288 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
grade, varying from an excess of 1.1%' in the first grade to 
7% in the eighth grade. 
The average percentage of retardation officially reported to 
exist in these schools, under their own standard of require¬ 
ments, is 59.3%. When the course of study makes such re¬ 
quirements that only 40.7% of the pupils can and do meet them, 
we have a curious state of affairs, where to be abnormal is the 
usual or normal state of matters. 
The Ayres’ standard of retardation. 
In the investigations carried on by Leonard P. Ayres, Ph. D., 
and published by the Russell Sage Foundation, children in the 
first grade are considered normal if they are under eight years 
of age. In the second grade ages under nine are normal, and 
so on through the grades. The reasons for thus allowing an 
extra year for each grade are not given. The text dismisses it 
by merely saying that these are the ages allotted to those grades 
by “common consent.” But it certainly is not in accord with 
the practice as reported to me by the superintendents in Minne¬ 
sota. Its effect is to conceal one year’s retardation for each 
and every child during his progress through the grades, pro¬ 
vided he entered at six years of age, and last year, as we have 
shown, only 441 children in these schools were over six years 
of age at the time of entrance. 
See how Mr. Ayres’ plan would work out. A child enter¬ 
ing the first grade at six should be in the second grade at seven, 
the third grade at eight, and so on. How suppose he fails to 
be promoted at the end of the first year and remains in the 
first grade two years, repeating the work and surely retarded, 
yet his age when he enters the second grade would be only 
eight, and that by the Ayres method would be considered nor¬ 
mal. It is clear then that by this method it is possible for 
every child in an entire school system to be retarded one year 
and yet for the system when tested by the Ayres method to ap¬ 
pear absolutely free from retarded pupils. That is unsound. 
The Joint Committee on Retardation and Statistics ap¬ 
pointed by the Minnesota Superintendents’ Association and the 
