Lurton—A Study of Retarded Children. 
277 
Two administrative views. 
When we attempt to gather data upon this latter point, from 
the school systems, in order to compute the amount or retarda¬ 
tion existing, whom shall we consider as being retarded ? Whom 
shall we regard as having failed to meet such requirements? 
We are confronted by two methods. 
The progress method. 
One set of workers demand that we shall ascertain the age at 
which each individual pupil entered school, and then follow 
him through the grades to see if he ever failed to win promo¬ 
tion. If he never thus failed he is never to be regarded as 
retarded. According to this view a ten or even fifteen year old 
child in the first grade is not retarded provided he has not 
spent more than a year therein. In other words, the pupils 
status, retarded or otherwise, is to be measured strictly by his 
rate of progress through the grades after he enters, regardless 
of his age at entrance or his age when investigated. The whole 
theory can best be stated in the words of one of its most elo¬ 
quent advocates : 1 
“ ‘Retardation’ . . . has simply to do with the pupil’s 
progress in his studies as a pupil, after he is once regularly 
installed in school. It does not take into account his age 
. If his parents deem it wise to keep him out of school 
until the compulsory law would force him into school, then the 
question of retardation or acceleration would begin soon there¬ 
after to operate. Retardation, except in a very remote way, 
is not one of years, months, and days, but one of educational 
velocity after one starts to school and it should be estimated on 
his rate of speed through his studies.” “After a pupil is once 
entered in school, no difference what his age may be, and he 
does his work in the allotted time of his class, . . . that 
pupil is not retarded in his studies and should not be so 
counted.” 
1 Supt. J. M. Greenwood, Kansas City, Mo. in School and Home Edu¬ 
cation for March, 19(19; also in MS. 
