“An expensive improvement in the public schools, but one urgently needed, is the enrichment of the school program for the years between nine and fourteen, and the introduction of selection among studies as early as ten years of age. Unless this is done, and done soon, the public schools will cease to be resorted to by the children of well-to-do Americans. The private and endowed schools offer a choice of foreign languages, for instance, as early as ten years of age and even earlier; and everybody knows that this is the age at which to begin the study of foreign languages, whether ancient or modern. In large cities it seems to be already settled that the private and endowed schools get the children of all parents who can afford to pay their charges. One reason for this result is that the programs of the public schools are distinctly inferior to the programs of the good private and endowed schools; and they are inferior at precisely this point—they have too limited a range of studies in the years between nine and fourteen. It is, of course, not desirable that each individual child should pursue a great variety of studies; but it is essential that each individual child should have access to a variety of studies.” PBE 236.4