The Bulletin of the Washington University Association (Volume 4-6)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: COLLEGE RECOGNITION OF HIGH SCHOOL WORK MARSHALL S. SNOW Professor of History and Dean of the College, Washington University The public high school in its present state is a comparatively recent development in the great free school system of our country, especially in these Western and Southwestern States. In New England and the Middle States, even, although the high school had an early existence in many of the larger towns and cities, its function was a limited one and seldom included that of preparing its pupils for admission to college. The endowed academies and the many private schools were the usual feeders of Harvard, Yale, and Columbia. The last twenty-five years have seen great changes in this respect. In the Eastern States many of the old academies have disappeared, together with a host of small private fitting schools. The older and stronger academies like Andover and Exeter have survived only by the generosity of wealthy alumni who have provided the increased endowments necessary in order to meet the greater demands now made upon all secondary schools, and to meet also the competition of the high schools which have been established everywhere and have been liberally supported by an appreciative public. The same is true in a modified way in our part of the country and in our own State. Ten or twelve years ago (I do not try to give exactfigures) there were perhaps fifteen public high schools in Missouri that were able to send their pupils properly prepared to enter the State University, even when the standard of admission was much lower than it is now. To-day there are perhaps one hundred and twenty or thirty such schools whose graduates are accepted by the State University, which demands much more than formerly, upon presentation of the certificate of the princ...