Deductive Method. 
261 
DEDUCTIVE METHOD. 
Passing now to the deductive or enrollment method, the first 
form in which it was suggested in the investigation, seems 
rather too simple to be safe. Yet it must be retained, if only 
because of the ease with which it may be applied to the statis¬ 
tics of other cities, in making the broader generalizations which 
this paper suggests. It will be found, also, to be a much closer 
approximation to the truth than would at first thought appear. 
The method consists in a simple inference based upon the rela¬ 
tively small numbers constantly enrolled in the higher grades. 
A knowledge of this well-known fact leads every one to the con¬ 
clusion, that a very large majority of the pupils fail to reach 
the high school, and that entirely too large a number drop out 
before reaching the grammar grades. That there is a funda¬ 
mental and remarkably unyielding law corresponding to this 
opinion, is seen by massing the enrollment figures for the 
Chicago Schools as far back as they are available. 1 
Deductive Method Applied to Chicago. —It needs but a glance 
of the eye over the the table to discover that we have here an 
instance of the wonderful uniformity of the laws governing social 
phonomena. Notwithstanding the great fluctuations of popula¬ 
tion through immigration and exodus, the annexation of large 
districts, the transfer of pupils to and from parochial and pri¬ 
vate schools (which are one-half as large in number as the pub¬ 
lic schools of the city) and other social and economic disturb¬ 
ances, we find that the enrollment of no grade, with the excep¬ 
tion of the first, has changed more than one per cent, from year to 
year. With substantially the same forces in operation during 
the succeeding fifteen years, we may feel sure that the same 
uniformity of attendance will be found as in the past fifteen. 
The slight tendency to increase or decrease in certain grades 
will continue. The inference suggested by merely a superficial 
glance at the figures (Table III) might be stated as follows: If, 
out of every 1,000 pupils, there never have been more than 
four pupils that reached the twelfth grade, the remaining 996 
dropped out before reaching that grade. By the same reasoning 
1 Table III. Per Cent, of Enrollment in each Grade (Chicago), p. 281. 
