Lurton—A Study of Retarded Children. 
281 
Age at Entering and Months Required to Complete Eight Grades, 
Age at entering. 
No. of 
children. 
Median No. of 
months to com¬ 
plete course. 
5. 
1,521 
5,828 
2,936 
721 
82 
6... 
81 
7..... 
80 
8......... 
79 
9....... 
142 
74 
10. 
26 
69 
11. 
9 
66 
12... 
2 
63 
“The lesson taught by the table is that children who enter 
school late make a little more rapid progress than do those who 
enter early, but that it is only a little more rapid. (The italics 
are ours). To state it another way, the lesson is that the child 
who enters late will notj as has been claimed, catch up with the 
child who enters early. The figure which tells us how T many 
over-age children there are in each lower grade is an important 
figure because it helps to tell us how many children are not 
going to be able to stay in school long enough to graduate. 
“To summarize: retardation is a term used in educational 
economics to signify a condition and a result, not an explana¬ 
tion of a result. A retarded child is a child who is too old for 
tie grade he is in. Why he is too old the term does not attempt 
to explain. Retardation is found to a greater or less extent in 
all school systems. Because of it half of the children who en¬ 
ter our city schools fail to graduate. Retardation as calculated 
by the age-in-grade standard has not been overstated. [From 
Addresses and Proceedings of the National Educational Asso¬ 
ciation for 1910, p. 149 et. seq.] 
Our system of public schools, as at present organized into 
grades, is based upon certain fundamental theories which are, 
in the mlain, the result of long experience in the effort properly 
to train the young for the duties of mature life, and the plans 
carried out in Minnesota do not vary markedly from the plans 
usual to all parts of the country. 
Briefly the plan for the elementary schools, that is the work 
considered necessary to prepare a child for entrance into the 
high school, is that children shall enter the schools at the age 
