Students in certain courses and studies in public and private high schools and academies. The above synopsis shows the number and per cent of students, male and female, in college preparatory courses, as well as the number and per cent in the 16 leading high-school studies. It may be pointed out that a greater proportion of male students study Greek, algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, while a greater proportion of female students study Latin, French, astronomy, physiology, rhetoric, and history. Tables 33 to 38, inclusive, show the number of students in each State in each of the 16 studies, and the number of schools in which the studies are taught. Thus, Latin was taught in 6,112 schools, while Greek was taught in only 1,938; French was taught in 1,869 schools and German in 2,492; algebra was taught in 7,055 schools, geometry in 6,282, and trigonometry in 1,554; astronomy was taught in 2,011 schools, physics in 5,778, chemistry in 2,757, physical geography in 5,616, geology in 1,817, physiology in 5,477, psychology in 1,535, rhetoric in 6,148, and history, other than that of the United States, in 6,063 schools. If the number of students pursuing the more important high-school studies has increased from year to year, this would indicate that the schools are becoming stronger by insisting upon strict adherence to well-selected courses from which inere elementary studies have been eliminated. The following table serves to illustrate the growth of the schools in this regard since 1890: Per cent of total number secondary students in public and private high schools and academies in certain courses and studies, etc. SECONDARY STUDENTS IN THE UNITED STATES. The distribution of secondary students among eight classes of institutions is shown in the brief summary on the first page of this chapter. The total number of such students is given as 584,904, of which number the public and private high schools reviewed in this chapter had 517,066. The distribution of secondary students in the eight classes of institutions and by States is given in Tables 39 and 40. It is shown that there were 420,459 of these students in public institutions; 409,433 being in public high schools; 5,881 in the preparatory departments of public universities, and colleges, and 5,145 in public normal schools. Of the 164,445 secondary students in private institutions, 107,633 were in private high schools, academies, and seminaries; 45,809 in the preparatory departments of private universities and colleges; 7,585 in private normal schools, and 3,418 in manual training schools. Table 41 shows the number of secondary students to each 1,000 of population in the United States and in each State. For the whole country there was an average of a little over 8 such students to 1,000 inhabitants. For the North Atlantic Division the average was 8.97; for the South Atlantic, 4.72; for the South Central, 4.92; for the North Central, 10.59, and for the Western Division, 8.35. The average for Maine was 17.77; for Iowa, 14.61; for Vermont, 14.59; for Massachusetts, 14.29; for New Hampshire, 14.14; for the District of Columbia, 13.39; for Michigan, 12.72; for Ohio 12.37, and for Nebraska, 12.58. The number of students in higher education to each 1,000 inhabitants in each State is given in the last column of Table 41. The 140,133 students receiving higher instruction include all the college and resident graduate students in universities and colleges, and all professional students in theology, medicine, and law in all the institutions. The independent professional schools are included, as well as those classed as departments of universities. Students of normal schools and schools of dentistry, pharmacy, veterinary surgery, and nurse training are not here included. Table 42 contains in detail the statistics of the 5,109 public high schools, and Table 43 gives similar statistics of the 2,100 private high schools and academies and other institutions for private secondary instruction. TABLE 1.-Public high schools-Number of schools, secondary instructors, secondary students, and elementary pupils in 1896–97. United States... 5, 109 7, 658 9, 151 16, 809 173, 445 235, 988 409, 433 1, 965 3, 512 5, 477 67, 981 70, 080 138, 061 North Atlantic Di- South Central Divi- Total. TABLE 2.-Public high schools-Number of secondary students in college preparatory courses; number of graduates and college preparatory students in graduating class in 1896-97. United States.... 13, 546 13, 56o 27, 115 12, 461 10, 274 22, 735 18, 261 31, 781 50, 042 6, 695 7, 94614, 641 8, 661 North Atlantic Division South Atlantic Divi sion 6, 374 4, 983 11, 357 4, 437 2, 252 6, 689 5, 084 10, 155 16, 239 2, 116 1, 860 3,976 4, 920 95 369 623 1, 289 North Central Division 4, 273 5, 270 Western Division.... 592 9, 543 772 1,364 6, 114 970 564 1, 454 2,018 213 281 494 955 533 904 321 8, 072 1, 454 523 672 1, 1951, 011 |