The cultured society of the nineteenth century--what did it consist of but here and there a few microscopic oases in a vast, unbroken wilderness?
The proportion of individuals capable of intellectual sympathies or refined intercourse, to the mass of their contemporaries, used to be so infinitesimal as to be in any broad view of humanity scarcely worth mentioning.

One generation of the world to-day represents a greater volume of intellectual life than any five centuries ever did before.
"There is still another point I should mention in stating the grounds on which nothing less than the universality of the best education could now be tolerated," continued Dr.Leete, "and that is, the interest of the coming generation in having educated parents.

To put the matter in a nutshell, there are three main grounds on which our educational system rests: first, the right of every man to the completest education the nation can give him on his own account, as necessary to his enjoyment of himself; second, the right of his fellow-citizens to have him educated, as necessary to their enjoyment of his society; third, the right of the unborn to be guaranteed an intelligent and refined parentage." I shall not describe in detail what I saw in the schools that day.
Having taken but slight interest in educational matters in my former life, I could offer few comparisons of interest.

Next to the fact of the universality of the higher as well as the lower education, I was most struck with the prominence given to physical culture, and the fact that proficiency in athletic feats and games as well as in scholarship had a place in the rating of the youth.
"The faculty of education," Dr.Leete explained, "is held to the same responsibility for the bodies as for the minds of its charges.

The highest possible physical, as well as mental, development of every one is the double object of a curriculum which lasts from the age of six to that of twenty-one." The magnificent health of the young people in the schools impressed me strongly.