JANUARY 19, 1912] 
in the total population, from table on p. 
1044. No curves are plotted for trigonom- 
etry and psychology, as they have never been 
of appreciable importance as high-school stud- 
ies; the curves for Greek and geology are 
omitted, as they so nearly coincide with that 
for astronomy as to cause confusion. 
Certain facts stand out from the curve- 
sheet. Greek has declined; so has civics; 
Latin, modern languages, English literature, 
rhetoric and foreign history have all in- 
creased, some of them enormously; all the 
natural sciences have fallen—geology, astron- 
omy, chemistry, physics, physical geography 
and physiology have all dropped down, some 
of them enormously. Meanwhile the percent- 
age of graduates has increased—a good show- 
ing, indicating that students are better satis- 
fied with the schools than they were formerly 
—the proportion of students preparing for 
college has diminished, and the proportion of 
secondary students to total population has 
nearly doubled. 
It is well known that the proportion of 
secondary students in the earlier years of the 
course is greater than that later. Hence a 
possible cause of an observed diminution in 
popularity of a subject is the alteration of 
schedules so as to shift the study into the 
later years of the course, and vice versa for an 
increase of popularity. Then the remarkable 
growth of the elective system, which occurred 
largely in the period covered by these curves, 
and the actual withdrawal of courses, are 
other causes which would affect the percent- 
ages. Now if we can in any way numerically 
express the opportunity which the average 
student has to take a given study, and com- 
pare with this the amount to which he takes 
advantage of his opportunity, as expressed in 
the tables of the bureau, we have in the ratio 
a numerical measure of the popularity of the 
study. I hope to be able to do this in a rough 
way from data already published, and to show 
that the drift away from science is in part at 
least the result of schedule tinkering, and 
does not completely express the taste of that 
much-criticized phenomenon, the rising gen- 
eration. 
SCIENCE 
95 
If we can find the probability that a stu- 
dent selected at random from the mass shall 
be in any particular year of the high school 
course, and also the probability that a par- 
ticular subject shall be offered by his school 
in that year, then the probability that this 
randomly selected student shall be taking 
this subject in this year is the product of 
these two probabilities, on the supposition 
that the subject is required of all students in 
this year. And this probability is also the 
percentage of students in the great mass who 
would be taking this subject in this year 
under the same supposition of no election. 
The first probability is given by the Com- 
missioner of Education in the Report for 
1907, p. 1046, where it is said: 
For several years this bureau has estimated the 
proportion of secondary students in each of the 
four years as 43 per cent. in the first year, 26 per 
cent. in the second year, 18 per cent. in the third 
year and 13 per cent. in the fourth year. This 
estimate was based upon the enrollment of sec- 
ondary students by grades in the high schools of 
a number of cities. 
Two things show that this is not a con- 
stant distribution. First, the bureau has for 
three or four recent years collected data of 
this sort for the whole country, beginning 
with this report of 1907, and the figures do 
vary a fraction of a per cent. from these esti- 
mates. Second, the percentages for high- 
school graduates charted on the curve- 
sheet, show that the proportion of graduates 
in the high-school population has gradually 
increased, being 10.05 per cent. in 1889-90 
and 11.87 per cent. in 1905-6. But in spite of 
this evident, though not very large, variation, 
we have no other means of getting at the 
facts, and will use these mean values as rep- 
resenting the probability of a randomly se- 
lected student’s being in any particular year 
of the course. 
The means for estimating the amount and 
effect of schedule tinkering is very incom- 
plete. An article by Professor E. G. Dexter” 
2B. G. Dexter, Sch. Rev., 14, p. 254, 1906; ‘‘Ten 
Years’ Influence of the Report of the Committee 
of Ten.’’ 
