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The structures of primary and secondary general education in a number of industrialized countries are compared to show that there are all possible combinations of educational "systems" that are, in most cases, the outcome of a remote historical legacy. This legacy, regardless of its merits, should not be considered as inviolate, but rather should be subjected to new thinking time and time again, to allow for new factors (political, social, economic, cultural, scientific, and so forth) conducive to its evolution. The countries under consideration are the six member countries of the European Economic Community and the United States, Great Britain, and the U.S.S.R. The organizational structures of vocational and technical "secondary" education are not considered. The problems of reforming the structures of secondary education are not abstract: the difficulty does not lie in conceiving a system considered as ideal, but in conceiving transitional systems, concrete ways of changing over from the present parallel stream system to the reformed system, and in accepting the difficulties arising from this transition. (Author/IRT)