Since these three types of secondary institutions are so distinct from each other (Fig. 48), it is evident that a parent is forced to decide the future career of his boy at nine years, long before his special ability can be known. If he once enters a real-school, he can never transfer to a gymnasium, because the Latin begins in the lowest class of the latter course, nor can he enter the gymnasium from the real-gymnasium, after twelve, since he has had no Greek. To overcome this objection, during the past quarter of a century efforts have been made to delay the irrevocable decision by grouping all three courses as one institution and making them identical as long as possible. In secondary schools of this new sort, French is usually the only foreign language taught for the first three years. Then the course divides, and one section takes up Latin and the other English. After two years more a further bifurcation takes place in the Latin section, and one group begins with Greek, while the other studies English. These institutions are known as _Reformschulen_ (Fig. 48), and the plan was first introduced at Frankfort in 1892. The ‘reform schools’ are now growing rapidly, and there is evident an increasing tendency to postpone the choice of courses as long as possible. The three years of training preliminary to admission to a secondary school of any type may be obtained through the people’s or the middle schools. But there has also grown up, as an attachment of the secondary schools, a _Vorschule_ (preparatory school), to perform this function for pupils of the more exclusive classes. [Sidenote: Universities, state institutions, but controlled by charters and decrees.] =Higher Education.=--Like the other stages of education, the universities are now emancipated from ecclesiastical control, and may be regarded as part of the national system of education. The university is now coördinate and under the same authority with the church, for both are legally state institutions. Universities can, therefore, be established only by the state or with the approval of the state. In general, however, they are not controlled by legislation, but through charters and special decrees of the minister of education. As their income from endowments and fees is very small, they are for the most part supported by the state. They are managed internally by the rector and senate. The rector is annually chosen from their number by the full professors, with the approval of the minister, and the senate is a committee from the various faculties. The professors are regarded as civil servants with definite privileges, and they are appointed by the minister, although the suggestions of the faculty concerned are usually respected. [Sidenote: _Technische Hochschulen._]