receive their school training for intelligent citizenship, industrial efficiency and social enjoyment. For economic and social reasons the demands made upon the high school have been increasing rapidly within the past twenty-five years. Already in the larger cities are at least three well-defined types of high school-the one commonly called literary, the manual training school, and the commercial school, each taking its name from the dominant feature in it. The high school called literary includes several courses. of study, such as classical, English and Latin-scientific. In several Southern states distinctly agricultural high schools have been established, and the present outlook is that many more will be established within the next five years. Industrial progress. demands increased mechanical skill, increased civic responsibilities call for a broader intelligence, and vocational training seems inevitable. The entire South is earnestly absorbed in these problems. What shall the secondary school of the next generation be? Shall it keep separate and distinct the various types. now in existence and yet to be installed? Or shall it be a school with a wide variety of courses of study, each with a dominating characteristic but liberal in its scope, and all of equal value as instruments of education? BIBLIOGRAPHY.— -Boone, Richard G.: Education in the United States (pp. 402, New York, 1893); Brown, Elmer Ellsworth: The Making of Our Middle Schools (pp. 547, New York, 1905) and Secondary Education (in Butler, Education in the United States, monograph 4,. Vol. I, pp. 143-205); Dexter, Edwin Grant: A History of Education in the United States (pp. 656, New York, 1904); Monographs on the History of Education in the different Southern states, issued as: Circulars of Information by the Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. WILLIAM H. HAND, Professor of Secondary Education, University of CHAPTER VIII. ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH. T might be stated as one of the axioms of history that human nature for all peoples and all historic ages is a fairly constant quantity. It is only through this assumption that we can enter into the consciousness of any nation or section and understand its life and the hidden motives which govern its activities and condition its development. Even assuming that the Anglo-Saxon people have certain fundamental traits which separate them from the rest of mankind, it would hardly be possible to divide American traits into Northern human nature and Southern human nature. The elementary school in the South possesses much in common with the elementary school of the world and still more in common with the American elementary school. There are no Southern principles of teaching or methods of school management. The few characteristic elements in the development and present status of the Southern elementary school have been the results of our history, our natural environments and our social institutions. The Problem of Elementary Education. The problem of elementary education is everywhere the same. In his evolution man has developed physical, mental, and moral powers which distinguish him and place him on a plane high above the rest of the animal creation. But there is between man and the inferior animals another difference which is just as significant. When the animal dies, he transmits to his descendants merely the physical nature in form, structure, and instincts, which has been developed by his race and species in the struggle for existence. In addition to this each child born into the world is a potential heir to the social heritage of the race as it exists in material wealth, science, art, literature and human institutions. The keys to the outer chamber of this heritage are the subjects taught in the primary school. The universal problem of the elementary school is to place these keys in the child's possession and also to develop in him the morality and efficiency which will enable him to live in mutual peace, good-will and helpfulness with his fellowman and coheir. The American solution to this problem is our common school system-our most significant contribution to world democracy. Its basis is the fundamental principle of democracy - all the people working together can bring greater good to each individual than any man can secure working for himself alone. The American people have decided that the state at the expense of all its citizens shall give to every child, high or low, rich or poor, an equal opportunity to master the keys which unlock to him the treasures of the social heritage bequeathed to his generation through the united struggles and labors of a common ancestry. It is not necessary to say that this principle, now so well grounded in our law and practice, has been the result of no sudden inspiration. It has been the growth of three hundred years. Thomas Jefferson, the prophet of democracy, caught a clear vision of this land of promise which his people have struggled a century to attain. Even when prematurely crystallized into law by the strong personality of some farsighted statesman, it has failed in the execution because the true spirit of democracy has not been sufficiently developed. In 1811 the South Carolina legislature passed an act establishing schools in which elementary instruction was to be imparted to all pupils free of charge, but the spirit was absent and the law became almost a dead letter. Even as late as 1855 there was violent opposition to the establishment of the common school system of Charleston under this law for the reason that "the free schools are for the poor. The march toward the conception of democracy in education has moved with unequal steps in various sections of the United States. This rate of progress has been determined partly by the character of the original settlers and partly by conditions in the colonies and states themselves. From the beginning of American colonization there was a greater solidarity in the Massachusetts colony. The nucleus of this colony not only had a strong religious bond of union but also before coming to America had spent a time as a band of exiles in a foreign land. They were all poor alike. Their constant struggles with the hostile Indians kept them closely united. What was more natural than that they should carry into their school system the habit of coöperation which their very existence had made necessary? The germ of the American common school, as it now exists, first developed in New England under the stress of the new conditions which confronted the struggling communities of Massachusetts; in the South its growth was delayed because their more favorable physical environment enabled these colonists to conform more nearly to the ideals and practice of the mother country from which they came. For we must bear in mind that England did not then have and even yet has not anything like |