Unlimited Expansion of the System.

Let us listen to two other authorities giving their opinion of the scope of common school studies. Henry Ward Beecher may be pitied against President Grant, and Superintendent Philbrick, of Boston, against President Eliot. "The common schools," says Mr. Beecher, "should be so comfortable, so fat, so rich, so complete, that no select school could live under their drippings." In his annual report for 1874, Mr. Philbrick writes: "Our public schools are maintained on so liberal a scale, and their influence so largely predominates, that the private schools exert no appreciable effect upon their character." Boston has its system of Latin Schools, Normal Schools, High Schools, Grammar Schools, to demonstrate the absurdity of President Grant's expectation that the rudimentary branches would satisfy the American people. Mr. Philbrick gives statistics to show that while in 1830 there were in Boston 7430 children in the public schools, there were in private schools 4018; but in 1873, with an addition of 200,000 to the population, there were in the public schools, 35,930, and in private schools only 3887. Neither enumeration includes the 5000 children in Christian Free Schools supported by parents of the Catholic religion.