December 8, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



787 



In studying this table you will note three 

 things, all, probably, contrary to popular be- 

 lief. First, the boys equal or exceed the girls 

 in number in every grade up to the seventh, 

 where they fall only four behind. It is in, or 

 at the close of, the seventh grade, then, that 

 the boy meets his decisive defeat. Second, the 

 workings of the process of elimination can be 

 clearly seen in the last three grades. The 

 normally placed child would enter the sixth 

 grade at eleven; the retarded ones would be 

 older. But discouragement, economic pres- 

 sure in the homes, and the non-applicability 

 or the non-enforcement of the truancy law 

 permits them to drop out. Third, the retar- 

 dation begins heavily in the very first grade 

 and steadily increases grade by grade through 

 the eighth grade, with the exception of the 

 downward drop of the curve in the seventh 

 grade, due probably to the working of the law 

 of elimination. Also, the retardation of the 

 boys is greater than that of the girls right 

 from the start, and remains so, grade by grade, 

 varying from an excess of 5.1 in the first 

 grade to 7 per cent, in the eighth grade. 



The average percentage of retardation 

 officially reported to exist in these schools, 

 under their own standard of requirements is 

 58.7. As I have said elsewhere when the 

 course of study makes requirements, such that 

 oaily 41.3 per cent, of the pupils can and do 

 meet them, we have a curious state of affairs 

 resulting, where to be abnormal is the usual 

 or normal state of affairs. 



Reduced to the Ayres Standard. — The 

 Ayres method of computing retardation 

 would be incorrect according to the conditions 

 governing the school systems under considera- 

 tion. But for the sake of comparison, the 

 data on hand have been computed by that 

 method and the results are shown in Table B. 

 There the average percentage of retarda- 

 tion is 30.9 per cent. And that is serious 

 enough. This, however, is only 52.6 per cent, 

 of that amount known to exist in these schools. 

 The balance is concealed by the allowance of 

 an extra year in the grades, for possible late 

 entrance, when such entrances are so few as to 

 warrant no such allowance. 



The Ayres figures for thirty-one important 

 cities give an average of 33.7 per cent, of 

 retarded children, varying from 7.5 in Med- 

 ford, Mass., to 75.8 per cent, among the colored 

 children of Memphis, Tenn. 



TABLE B 



This is Table A reduced to the Ajtes standard 

 for retardation 



Total 17.279 Aver. 30.9 62.0 7.1 



TABLE C 



Some statistics for purposes of comparison 

 Children in Grades Minnesota Ayres 



30.9 

 33.9 

 33.7 

 56.5 

 24.9 



Of fifty -five systems 58.7 



Of forty-one systems (4-5 teachers) 64.6 



Of four special systems 66.5 



Of St. Paul system 



Of Fargo, N. D,, system 55.6 



The forty-one schools given in item two are 

 what are termed " graded schools " in Minne- 

 sota. They are small but inspected schools 

 ranking below systems having high schools. 

 They are mostly small, with four to five teach- 

 ers. They enroll 5,340 grade pupils. 



The four " special " cities are large systems 

 whose figures are not included with the fifty- 

 five cities given above. They are conceded to 

 be among the best in the state. They enroll 

 3,753 grade pupils. 



There are 2,087 children in the Fargo con- 

 tingent. 



The St. Paul enrollment in round numbers 



was 23,000 



The other 101 cities and villages enroll . . 28,459 



Table C carries this total 51,459 



Repeaters. — ^Possibly one of the best ways 

 to get at the real loss in a school system is to 



