Retardation in Nebraska
The Psychological Clinic Copyright 1912, by Lightner Witmer, Editor. Vol. VI. No. 7. December 15, 1912. :Author: William Henry Stephenson Morton, Superintendent of Schools, Ashland, Neb.
This investigation was undertaken to ascertain, if possible, the ^ average age for the various grades in the elementary schools of Nebraska; how many pupils are ahead of this grade average, and how many are behind it. The term retardation is a new one in the literature of education, having been borrowed from physics, but its general use by school men seems to assure its permanency. Like all new terms, there is some difference of opinion as to its meaning. In one case the “progress” standard is taken as the criterion in determining whether the pupil is to be classed as subnormal, normal, or super-normal. On the other hand, the “agegrade” standard is considered by many to be the more exact and objective measure of retardation.
Holding in mind that children differ greatly both physically and mentally and that all cases cannot be subjected to the age-grade standard for comparison, yet it does seem that the almost universal method prevalent in our city schools of classifying the pupil by age and grade must be acknowledged as being the better, if not the only means of determining the number of backward pupils in our schools. This is especially true at the present time, since there is so little available material on record in our schools relating to individual progress. For purposes of comparison, then, the agegrade standard is about the only standard that can be applied with accuracy to the various school systems. When school administration reaches a more scientific basis, and records of the progress of each student can be had, we will be in a position to speak seriously of the progress standard as workable. At the present time we are far from it.
It has been declared, and we cannot ignore the statement, that retardation must be found by knowing the pupil’s rate of progress through the various grades of our schools, regardless of his age at entering. Superintendent Greenwood, one of the staunchest i A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate College bf the University of Nebraska for the degree of M.A.
supporters of the progress standard, declares that retardation is not a question of age without respect to progress; but it is a question of the time required to do a given amount of work without regard to age. This seems to be a dangerous doctrine, for were it to find lodgment in the public mind it would have the effect of advancing the age for any grade.
It must be recognized that children who vary greatly in age, but who are trying to do work in the same grade, will find the work unsuited to the two extremes. The younger ones find the work altogether too difficult, too old in content and presentation; while on the other hand, the elder children of the grade find the work not of a kind suitable to their age. It may savor too much of the play type to them. They may not be able to master the subject matter of the grade, and their very age calls for a different method or manner of presentation. The teacher is handicapped. The big child must be cared for in seating. Games adapted to the average of the room will not fit him. He becomes, in fact, a misfit, due to his being over-age, no matter what the cause may be, and it is for this reason that age is a fair standard for measuring retardation.
A second vital reason is that since democracy requires certain achievements from every individual and since it pays for his education, he should at certain ages have completed certain grades of this work, an amount equal to the average child. If the average child at nine has completed the third grade, then the boy who is eleven and has just completed it is two years behind the former in the race of life. His chances for overtaking him are indeed very limited since our school machinery tends to interrupt him if he strives to gain on his fellows in the grade. Thus time is lost to him and to society alike.
Those in favor of the progress standard argue that it is sensible for parents not to send their children to school until a late age, for, they say, if he does not enter the first grade until he is eight years old, he will soon overtake the other children by “skipping grades”. Working upon this premise, they ask how then is it possible to gauge retardation on the basis of the agegrade standard? But what limited figures we have on this subject do not support this original principle, and hence the conclusions are wrong. It is true that no adequate attempts have been made to ascertain to what extent pupils skip grades. However, such studies as we do have show only a very low percentage in any graded school system who skip grades.
RETARDATION IN NEBRASKA. 183 Professor Keyes adds some valuable information to this subject. In a recent investigation of the individual records of 326 graduating accelerates, he finds the following to be true. He says :2 “It appears that more than 85 per cent of these accelerates enter school at six years old or under, the average entrance age being 5.9 years. More than 67 per cent of them graduate when 14 years old or younger, the average graduating age being 13.9 years. Late entry does not contribute to acceleration. Of course, it must be borne in mind that late entry, while it is not necessarily evidence of sub-normal capacity or low mentality, points in that direction.” Mr. Keyes made a study of 683 cases of arrests, or those who had failed, and he found the following:3 “Of all those who began the first grade before the fifth birthday, 50 per cent are compelled to repeat the grade. The same thing is true of all who enter over eight, or over seven and one-half years. Almost the same proportion, 46 per cent, fail somewhere among those who enter between seven and seven and one-half. Practically one-half of all children who begin the first grade after reaching their seventh birthday or before reaching their fifth, may be expected to lose a year some time during their grammar school course.”
In an article in the Educational Review in 1909, Dr R. P. Falkner cites from the reports of both large and small cities such figures as he could find that showed at all the number of pupils who were passing readily through the grades. He finds in Somerville, Massachusetts, 1907, the amount of rapid progress was 1.4 per cent of all promotions. In Springfield, Ohio, where 4755 promotions were recorded, only 7 of these or not quite 0.15 per cent represented the number promoted more than one grade at the end or during the yearly term. In iSTew York City, Dr L. P. Ayres, of the Russell Sage Foundation, studied the records of 946 fifth grade pupils and found that 5.4 per cent accomplished their work in less than the regularly allowed time. In one of the Philadelphia reports, Dr Falkner found 2406 pupils out of 122,644 or less than 2 per cent were thus described as incidental. Dr Falkner further says,4 “estimated on the progress standard the per cent of retarded pupils is virtually the same as if estimated on the agegrade standard.” He says, in fact, that in “all but one case, where figures are available, the progress standard gives a higher percentage of retardation than the age-grade standard.” This is very evident, as the age-grade standard usually allows at least one year 2 Keyes, Charles Henry : Progress Through the Grades of City Schools, N. Y., 1911, p. 13. 3 Keyes, Charles Ilenry : Ibid., p. 10. 4 Educa. Rev., XXXVIII., pp. 122-32.
of failure before the pupil is classed as retarded; for if we call seven years the age for the first grade, then how about those who enter at five or six ? Dr Falkner says further in the last named article, “It doesn’t matter much how the pupil happened to be over-age for his grade; if he is there he is retarded, for the effect is just the same.”
Now in the light of the small per cent of rapidly moving pupils, and in the light of the fact that 50 per cent of those pupils who enter after their seventh birthday or before their fifth must lose a year somewhere in the elementary schools, it would seem unwise to have the pupils enter the first grade at a late age and depend upon their ability, or upon chance to overtake the other pupils by “skipping” grades. Thus we see that it becomes a serious matter if any great number of our pupils fall behind their grade in age, for it simply means that in most cases they will continue to travel in the rear. The problem must be faced, for every school has its over-age pupils. It is true that there are more in some schools than in others, but they are always present in varying numbers. In the investigation conducted by Dr Ayres,5 it was found that only 7 per cent in Medford, Massachusetts, were retarded according to the age-grade standard, while in Memphis, Tennessee, among the colored children 75 per cent were retarded. The other cities ranged anywhere between these two extremes. Dr Ayres found that on the average about 337 per cent of all pupils in our public schools belong to the retarded class. Superintendent Coraman found the range of retardation to be from 51 per cent in Boston to 77.6 per cent in Kansas City.0
The investigation in Nebraska differs a little from these. Here it was found that out of 25,449 pupils only 28.5 per cent are retarded. It does not make much difference which of these percentages we take; it gives us an idea of the size of the problem with which we are dealing. It does not “concern a few ungraded, feeble-minded children. It is one affecting most intimately, perhaps 6,000,000 children in the United States.”7 It will be interesting to note here some of the findings of Dr L. P. Ayres in his investigations of 20,000 pupils in fifteen schools in the Borough of Manhattan, New York City. Xhe results are published in a volume entitled, “Laggards in Our Schools.” He took all who were under eight years as of normal 5 Ayres: Laggards in Our Schools: p. 3. ? The Psychological Clinic : Feb., 190S. 7 Ayres: Laggards in Our Schools, p. 3. age for the first grade, those under nine years as of normal age for the second grade, and so on; those who were eight or more for the first grade, and those who were nine or more for the second grade, and so on, being considered over-age or retarded.
The following table shows normal ages for all grades according to Ay res:
TABLE I. NORMAL AGE OF CHILDREN IN THE GRADES. Grade Age Grade Age First 6 to 8 Fifth 10 to 12 Second 7 to 9 Sixth 11 to 13 Third 8 to 10 Seventh 12 to 14 Fourth 9 to 11 Eighth 13 to 15 Ayres says that these ages have been accepted by common consent as the normal ages for these grades by nearly all school men who have interested themselves in the problem. In the study made by Ayres only one table showing age and grade distribution is given, and that is of Memphis, Tennessee. The table is copied here for reference for those who may not have access to Ayres’ work.
TABLE II. AGE AND GRADE DISTRIBUTION N MEMPHIS, TENN., JUNE, 1908. Age Grade 1 782 699 11 177 j 56 J 368 403 131 120 349 10 44 191 333 335 5 104 264 11 21 81 230 302 67 219 6 83 1 12 12 45 109 13 229 126 201 182 203 245 77 178 6 63 14 15 25 6 44 10 85 26 158 69 25 175 92 43 130110 73 16 17 10 18 19 20 Total 2053 1278 1269 1089 798 790 579 392 8248
With the hope of ascertaining the age and grade distribution in Nebraska, the writer last autumn set about gathering data of this nature. He has collected statistics on age-grade enrolment from ninety-six cities and towns in Nebraska, scattered over all parts of the state. The figures were collected by sending blanks to the superintendents or principles of the schools between November 15, 1911 and February 1, 1912. The school men in almost every case responded promptly. The list of the towns from which reports were received follows (a few reports were received too late for classification) :
Albion Alda Alliance Atlanta Amherst Ashland Auburn Battle Creek Belgrade Bellevue Bellwood Bertrand Benson Belvidere Bennington Beaver Crossing Beemer Beatrice Benedict Benkelman Bayard Big Spring Blue Hill Blue Springs Bloomfield Bruning Bloomington Broken Bow Bradshaw Coleridge Cedar Rapids Central City Chadron Clear Water Center Creighton Chappell Chester Crete Cody Curtis Dodge Dakota David City Exeter Edison Emerson Elmwood Elba Eustis Elwood Elgin Franklin Fairbury Fairmont Friend Guide Rock Gretna Gresham Giltner Geneva Hartington Havelock Harvard Indianola Laurel Loup City Louisville Lawrence Merna Minden McCool Junction Norfolk Nebraska City Oakland Plattamouth Pawnee City Red Cloud Superior Sutton Sumner Syracuse Shelton St. Paul Schuyler Table Rock V alentine Wilber Woodlake West Point York
TABLE III. AGE AND GRADE DISTRIBUTION OF PUPILS IN 96 NEBRASKA SCHOOLS, 1912. Age 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Over-age 19 i 20 Total Number I Percent Super-normal Number Percent Grade 1 1098 2083 1000 400 i 92 35 10 4720 539 11.4 1098 23.2 224 1295 1040 401 160 52 16 3201 640 19.9 226 257 1045 1004 i 559 223 98 249 965 973 588 252 41 15 162 59 > 26 3243 937 28.8 ; 257 7.9 3285 943 28.7 254 25 220 814 940 623 321 178 48 14 3187 1188 37.2 245 1 7.6 22 213 675 826 517 317 148 36 2767 1030 37.2 236 8.4 18 228 650 754 563 268 96 21 2605 955 36.6 246 ! 9.4 1 19 195 623 707 507 284 74 23 1 2441 896 36.7 215 I S.8 Totals 1100 12307 2557 2760 2704 2773 ,2735 2662 2425 1841 999 435 108 34 2 125449 7128 28.5 2777 ! 10.9
The figures from these various reports have all been assembled in the preceding table. There were 25,449 pupils reported, and their distribution by age and grade is shown. It will be noted that the enrolment is much larger in the first grade than in any other. This is perhaps explained by the fact that a number of schools provide for more than one year’s work before they promote to the second grade. The writer is fully aware that there is a probability of error in collecting figures of this kind because our schools have no common standard of recording such data. Indeed a large per cent of them have not kept figures of this nature in any manner. This was brought very forcibly to his attention by a number of letters from the best school men, saying that their attention had never been called to this phase of school supervision. Another fact which speaks the same truth is that in every case where the superintendent refused to send the statistics of his school, he gave as his reason that the figures were too hard to get, showing that nothing of the kind was on file now in his office, and that he and his teachers were not in the habit of collecting such data. This in itself presents a problem, and much work is needed to standardize in Nebraska, as well as elsewhere, school reports of various kinds. Another probable source of error is in the different meanings attached to the ages. Some think a child seven years when he is anywhere between six and a half and seven and a half; others from seven to eight.
Recognizing these erratic conditions, the above table seems to show very well the actual distribution of school children in Nebraska by age among the different grades of our graded schools. So far as the writer knows this is the only investigation of the kind ever attempted excepting one by Lurton8 in Minnesota. Many investigations have been made on the age-grade enrolment before, but they are either upon one city school, or a number of the larger city schools, while this investigation has omitted even Omaha and Lincoln, that it might be wholly a study of small city and town schools, all located in Nebraska.
From table III it will be seen that each grade contains pupils varying greatly in age. For example, the first grade varies from 1098 five-year-olds to two twelve-year-olds; the second grade from two five-year-olds to one sixteen-year-old; and the eighth grade from one child who is ten years old to one who is twenty. 8 Lurton, Freeman E. Retardation Statistics from the Smaller Minnesota Towns. The Psychological Clinic, Vol. V, p. 13, March 15, 1011. The same conditions exist in Memphis, Tennessee, as shown by table II.
This immediately raises three questions: (a) What is the normal age for any grade ? (b) How many pupils are supernormal or ahead of their grade ? (c) How many are sub-normal or behind their grade ?
In figuring out these problems, the ages six or seven (five years, eleven months to seven years, eleven months, both inclusive) were taken as normal for the first grade; seven or eight years for the second grade; eight or nine for the third grade, and so on. All pupils who were above seven years and eleven months for the first grade, and so on, were considered sub-normal or retarded. And all who were under six years old for the first grade, seven years for the second grade, and so on, were considered super-normal. With but one exception this is the same standard as Dr. Ayres used in his investigation. He does not take into account those here termed super-normal, but says all who are under eight years old are of normal age for the first grade, and all under nine years for the second grade, and so on through all the grades. It appears reasonable that for comparative results we are warranted in establishing the above standard for super-normals, leaving a range of two years for the normal age. Using the above standards, we find the following facts to be true: (a) of the 25,449 pupils, 7128 or 28.5 per cent are sub-normal; (b) 2777 or 10.9 per cent are super-normal; (c) while 60.6 per cent are of the normal age. Dr Ayres found the percentage of retardation for all cities studied by him to be 33.7 per cent or 5.2 per cent more than this investigation. This is not so great a difference as might be expected since the data for one come from the large cities, and those for the other from the small cities, the towns, and the villages.
It becomes an interesting question as to what is the si<rnificance of this large amount of retardation in our Nebraska schools. Dr Ayres9 says, “Wherever we find that the retarded children constitute a large part of all the school membership, we find that many of the children do not stay in the schools until they complete the elementary course. Children who are backward in their studies and reach the age of fourteen (which is generally the end of the compulsory attendance period), when they are in the fifth or sixth grade instead of in the eighth, rarely stay to graduate. ‘Ayres: Laggards in Our Schools: p. 3.
They drop out without finishing. The educational importance of this fact is great. As retardation is a condition affecting our schools to some extent, so too the eliminating, or falling out of the pupils before finishing the course, is an evil found everywhere but varying greatly in degree in different localities. In Quincy, Massachusetts, of every hundred children who start in the first grade, eighty-two continue to the final grade. In Camden, New Jersey, of every hundred who start, seventeen finish. The general tendency of American cities is to carry all of these children through the fifth grade, to take one-half of them to the eighth grade, and one in three through the high school.” It will be interesting to study in the following table the membership of the various grades reported in the Nebraska investigation :
TABLE IV. AGGREGATE GRADE DISTRIBUTION OF 96 TOWNS IN NEBRASKA. Grade Membership First 4720 Second 3201 Third 3243 Fourth 3285 Fifth 3187 Sixth 2767 Seventh 2605 Eighth 2441 Total 25,449 It is to be noted that aside from the first grade there is not so much difference in the enrolment of the various grades as one might expect. The actual enrolment (tables III and IV) varies from 3201 in the second grade to 2441 in the eighth grade, a difference of 780 pupils, or based upon the second grade, a difference of 24.3 per cent; while in Chicago10 it is 62.3 per cent; in North Carolina in 1906, 77 per cent; in Tennessee the same year it was 87 per cent; and in Utah 47 per cent. This seems to show that Nebraska is holding her pupils better than many other places. The question immediately presents itself as to what causes this difference, and as Dr Ayres11 points out, we are likely to say immediately that it is caused by the pupils having left school. This is true in part but only in part. To quote Dr Ayres, “There is a certain natural decrease in the number of children with advancing age which is due to deaththus we may always expect to find fewer persons with each advancing year of age. Secondly there is an increase in size of each successive and younger generation of children which is due to the natural increase in population. Looked at from the standpoint of the age of fourteen, each younger generation is larger. Looked at from the standpoint of the age of seven, each older generation is smaller than the preceding. . . These two elements?that of death and that of increased age of each succeeding generation?contribute to form the factor of population.”
Again many pupils fail to be promoted regularly from grade to grade, and are left behind to repeat their work. This is the factor of retardation, and is one of the causes for the difference in the enrolment in the grades. A third important factor is elimination. All children do not finish the elementary school, but begin to drop out from the early primary grades up to and including the eighth grade. Dr Ayres says12 that other factors may and do affect the size of the grades in certain cases and localities. Among the possible factors may be mentioned the influx of children whose schooling has already begun in other places; the tide to and from parochial schools; and the enrolment of immigrant children who enter the school at comparatively advanced ages. But such facts are local and irregular, and their influence is undoubtedly compensatory to a certain extent in their action. On the other hand, the three factors of population, retardation, and elimination are always at work.
The difference between the enrolment of the eighth grade and that of the first grade in Nebraska seems to be much less than in other places, yet there is plenty of retardation, even though Nebraska does seem to hold her pupils well through the entire elementary school.
It certainly is a fact of significance to Nebraska school people, that 28.5 per cent of the boys and girls in their schools are retarded. It presents a question for solution to every school man (and woman) who has his profession at heart and wishes to do for his pupils what he can. The fact that many of the pupils are repeating their work is very evident. Since it is the almost universal rule in Nebraska that parents start their children to school when they are six 01* perhaps more often when only five, it can plainly be seen that a child may repeat one to two years and yet not be counted retarded by the age-grade standard. Suppose we take a new standard for the normal age and say that all who are past seven years old for the first grade, eight for the second grade, and so on, are over-age or retarded, we will then find in this investigation that there are 56.2 per cent retarded. If “retardation” is to mean the “repeater,” this standard more nearly shows the true situation.
The following table shows the per cent of retardation (Ayres standard) and enrolment in the grades of twenty-five representative towns and cities in Nebraska: TABLE V. School Per Cent Enrolment Beatrice 24 1707 Benedict 40 71 Benkelinan 37 130 Bloomington 34 121 Bloomfield 28 285 Broken Bow 45 426 Cedar Rapids 36 169 Crete 24 512 David City 17 360 Dewitt 21 171 Elba 36 99 Fairmont 16 199 Friend 31 230 Lawrence 25 63 McCool Junction 20 89 Minden 26 317 Norfolk 43 957 Plattsmouth 27 804 Shelton 30 249 Syracuse 20 184 Superior 19 403 Sutton 37 442 Tecumseh 23 290 Wahoo 21 90 Wood Lake 21 85 The following tables are inserted simply for reference or comparison. The four schools selected are representative of all the schools reported: RETARDATION IN NEBRASKA. 193 TABLE VI. AGE AND GRADE DISTRIBUTION IN BEATRICE, NEBR., NOV. 4, 1911. Age 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 I 17 18 19 20 Total Grade 1 95138 l 58: 30 329 49 105 62 19 19 265 21 76 58 44 15 10 230 31 62 42 34 16 11 202 29 55 44 39 20 10 23 39 51 36 29 204 189 12 35 36 30 41 54 23 120 137 1676 TABLE VII. AGE AND GRADE DISTRIBUTION IN NORFOLK, NEBR., FEB. 8, 1912. Age Grade 1 11 87 | I 11 i 12 i 13 2 13 4 30 14 16 36 20 20 3 20 27 3 8 24 9 14 15 16 2 I 2 14 7 19 10 19 17 18 19 20 Total ] 145 173 161 131 104 107 8S 61 970 194 TIIE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC. TABLE VIII. AUK AND GRADE DISTRIBUTION IN FAIRMONT, NEBR., DEC. 1!), 1911. Age Grade 1 1G 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 22! 9 2 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Total 49 3 7 5! 2 1 18 4 12 4 2 : 3 1 9 ! 4 2 1 23 19 l 1 10 7 4 24 20 19 11 197 TABLE IX. AGE AND GRADE DISTRIBUTION IxMINDEN, NEBR., DEC. 21, 1911. Age Grade 1 6 17 8 9 10 IS 10 5 1 1 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Total 35 4 19 17 3 1 3 7 : 10 6 2 13 10 2 1 114 2 13 10 6 44 3 5 i 2 12 6 3 2 12 16 5 5 1 9 6 9 36 32 36 34 41 35 293
From a study of table V it will be seen that the percentage of retardation varies greatly among different places. For example, Fairmont has only 16 per cent retarded while Broken Bow has 45 per cent, with the others ranging all along between these two extremes.
It would be very interesting to know what causes so much difference. There seems to be no connection between the percentage of retardation and the size of the school. The small schools may run high or low in percentage of over-age pupils and so may the larger ones. This shows that we must look elsewhere for our causes of retardation.
Asking one hundred and seven school superintendents why so many pupils failed to finish the eight grades of our public schools, about 290 different reasons were received, most of the men giving more than one. The writer realizes that the question why did a pupil not finish the eighth grade is not directly the same question as why was lie”retarded, but the two are so closely related that what answers one will throw light upon the other. Had the direct question of what causes so much “over-ageness” in our public schools been asked, some different answers would have been received. But there can be no doubt that these answers show many of the worst causes of retardation. If we take answers numbered 1, 3, G, 7, 8, 12, 15, and 23, we have 187 of all the answers that came in; 35 of these answers point to incompetency of the teacher, and 31 to inadequate curriculum, while 16 answers said, failure to make grades, and becoming overage. The first two answers just mentioned are entirely school problems, for we must see to it that the teacher is properly trained and that our courses of study are right. Of course there are many other causes for these retarded conditions that the school cannot overcome, and in which the school has nothing whatever to say.
There are plainly two sides to the matter. The school must be held responsible for one part, and society for the other. It then becomes the duty of the school to care for its own part directly, and indirectly to help society care for its part, through encouragement, agitation, and enlightenment. In studying the problem of retardation, we are face to face with another very serious one, that of elimination. This has been mentioned above as one of the three chief factors affecting grade distribution. This is true, primarily, because repetition and retardation are almost always found side by side. In fact, most of our retardation in Nebraska is caused by pupils repeating their grades, no matter what may cause the repetition. Repetition soon results in elimination; because when the pupil finds himself older than the other members of his grade, and sees himself nearing his fourteenth birthday and not yet, perhaps, in the eighth grade, he is going to quit the school for the farm, the shop, or the street.
TABLE x. THE 270 ANSWERS HUN AS FOLLOWS: 1. Eagerness to earn money : ? 27 2. Lack of provisions for backward pupils 8 3. Incompetency of teacher 35 4. Irregular attendance 7 5. Lack of male teachers 1 6. Too rapid promotion (work poorly done) 10 7. Lack of appreciation of education by pupils 13 Lack of home encouragement Lack of home control Parents do not appreciate importance of education 9. Lack of public sentiment 8 10. Cigarettes 7 11. Reading yellow-backed novels 2 12. Inability of the child 15 13. A general dislike for school 3 14. Poor environment 6 15. Failure to make good grades, and becoming over-age*. … 10 16. Lack of personal attention from the teacher 2 17. Physical condition of the child 4 18. Lack of industrial work 6 19. Lack of proper interest 4 20. Idleness and bad habits out of school 5 21. General lack of ability in social conditions 3 22. Laziness 9 23. Inadequate curriculum 31 24. Heredity 3 25. Bad pedagogy 5 26. Temporary interruption which removes the child from ) ^ school, and difficulty of readjustment afterwards ) 8. Home conditions 40 RETARDATION IN NEBRASKA. 197 TABLE XI. ENROLMENT BY AGE OF 25,449 PUPILS FROM 96 TOWNS IN NEBRASKA. Age Enrolment 5 1100 6 2307 7 2557 8 2760 9 2704 10 2773 n 2735 -L2 2662 i q 2425 ::::: ?? i k 999 ig ::::::::: ?<? 17 108 18 34 19 7 20 2 Total 25,449
A study of the age distribution in the above table shows that there is a gradual increase up to the ages of 8 to 10, reaching the maximum at 10 years. This shows that there are a considerable number of pupils repeating their work along about the ages from 8 to 12 years. We note that there is a rapid decline in enrolment after the age of 13. Dr Ayres says,13 “Comparatively few pupils will remain in the school after the age of fourteen.” The following table of Ayres14 shows the age distribution of 58 cities reduced to relative terms:
TABLE XII. DECLINE IN ATTENDANCE. AGES 10 TO 16 YEARS. RELATIVE FIGURES. A qe Pupils 10 104 11 103 12 100 13 ‘ 90 14 63 15 30 16 15 Ayres: Laggards in Our Schools, p. 28. “Ibid: p. 28. {To be concluded.)
Disclaimer
The historical material in this project falls into one of three categories for clearances and permissions:
Material currently under copyright, made available with a Creative Commons license chosen by the publisher.
Material that is in the public domain
Material identified by the Welcome Trust as an Orphan Work, made available with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
While we are in the process of adding metadata to the articles, please check the article at its original source for specific copyrights.