ation,
that the instruction given in it is more thorough than is usually given
in the private school. But, in examining yet further the claim of the
public school to superior thoroughness, I must assume that it enjoys the
advantages of comfortable rooms, adequate apparatus and competent
teachers. And this assumption ought to be supported by the facts. There
is no good reason why any town in Massachusetts should be negligent or
parsimonious in these particulars. True economy requires liberal
appropriations. With these appropriations, the best teachers, even from
private schools and academies, can be secured, and all the aids and
encouragements to liberal culture can be provided. Is it possible that
any of the means of a common-school education are necessarily denied to
a million and a quarter of industrious people, who already possess an
aggregate capital of seven or eight hundred millions of dollars? But the
character of a high school must always depend materially upon the
previous training of the pupils, and the qualifications required for
admission. When the high school is a public school, the studies of the
primary and grammar or district schools are arranged with regard to the
system as a system. There is no inducement to admit a pupil for the sake
of the tuition fees, or for the purpose of adding to the number of
scholars. The applicant is judged by his merits as a scholar; and where
there is a wise public sentiment, the committee will be sustained in the
execution of just rules.

In the public high school we avoid a difficulty that is almost universal
in academies and private schools--the presence of pupils whose
attainments are so various that by a proper classification they would be
assigned to two, if not to three grades, where the graded system
exists. The vigilance, industry and fidelity of teachers, cannot
overcome this evil. The instruction given is inevitably less systematic
and thorough. The character which the high school, whether public or
private, presents, is not its own character merely; it reflects the
qualities and peculiarities of the schools below. It follows, then, that
the attention of the public should be as much directed to the primary
and grammar or district schools as to the high school itself. Of course,
it ought not to be assumed that the existence of a high school will
warrant any abatement of appropriations for the lower grades; indeed,
the interest and resources of these schools ought