8                                             

the age of fourteen, neither is there any High School or Academy
into which they can graduate after leaving these German or Com-
mon Schools. It is, however, entirely different with the Latin
Schools. These are established for the higher classes of people
—and into them all those boys enter who are destined for the
higher walks of life. These schools are either connected with
Gymnasia or Colleges, or not. When they are, as in the larger
cities, they are called lower Gymnasia, but when established in
county or other towns, they are called Latin Schools or Lycea.
After the boys have continued in the Latin School or lower Gym-
nasium to their fourteenth year, they pass an examination, and
are admitted in a State College, or upper Gymnasium. If they
succeed in being admitted in a State College, which is considered
a high honor, they are educated for the four succeeding years by
the State, free of expense, as at West Point and the Naval Aca-
demy. But if not so admitted, they can enter an upper Gymna-
sium, where they have to provide for their own sustenance. When
they have reached their eighteenth year, they are finally prepared
to enter the University; but before admitted there, they have to
pass another examination. In the University they either prepare
themselves for Physicians, Lawyers and State Officers, or Min-
isters and Teachers in the Latin Schools, Gymnasia and Univer-
sities. On no condition can any man who has merely passed
through the Common School, ever aspire to become a Physician,
Lawyer, Minister or Teacher, in a Latin School. The only thing
he can do, is to enter the Normal School, and train himself as a
schoolmaster in the Common Schools, where he must remain to
the end of his life.

As the German Common Schools have such a limited scope,
the Normal Schools themselves, which prepare the teachers for
Common Schools, partake of the same limited and contracted
character—and the Normal Schools are as sharply divided from
the Colleges, as the German from the Latin Schools, and they
never can be merged into one with them. These German Nor-
mal Schools have served as models after which Normal Schools
have been established in Holland, France, and also England, and
as in all these countries there is a like separation between the Col-
leges and Common Schools, they served their purpose very well.

The case is, however, entirely altered in the United States.
We have here no two kinds of Primary Schools. We have, it is
true, Public and Private Schools, and both have the same end in
view, and lead to the College or to the High School. In olden
times there certainly was a prejudice existing against Public
'Schools, which was imported from the old country, and especially
from England; but this is rapidly wearing away. In the North,
the very best schools are the Public Schools, and the rich
as well as the poor send their children there. We have then, in
truth, but one kind of Primary Schools in this country, into which