WASTE IN EDUCATION 41 



ours, but upon that of European countries. While there is a presump- 

 tion in favor of the majority, the ultimate test to be applied to these 

 differing types of organization is that of efficiency. 



It is difficult to apply exact scientific comparisons to educational 

 systems in countries with different social conditions. The age test is 

 the most obvious to be applied. In a bulletin of the U. S. Bureau of 

 Education on the "Age and Grade Census of Schools and Colleges," 

 Strayer has shown that in ninety-three colleges having more than 

 one hundred students each, the average age of graduation is about 

 twenty-three years. Statistics of ages of graduation from medical 

 schools confirms this figure. The average age 1 of medical candidates in 

 1912 at the following institutions was : Western Reserve, 27.9 ; Har- 

 vard, 27.2; Rush, 27; California, 27; Johns Hopkins, 26.4; Cornell, 

 26.4. The average age of students graduating in medicine at these 

 institutions in 1912 was thus about 27 years. As a collegiate degree is 

 required for admission to the medical schools at Western Reserve, Har- 

 vard and Johns Hopkins, it appears that medical students in these 

 institutions completed their college courses at about the age of twenty- 

 three. In a recent bulletin of the Bureau of Education, the age at 

 which students complete the course in medicine is given as follows: 

 France, 23; Germany, 23; Great Britain, 23; Netherlands, 24; Switzer- 

 land, 23; United States, 26. There is then a difference of at least two 

 years in the ages at which physicians are ready to enter upon active 

 practise in this and European countries. Counting twenty-three years 

 as the average age for completing the college course, the average age of 

 students entering college in this country is seen to be about nineteen 

 years, which, in the absence of more exact knowledge, may be assumed 

 as about the average of graduation from high school. The average age 

 of graduation from the German gymnasium is about nineteen. The 

 gymnasium course is generally regarded as equal in content to our high- 

 school course plus two years of our college course. With this assump- 

 tion, it will be seen that at the close of the period of secondary education 

 our youth are about two years behind those of Germany. While it is not 

 possible to test for purposes of exact comparison the training received 

 by the graduates of our high schools with that of the German student 

 with two years of his gymnasium course still before him, it is probably 

 not far from the truth to say that not merely in relative time, but also 

 in actual intellectual training, our high school graduates are two years 

 behind those at the corresponding period in the German schools. 



Now from the point of view of efficiency this apparent waste of two 

 years is a matter of prime importance. What are the causes of waste ? 

 Where does it occur ? How may it be checked ? These are questions of 

 great educational significance. 



1 Harry Pratt Judson, "Waste in Education Curricula," School Beview, 

 Vol. 20, page 435. 



