try; and
so far the two are incomparable; but, nevertheless, this primary grade
is the lowest grade in each country, and if the inquiry is, what number
of pupils are taught in this local first grade, then the comparison is
admissible. Similarly of the second grade and the third. If the inquiry
is understood to imply no more than it states, and no conclusion is
drawn as to the relative stage or merits of the education in the two
countries in relation to one another, it may justly be argued that the
primary pupils in one country stand in relation to the illiterate and
more highly educated pupils in their own country in a similar position
to that in which the primary pupils in another country stand to the
illiterate and more highly educated pupils in their own country; though
the primary pupils in the one may be far more advanced than the primary
pupils in the other. On this basis a possible comparison can be made.

But since colleges and normal schools generally serve a larger area than
the station district, these are reserved for provincial survey, and the
present tables deal with nothing above the secondary, or middle, or high
school. In the station district area the matter of chief importance is
the extent to which the need of the district for primary and secondary
education is met, and the proportion in which the needs of the many and
the few are met.

Of course where the surveyor has before him more elaborate tables
prepared for some board, he can serve all purposes best by keeping those
tables carefully and sending copies of them to those who may be
interested. Our hasty division into primary and higher than primary is
only designed to save trouble in those districts where no elaborate
distinctions and definitions have been made. If it is desirable for
purposes of comparison to reduce tables from different parts of the
world to a common basis, so long as the tables supplied from any part do
not contain _less_ than the tables here suggested, the comparison can
easily be made, for what it is worth.

We begin then with the educational work done in the station district as
designed to meet a distinct educational need. The first tables,
therefore, correspond to the first evangelistic and medical tables and
set forth the quantitative extent of the educational work in relation to
the area and to the population.

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