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MEMOIRS NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



[Vol. XV, 



Almost one-third of all officers are college graduates who have gone no farther; this is 

 the schooling most frequently reported among the officer group. Practically all officers must 

 have graduated from eighth grade; one fourth have not gone beyond high school; more than 

 another fourth have begun but not completed a college course. The remainder, about one- 

 seventh, have done one, two, or more years of graduate work. This distribution, which is 



Fig. 25. Distribution of schooling. The differences between the amounts of schooling reported by officers in different branches of the service is 

 quite appreciable. Medical officers have remained in school longer than officers in the Infantry or the Artillery. (See tables 302 and 303. ) 



negligible below eight years with a steep mode at sixteen years (see table 302, figure 24), 

 is in striking contrast to that representing the schooling of recruits. Of native-born white 

 recruits, one-fourth are eighth-grade graduates who have had no further schooling; this is the 

 schooling most frequently reported. More than half have gone no farther than the seventh 

 grade; almost one-fourth have had more or less high-school training, while only 5.4 per cent — 

 one-twentieth — have entered college and only 1.25 per cent have been graduated. The white 

 draft of foreign birth is less schooled; more than half of this group have not gone beyond the 

 fifth grade, while one-eighth, or 12.5 per cent, report no schooling. Negro recruits, though 

 brought up in this country where elementary education is supposedly not only free but com- 

 pulsory on all, report no schooling in astonishingly large proportion (19 per cent in the southern, 

 7 per cent in the northern States); more than half the negroes from southern States have not 

 gone beyond the third grade, and only 7 per cent finish the eighth. In northern States, half 

 do not go beyond the fifth grade, and about one-fourth finish the eighth. The median schooling 

 for each group is as follows : 



Table 302 and figures 25, 26, and 27 present further analysis of the educational achieve- 

 ments of officers. "Officers" make a fairly homogeneous group, yet distinct differences appear 

 when each arm of the service is separately plotted. It is not surprising, in view of the require- 

 ments of the medical profession, that the Medical Corps has in general longer education than 

 any other; this is, however, surprising when it is remembered that all branches outside the 



