The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1904-06-30
Establishment Of One il Every
County Should be Virginia's
Nexi Educational Advance.
PR { PARE YOUTH FOR COLLEGE.
This Dr.. Boatwright Declares
to be the Imperative Need OF
the Immediate Future.
BY DR.. F. w. Boatwright,
President OF Richmond college.

President OF Richmond ColieOe.
The next educational advance in V1r-
ginia should be the establishment OF
high schools In every county of tho
state. we have n well oFrsanized- system ten
OF elementary educa ton which daily IN
creases In efficiency. We also possess
many excellent colleges, really too many
OF them, unless the number of prepared
shall increase But we have
IRA ctically no high schools outside of the
cities.
The need for action In this matter Is
urgent. The times require 1t. The e a'.
ample of other States compels 1t. youth
iinsstently demands it,
S The general rise in intelligence brought
about by the multiplication Of elementary
schools, churches, periodical literature,
and the greater standardization OF II
business has created both demands and
desires for wider knowledge II is the
function of the high schools to take the
boy and girl, drilled In the rud'mentary
arts of reading, writing, reckoning and
grammar and to train them In applying
these methods to the ACOUSTIC Of great
err and completer stores of knowledge.
Tho high school should also assist the
pupil to begin the coordination OF his
Sknowlcdge and should train him In the.
mower Of expression. These activities are
carried on more completely In the col
lege, but should be begun In the hlsh
schools. The high school graduate should
be ready either to matriculate In some
institution OF higher learning or to enter
that severe college. where few graduate
and many fall commonly known as bus
mess life. The modern business man no
longer regards college graduates as
''hornod cattle" and he insists more and
more that the applicant for place shall
have at least as much as high school
education. ~
The College Of the People.
The youth also realizes, as perhaps nev-
er before. that in order to compete with
his fellows in the race for success he
must somehow get more than elementary
training. The high school, well called
solution Of his difficulties. Accessible to
every home. free Of all charge for tut
ton, tho high school filings wide the door
of opportunity to all the boys and girls
of the Commonwealth. No other institu-
ton SO adequately explains the develop
ment of our Western States. These
splendid high schools in town and village
have solved the educational problem OF
the average man, and have contributed
u
prosperity OF the West and Northwest.
Without high schools, colleges cannot
attain their highest efficiency. Now col
leges are not ends in themselves, but
they convert the low potential of race
experience into the high potential of
Individual efficiency. Colleges enable
youth to begin life where their ancestors
left off. Our fathers founded colleges In
Virginia, and we revere them for 1t, but
ut ,,ttJi
tions as we should, Instead or furnishing
them several thousand choice students
each year, we now let them compete.
sometimes in undgniied fashion, for the
few hundred students who are now pre-
pared for college by public high school
and private academy. The State spends
each year more than two hundred thou
sand dollars on its colleges, and the en-
dowed colleges spend more than hun
dred thousand but part Of this great ex-
pendlture is ineffective because of the
lack OF prepared college students The
loss of opportunity to bright boys and
girls who cannot get to college for lack
OF high school preparation is far moro
serious. a State can afford to educate
thousands of poor boys to get.-a single
Michael Faraday. High patriotism rather
than the welfare OF the college demands
that the gap between grammar school
and college be adequately filed by good
high schools
Denominations and Secondary
Education.
Now and again there Ia H recrudesence
of zeal among religious denominations IN
behalf of secondary education. but these
efforts tend to become fewer and less
adequate to the needs OF all the peop'e.
In tho first place secondary education ls
not generally felt as a primary need IN
denomnatlonal work. II there exists IN
the denomination fear Of lack OF religious
training In the institutions conducted by
the state this fear does not touch tho
high school. The high school pupil lives
at home and attends the home churches
and Sunday school under the parental
eye. The churchman gladly patronzos
the high school and declines to tax him--
self further to support dcnominhtlonal
academy. There will always be somo en-
ceptions, but the rule holds where high
schools exist or are reasonably efficient.
The chief motive In maintaining denom-
national academies has been to pave The
way to denominatioral colleges. Tho coli
leseA have built or helped to build acude-
mics In solf-defensc, and the field Of
secondary education Is so broad that the
day Is still far distant when the best of
thcse academies viii die for lack Of pat
however. that the needs Of secondary
education are primary and Fundamental
with the State, and secondary and Incl
dental with the denomination. In some
States where the high school system has
been well developed the denominations
have practically abandoned tho field of
secondary education and this may BIO eS-
pected to occur elsewhere
Private gifts have infrenuently gone to
establish secondary schools a few nota-
BILE schools of this sort exist, among re-
cent foundations the Jacob Tome lnstl-.
tute, of Maryland. but their rarity and
their responsiveness To the boarding pupil,
permit MS ia neglect them when consider
Ing tho needs OF the entire population,
such is the desire Of the people for
good secondary schools that T believe
no other department Of education offerS
such attractions as business The Idea
of making money ont OF education ae-
cords III with the spirit OF the ase, but
the "female college Is no longer The
only scholastic source Of revenue Re
ports that come to me from young men
who have founded private academies In
various Southern towns and cities ilid-