High Schools can now trace back their history for a quarter of a century. In that time more than a hundred have been founded in England. They have become the typical girls’ schools of this country, private schools have been organised on the same lines, and the scheme of large day schools with no distinction of class, giving a good education at a low fee, has been almost universally accepted. It seems so simple and natural, that it is hard to realise that twenty-five years ago it was a strange and therefore a dangerous innovation. After all what do we mean by a High School? There is a general impression of the meaning of the term, though it would not be easy to define it. In the United States, a High School is an advanced school, which can only be entered by pupils who have already passed through the Primary and Grammar Schools; that is, do not enter before the age of fourteen or fifteen. It is thus a Secondary School, forming the link between the primary institutions and the University. Our English High Schools provide both elementary and secondary instruction, and the ages of the pupils range from seven to nineteen. Hence, although there is a natural division between the Lower and Upper School, the work is closely connected; the same mistresses teach in both, and subjects such as Latin and French are usually carried down into the lower classes. The lower part of a High School is not exactly parallel to an Elementary School; the pupils have begun more subjects, they have been taught in smaller classes, and by different, less rigid methods. The High School cannot therefore at present be regarded as the middle rung of the educational ladder. In England there is a gap between it and the Elementary School, which is sometimes successfully bridged by special means, but the existence of which cannot be disregarded in any general scheme of English education. As the need of secondary education is more generally felt, a system of schools leading upward in direct line from the elementary school is being naturally evolved, and connection between the two lines is being provided by scholarships and other means. But if we disregard a few exceptional cases, it seems best to look on the High School as an organic whole, taking the child from the nursery to the university, and sometimes even helping out the nursery by means of the kindergarten.