News and Comment
Facts, Fallacies and Fancies. Under this apt caption, Bulletin No. 6 of February 1908, of the Indiana State Department of Public Instruction discusses some of the statistics of the public schools. We quote the first two paragraphs: “Current school statistics in Indiana disclose some very interesting facts which seem to furnish a basis for profitable discussion, or at least for entertaining speculation. In 1907 the complete school enrolment was 538,881. By years the enrolment for the eighth grades and the four years in the high school was as follows: First grade, 88,632; second grade, 68,936; third grade, 69,479; fourth grade, 65,512; fifth grade, 59,272; sixth grade, 53,400; seventh grade, 47,436; eighth grade, 43,014; first-yearhigh school, 17,706; second year high school, 11,928; third-year high school, 8,412; fourth year high school 5,154.
“It will be noted that the largest changes are between the first and second grades and the eighth grade and first year of high school. The latter discrepancy may be accounted for more easily than the first. The large number in the first grade may be accounted for by the natural increase in population through immigration, and by the fact that for one reason or another, mainly that the first-year work is too difficult, there are two and three classes in this grade covering a larger range of years in age than in any other grade. And the death rate among first-grade pupils is very high. But even with this allowance a difference of 19,696 seems too large. The third-year shows a slight increase over the second for which there appears no explanation, unless it may be accounted for in the combination of classes in the rural schools. As a result of such combination, many of the children who remain in the first grade from two to three years skip the second grade entirely. The fourth grade shows a decline of 3,967; the fifth grade of 6,240; the sixth grade of 5,872; the seventh grade of 5,964; and the eighth grade of 4,422. These differences seem to be too great to be accounted for by natural increase in population and it may have come about through a lax enforcement of the compulsory education law. Of course slow pupils and those who have been kept back through illness will be found in these lower grades when the age limit is reached.”
The foregoing quotation is of interest both from the facts which it contains and the explanations which it offers. As to the facts, it shows in the elementary schools a very remarkable persistence of the pupils through the eight grades. The record of nearly half as many pupils in the eighth grade as in the first is quite unusual, and speaks well for the school system of Indiana. It is to be remembered also that these figures do not, like so many figures which are often quoted, relate to a single city, but to an entire state, including town and country schools.
But despite this fact the quotation endeavors to account for a small enrolment, and offers some entertaining explanations. We are told that one factor is the increase in population, and the high death rate among first grade pupils. Of course this reasoning unconsciously identifies the grades with certain ages. Let us suppose for argument’s sake that the first grade corresponds with six years of age and the second grade with seven and so on. Would the mortality of six year old children be a factor of considerable moment? In 1900 there were in Indiana 55,668 children six years old, and 54,733 children seven years old. There is no evidence here of a remarkably high death rate, and the difference accounts for a relatively small number only.
In the upper grades it is suggested that the falling off may have come about through bad enforcement of the compulsory education law. Assuming for the sake of argument that all the children enter at six and continue in school until their fourteenth birthday, it is plain that all the pupils of compulsory school age would be included in the elementary schools. Their number in school is 495,691. In 1900 there were 431,643 children in the ages six to thirteen, both inclusive, in a population of 2,576,462 in the State of Indiana, or 17.1 per cent of the whole population. The population of Indiana in 1907 is calculated by the United States Census Office to have been 2,743,305, and if 17.1 per cent were six to thirteen years of age the number of such children would have been 469,104. As this number is considerably less than those found in the elementary schools, it would not appear that there was any conspicuous laxity in the enforcement of the school law. It is quite within the numerical possibility that all the children who ought by law to be in school are actually attending, as well as a large number of others who have passed beyond their fourteenth birthday.
In the final sentence of the quotation the author gives us the true explanation of the phenomenon which he is attempting to explain. Only in this sentence does he escape from the trammels of the assumption underlying his forced and inadequate explanations, that pupils of a given age must necessarily be in some corresponding grade. He touches the problem of retardation without being conscious of its significance. Thorndike’s Elimination by Grades.
The last number of The Psychological Clinic quoted and commented favorably upon an editorial in the Journal of Education, criticising the methods and conclusions of Thorndike’s monograph on “The Elimination of Pupils from School.” Dr Thorndike has written a long letter to the Journal of Education, which has been published in the current number of that journal, in which he points out some of the errors of Dr Winship’s criticism. The Psychological Clinic expects in its next issue to present an analysis of the problem of elimination and of the discussion which has recently arisen, which will do greater justice to Thorndike’s important contribution than there is space for in this issue.
Summer Schools for Teachers of Backward Children.
Teachers of backward or otherwise exceptional children are being offered increasing opportunity for obtaining satisfactory professional training. The development of the movement for the establishment of special classes in connection with the public schools has been much retarded, owing to the difficulty of obtaining the necessary teachers to whom these children could be committed with confidence that the best results would be obtained. Many of these teachers have shown a commendable desire to increase their professional equipment. It has only been within recent years that teachers seeking adequate training could find it. There are now at least three summer schools offering courses especially adapted to the needs of teachers of these special classes. The National Association for the Study and Education of Exceptional Children announces a summer course for teachers of exceptional children extending from July 13th to August 22d. Psychological and physiological laboratory courses, practical instruction in nursing and care-taking, observation and practice work in the classroom and on the playgrounds, will form the basis for training. The work will be carried on in connection with the Groszmann School for Nervous and Atypical Children, situated at Watchung Crest, Plainfield, N. J.
The New Jersey Training School for Feeble-Minded Girls and Boys announces the sixth session of its summer school for public school teachers. The purpose of the school is to give professional training to those who desire to teach in the special classes in the public schools and to fit teachers, superintendents, and students of. psychology and pedagogy to better understand peculiar, backward, and special children. The sessioif of 1908 is from July 13th to August 22d, inclusive. The first courses conducted for the purpose of training teachers of backward children were given, so far as is known to The Psychological Clinic, by the Department of Psychology of the University of Pennsylvania in the year 1897. Courses in child psychology, physiological psychology, and in the practical observation of work with a class of backward children were offered in that year, in conjunction with the summer session of the American Society for the Extension of University Teaching. Last year this work was again instituted by the Psychological Department of the University of Pennsylvania. Courses in child psychology, laboratory courses in physiological and experimental psychology and the psychological clinic for the observation and study of backward and defective children will be given daily during the summer session of 1908, from July 6th to August 15th, inclusive.
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