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.