rEBEUART 12, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



235 



same level. Minnesota will be free from the 

 conservative classic tendencies of New Eng- 



Fig. 3. Diagram shows the percentage of total 

 high-sehool enrollment of Minnesota taking courses 



in seienee , Latin and English 000. 



1 cm. = 3.5 per cent. 



While these figures are all significant the 

 enrolment in a given subject does not indi- 

 cate the relative amount of time which is de- 

 voted to it. The enrolment, for instance, in 

 a science might be the same as in Latin, but 

 the science might continue only for a single 

 semester while the Latin continued for the 

 year. It would be possible, then, to measure 

 the interest in a science group as compared 

 with a language group only when the enrol- 

 ment is expressed in commensurate terms. 



I have had the opportunity recently to ex- 

 amine the records of the high school at Galva, 

 Illinois. During the time covered by the 

 graph given below (Fig. 4) the superinten- 

 dent of schools has remained unchanged. No 

 sudden change in the administration has, 

 therefore, affected the curve. The enrolment 

 has been figured in student-weeks. Thus, if 

 twenty students take Latin for twenty weeks, 

 the registration of the class would be consid- 



Fig. 4. Eneollmbnt in Science and Latin 



pressed in student-weeks. 1 mm. ^33 student- weeks. 



in the Galva, 111., High School, ex- 



land and her rural population has increased 

 less than 10 per cent, in the last decade. 

 Another bit of evidence comes to hand in the 

 " Report of the Bureau of Research of the 

 Upper Peninsula Educational Association " 

 (Michigan) : Not a single high school requires 

 Latin for graduation; three require a lan- 

 guage; ten require science, three of these 

 •specifying that it must be physics; seven re- 

 quire neither science nor language; six did 

 not report. 



ered eight hundred student-weeks. The graph 

 given in Eig. 4 indicates the enrolment in 

 science and in Latin and it is surprising how 

 the two lines parallel each other. This, of 

 course, is for a single school only, but it is 

 the type of study which must settle the ques- 

 tion as to the relative interest in science as 

 compared with other subjects. 



Elliot R. Downing 

 The Univeksity of Chicago 



