Excerpt from Teachings of Astronomy in the Primary and Secondary Schools and in the University

In thus claiming entrance for their subjects into the earlier years of school attendance, the conferences are only seeking an advantage which the oldest sub; jects [language, arithmetic, geography] have long possessed. It As things now are, the hi gh-school teacher finds in the pupils fresh from the grammar schools no foundation of elementary mathematical conceptions outside of arith metic, no acquaintance with algebraic language, and no accurate knowledge of geometrical forms. As to [physics, astronomy, etc.] the minds of pupils entering the high school are ordinarily a blank. When college professors endeavor to teach [astronomy] to persons of 18 or 20 years of age they discover that in most instances new habits of observing, reflecting, and recording have to be painfully acquired by the students - habits which they should have acquired in early childhood. The col lege teacher finds that his subject has never taken any serious hold on the minds of pupils fresh from the secondary schools. It is inevitable, therefore that specialists in any one of the subjects which are pursued in the high schools or colleges should earnestly desire that the minds of young children be stored with some of the elementary facts and principles of their subject, and that all the mental habits, which the adult student will surely need, begin to be formed in the child's mind before the age of 14. If if The changes recommended are all in the direction of increasing simultaneously the interest and the substantial training quality of primary and grammar school studies.

On one very important question of general policy ii i the committee of ten and all the conferences are absolutely unanimous ii Ninety-eight teachers, intimately concerned either with the actual work of American secondary schools, or with the results of that work as they appear in students who come to college, unanimously declare that every subject which is taught at all in a sec ondary school should be taught in the same way and to the same extent to every pupil so long as he pursues it, no matter what the probable destination of the pupil may be, or at what point his education is to cease. It Not that all the students should pursue every subject for the same number of years; but so long as they do pursue it, they should all be treated alike.

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