=Growth of the High School.= A number of years passed before there were many high schools in Kansas. Four schools constituted the list of accredited high schools of the State as published in 1876. By 1886 the number had grown to thirty-six, and by 1896 it had reached seventy-seven. From that time on the number increased very rapidly until in 1918 there were six hundred thirty accredited high schools in the State, one hundred twenty-one of which were rural high schools. Until about 1905 the standard for an accredited high school was a course of only three years. Since that time it has been four years. In the early years the real purpose of the high school was considered to be that of preparing the pupils for college, and the courses of study included only such subjects as were suited to that purpose. The present idea is that this is only one of the purposes of the high school, the other being that of supplying to the great mass of pupils, who will never go to college, the best possible preparation for living. To accomplish this latter purpose courses of study have been broadened to include such work as music, manual training, agriculture, commercial work, household arts, teacher training, and industrial training. Until very recent years high schools were established only in towns and cities, but now they are to be found in consolidated districts, and in rural districts, sometimes in small towns in those districts and sometimes in communities that are entirely rural. There is not now a county in the State that is without a four-year accredited high school. [Illustration: FORT HAYS KANSAS NORMAL SCHOOL.] [Illustration: TWO-TEACHER RURAL SCHOOL.] [Illustration: KANSAS STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, EMPORIA.] =Institutions of Higher Learning.= The deep interest of the Kansas settlers in matters of education is nowhere more apparent than in their early establishment of institutions of higher learning. In the first Constitution, made in 1855, one reads, “The General Assembly may take measures for the establishment of a university”; and again, “Provisions may be made by law for the support of normal schools.” These matters were not lost sight of, and almost immediately after the admission of Kansas as a state this ambition found expression in the establishment of the Normal School, the Agricultural College, and the University. [Illustration: RURAL HIGH SCHOOL.] =The Normal Schools.= The State Normal School at Emporia opened in 1865 with eighteen students enrolled. It used the upper floor of the new schoolhouse that had just been built for Emporia which was then but a small town. There was no furniture, and the equipment consisted of a Bible and a dictionary. Seats were borrowed from a neighboring church. But the Normal soon had a building of its own. In later years this has been three times replaced by a larger and better one and many new buildings have been added. [Illustration: MANUAL TRAINING NORMAL SCHOOL, PITTSBURG.]