258 
Folkmar—The Duration of School Attendance. 
what per cent, with the grammar school, and what per cent, reach 
the high school. 
By a comparison of the facts thus ascertained with the sta¬ 
tistics of other cities and of the United States as a whole, a 
somewhat definite idea can be formed as to the total amount 
uf schooling received by each citizen — a fact of high impor¬ 
tance to the educator and to the sociologist. 
METHODS. 
The only exact method, but at present an impossible one, 
would be to take a complete census of the population above the 
school age, ascertaining in each individual case the grade with 
which schooling ceased. Another method, quite as impossible, 
would be to tabulate the school records previous to 1885, let us 
say, tracing the history of each individual whose name appears 
upon them. As a matter of fact, the Great Fire of Chicago and 
the previous existence of a ten-grade system in each city, make 
this method out of the question. 
Reserving further suggestions upon methods, ideal or other¬ 
wise, until a later stage of the discussion, I will pass at once 
to an explanation of the methods which were actually employed 
in this investigation. 
It is evident that the only method that will cover so great a 
multitude of cases is the statistical. Since the method of mere 
enumeration could not be employed, resource was had to deduc¬ 
tions from such statistics as were available. Two main lines or 
methods of demonstration were employed in the study of each 
city, the one serving as a check upon the other. They may be 
designated as: (1) the Deductive, or Enrollment, method; (2) the 
Inductive, or Class, method. 
In the first, the enrollments by grades for one year or the 
totals for a group of years, are made the basis of deduction or 
inference as to the per cents that must have dropped out from 
the lower grades; in the second, the enrollment of a single class 
entering the first grade is followed from grade to grade through 
the reports of successive years, the number that drop out at 
each grade is noted, and from a comparison of the correspond¬ 
ing facts in the history of other classes, a generalization is 
