, especially
in the chemical and other physical sciences. The spirit of research
was strongly invoked for new scientific discoveries. While England was
developing a few noted secondary schools, like Harrow and Eton, Germany
was providing universal real _schule_, and _gymnasia_, as preparatory
for university study and for the general education of the masses. As a
final outcome the Prussian system was developed, which had great
influence on education in the United States in the latter part of the
nineteenth century.

_Early Education in the United States_.--The first colleges and
universities in the United States were patterned after the English
universities and the academies and high schools of England. These
schools were of a selected class to prepare for the ministry, law,
statesmanship, and letters. The growth of the American university was
rapid, because it continually broadened its curriculum. From the study
of philosophy, classical languages, mathematics, literature, it
successively {477} embraced modern languages, physical sciences,
natural science, history, and economics, psychology, law, medicine,
engineering, and commerce.

In the present-day universities there is a wide differentiation of
subjects. The subjects have been multiplied to meet the demand of
scientific development and also to fit students for the ever-increasing
number of occupations which the modern complex society demands. The
result of all this expansion is democratic. The college class is no
longer an exclusive selection. The plane of educational selection
continually lowers until the college draws its students from all
classes and prepares them for all occupations. In the traditional
college certain classes were selected to prepare for positions of
learning. There was developed a small educated class. In the modern
way there is no distinctive educated class. University education has
become democratic.

_The Common, or Public, Schools_.--In the Colonial and early national
period of the United States, education was given by a method of tutors,
or by a select pay school taught by a regularly employed teacher under
private contract. Finally the sympathy for those who were not able to
pay caused the establishing of "common schools." This was the real
beginning of universal education, for the practice expanded and the
idea finally prevailed of providing schools by taxation "common" to
all, and free to all who wish to attend. Lat