Excerpt from The Making of Our Middle Schools: An Account of the Development of Secondary Education in the United States Back of these definitions, however, lie theoretical consider etions. There is a stage in. Mental development, above the empirical stage and below the philosophical, which may be called the scientific. The grade of education correspond ing to this intermediate stage may, quite naturally, be called secondary, that below it being called primary, and that above it, higher. The primary or elementary division deals mainly with things in their unessential relationships, their resemblances and differences, their collocation in space, and their orderly arrangement in temporal series. It rises, to be sure, to general ideas, but hardly arrives at logical definition of its ideas. The secondary division deals with [ideas more clearly defined; and it comes to an understand ing of things as organized into coherent systems through the operation of such principles as those of mechanical causation and human imitation.\ These principles have already become familiar, to be sure, in the earlier stage, but not in their larger Significance. Higher education seeks, finally, in the study of philosophy, to attain to a complete comprehension of the world, viewing it in the light of ultimate principles. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.