Improving the Upper Schools.

A short time ago, President Eliot delivered an address before the Commercial Club of Providence, on secondary education in America and France. He again called attention to the facts which he lately set forth in an article in the Atlantic, that education in France is more effective than it is here, as is shown by the fact that a French boy is practically two years ahead of the American in the same studies. President Eliot gave two reasons for this state of affairs, one was that Americans are unwilling to put their boys to hard work and strong lists, and the other was that the French teachers are more numerous, more enthusiastic and better educated than our own. Matthew Arnold also wrote on the superiority of German and French education at the time when he was making an extensive study of this subject. The question at present is how to improve the schools so that the young men may go out better equipped and the whole teaching force be better trained in the future. The means of doing this is simply the spending of more money. There is a strong feeling that while primary schools benefit the whole population, and therefore should be supported by all, and be perfectly free, the secondary schools which are attended by a comparatively small number, should be maintained more by those who are directly benefited by them.

There are three methods of supporting educational institutions-public taxation, private endowment and the fees paid by the pupils, Of the colleges of the country, the majority are supported by endowment and the fees of the pupils, while a few are state institutions and are maintained by public taxation. It has been found that when no fees have been required from the students the work is unsatisfactory, but when the students pay for the instruction they are receiving, the work is much better.

President Eliots idea, one with which many will agree, is that a tuition ought to be charged in the high and normal schools, and the money so received directed to securing better teachers and more thorough instruction. If this plan should be carried out it is thought that not only would young men be able to come to college, and go into business earlier, but that the practice of "jumping college" would be put a stop to, which means that a large proportion of our business men would receive a much fuller and more complete education.