Throughout the nineteenth century, the sciences in the United States went through many professional and disciplinary shifts. While the impact of these changes on university education has been well established, their consequences at the level of high school education have been often overlooked. In mathematics, debates at the level of university officials found clear outlets in the reform movement concerning secondary school offerings and college entrance requirements. This article therefore focuses on these debates and also the attempts to achieve compromises through standardized curricula in the recommendations of the Committee of Ten. In discussing the interplay between university and secondary education, it exposes a feature of the history of science education that has been neglected.