A Study of the Comparative Retardation of Negro and White Pupils in a Philadelphia Public School
- Author:
Louise F. Perring, A.M.,
Philadelphia, Pa.
In determining the best education for the negro under the social conditions in which he finds himself, it would seem to be of first importance to discover, if possible, how he compares in his elementary education with the children of the white race. At present, except in a few instances, the negro children in the North are distributed among the white children in the regular public schools. In the South, while the negro is segregated, the courses of study are practically the same as those for the other race.
Two questions arise from this situation,?first, how does the negro boy or girl “fit in” to the course of study prescribed originally for the white child? Secondly, is it possible to devise a better course of instruction for the average negro boy or girl??not merely a more practical one in the money-getting sense, but one that will fit better the usual type of negro mind.
Few studies have been made on this subject. Dr Odum of the Bureau of Municipal Research has made some extensive comparative inquiries, the results of which have been published only in part in the Annals of the American Academy of Social and Political Science for November, 1913.
In a dissertation on “Retardation in the Elementary Schools of Philadelphia,” Dr Byron A. Phillips* calls attention to the increase in retardation in those schools and districts in which the negro forms a large percentage of the school population, and implies that most of this increase is chargeable to the negroes. Dr George D. Strayer in a bulletin of the National Bureau of Education (“Age and Grade Census of School and Colleges,” 1911, No. 5), tabulates a long list of cities, comparing the retardation and elimination of pupils in them. In only one city, Savannah, do the negro and white children appear in the list with a separate group of statistics. The probable effect of their presence is seen in the very high percentages of retardation in the schools of the “black belt” of the South. It is, of course, possible that this excessive retardation maybe due to inefficient teaching, but such an assumption would not only be a gratuitous insult to the ability of our southern co-workers, but not at all borne out by the other facts that it has been possible to find.
The present investigation is undertaken as a contribution to the solution of the first question propounded above: how does the negro compare with the white child in taking up the white child’s course of study? The studies were conducted at the Lynd School, Twelfth Street above Columbia Avenue, in the Seventh School District of Philadelphia. In this school the negroes are about 40 per cent of the school population. They are not segregated, but are taught in the same classes by the same teachers, use the same text-books and are subject to the same supervision and discipline as the other children.
While numbers are too small to enable us to do more than point to probable conclusions, yet the circumstances lend themselves to a fair comparison between the two races. Let us consider in the first place the percentage of retardation based on the form used in the public schools of Philadelphia (Philadelphia Public Schools, form No. 50). The summary (table 1) shows that the percentage of retarded negro boys in the primary school is almost twice as great as the percentage of white boys, and that the difference is increased in the case of the girls. In the grammar grades the difference in the percentages is slightly less in the case of the girls; 57.1 for the negroes as against 29.8 for the whites. The difference in the case of the white and colored grammar school boys is much less than any of the other groups owing to an abnormally large retardation among the white boys of the sixth year. Taking primary and grammar grades together the negroes still show twice as great a percentage of retardation as the white children with a slight advantage in favor of the negro boys as compared with the negro girls; a difference which will be further referred to in the conclusion of this paper.
In order to take the comparison one step further the amount of retardation of the retarded pupils in each group was also determined (table II). A consideration of this table shows that not only were a greater percentage of negro than of white pupils retarded, but that the average amount of retardation was greater in each group of negro children, the average amount of the excess being .45 years.
In this comparison, also, the negro girls show up less favorably than the negro boys. The average number of years of retardation A STUDY OF NEGRO AND WHITE PUPILS. TABLE I. RETARDATION 7 6 5 Grammar. 4 3 2 1 Primary.. Total… WHITE BOYS Total Retarded Percentage 16 13 15 33 77 44 53 13 33 143 220 4 5 8 12 29 18 22 2 5 47 76 25.0 38.5 53.3 36.3 37.6 40.4 41.5 15.3 15.1 32.8 34.5 NEGRO BOYS Total Retarded Percentage 50.0 17 14 15 5 19 53 70 13 9 3 6 31 40 57.1 50.0 52.9 92.8 60.0 60.0 31.6 58.4 57.1 ?WHITE GIRLS NEGRO GIRLS GRADE Total Retarded Percentage Total Retarded Percentage 8 9 2 22.2 3 1 33.3 7 15 5 33.3 3 2 66.6 6 21 5 23.8 5 1 20.0 5 32 11 35.0 17 12 70.5 Grammar 77 23 29.8 28 16 57.1 4. 39 20 51.3 13 11 84.6 3 35 12 34.2 34 23 67.6 2 11 1 9.0 9 4 44.4 1 35 2 5.7 21 8 38.0 Primary 120 35 29.1 77 46 59.7 Total 197 58 29.4 105 62 59.0 TOTAL WHITE TOTAL NEGRO GRADE Total Retarded Percentage Total Retarded Percentage 8 25 6 24.0 5 2 40.0 7 28 10 35.7 3 2 66.6 6 36 13 33.0 12 5 41.6 5 65 23 35.3 25 16 64.0 Grammar 154 52 33.7 45 25 55.5 4 83 38 45.1 27 24 88.8 3 88 34 37.8 49 32 65.3 2 24 3 12.5 14 7 50.0 1 68 7 10.2 40 14 35.0 Primary 263 82 31.1 130 77 59.2 Total 417 134 31.8 175 102 58.2 90 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC. TABLE n. RETARDATION BY YEARS WHITE BOYS Years Retarded NEGRO BOYS Years Retarded 2 7 5 6 4 5 11 Grammar.. 22 4 7 7 3 13 5 2 1 1 Primary… 25 13 13 Total… 47 17 9 16 15 8 WHITE GIRLS Years Retarded NEGRO GIRLS Years Retarded 2 7 5 4 1 5 6 5 Grammar.. 17 4 12 4 3 5 4 2 1 1 2 Primary… 20 18 15 Total… 37 14 25 20 10 4 TOTAL WHITE TOTAL NEGRO Years Retarded Years Retarded 4 7 10 6 8 5 5 17 5 Grammar.. 39 10 4 19 11 3 18 9 2 1 1 1 7 Primary… 45 21 14 Total… 84 31 16 1 1 2 2 2 5 8 10 11 6 1 12 11 5 2 2 14 4 31 24 15 41 35 18
was for negro boys, all grades 1.9; for white boys, all grades 1.6. In the grammar grades the average retardation was for the negro boys, 1.5; for the whites, 1.3 years. In the primary grades the negro boys were retarded 2 years and the white boys 1.7 years. The negro girls, taking all grades together, were retarded 2.1 years and the white girls 1.5 years. In the grammar grades the negro girls were retarded 1.9 years and the white girls 1.3 years, while in the primary grades the negro girls were retarded 2.1 years and the white girls 1.6 years.
Comparing the negro and the white children, both sexes together, we find that all negro children who were retarded were retarded an average of 2 years and all white children an average of 1.5 years. Of the retarded grammar school children the negroes were retarded 1.8 years and the whites 1.3 years. In the primary grades the corresponding figures are 2.1 for the negroes and 1.7 for the whites. We often find that an excessive variation in one direction is balanced by a corresponding excessive variation in another. Is this excessive percentage and average amount of retardation balanced, even partially, by a corresponding acceleration of other pupils? No such variation appears. It was not possible to complete a table of acceleration, but it may be said that in only two groups, first and third year girls, was there any acceleration of negro children, and that only in the third year did such acceleration exceed that of white children. There were white children accelerated in eight out of sixteen sex-grade groups.
In seeking for a cause, other than a racial one, for these differences, the physical condition of the negro children was also looked into (table III). TABLE III. NUMBER OP PUPILS White Negro NUMBER OP DEFECTS White Negro AVERAGE NUMBER DEFECTS PER PUPIL White Negro Grammar. Primary.. 154 263 45 130 79 183 23 52 .54 .69 .51 .40 Total. 417 175 262 75 .62 .42
The medical inspector’s record on the reverse of the school registration card was used as a basis for this comparison. It may be said that the results were surprising to the investigator, as there had been a preconceived opinion that the negroes were probably in a poorer physical condition than the white children, owing to their lower economic status in general, and the informality of their social arrangements.
The record shows, however, that the average number of recorded defects was less per pupil among the negroes than among the whites. Evidently on the score of physical health, the negro child is better off than the white child. It may, of course, be a case of “the survival of the fittest” among the negroes, but no comparative statistics of child mortality were available, so this question must be left open for further investigation. However, the fact and not its cause is the important thing.
A final point is the average age of the groups. A study of the facts (table IV) shows that without exception the negro children in any sex-grade group are from three months (first year girls) to one and one half years older (second year boys) than the corresponding group of white children. These are the figures for the pupils of the Lynd School. The investigation of Dr Odum shows that the ages of the white and negro pupils throughout the city hold about the same relative position.*
TABLE IV. Grammar. Primary. AVERAGE AGE Boys 14.0 13.0 12.3 11.2 12.3 10.3 9.3 8.0 6.5 Girls 13.6 13.0 11.9 10.9 11.9 10.6 9.1 7.4 6.8 8.7 Boys 14.5 13.4 12.7 11.9 12.5 11.7 9.8 9.4 7.4 9.4 Girls 14.6 13.6 12.5 12.2 12.6 12.0 9.9 8.6 7.0 9.4 DIFFERENCE Boys .2 1.4 .5 1.4 .9 .6 Girls 1.0 .6 .6 1.3 1.4 .8 1.2 .2 .7 Both Sexes .8 .6 .4 1.1 .6 1.4 .6 1.2 .7 .7
It seems that we are justified in saying that the negro boy or girl is not getting what he ought to get in our schools, arranged as they are on a basis of European tradition. Whether the negro has or has not a less keen intellect than the Caucasian, is beside the point. His mind is evidently not like the mind of those with whom he is associated in the present investigation, which was as fair to him as possible. If we are going to give the negro eight years of education in not over ten years, it must be a different sort of an education from that which we try to instill into the minds of white children. To be sure, we only measurably succeed with the latter, and in so far as we fail, our methods and our materials are probably wrong; but they are probably twice as far wrong when we attempt to force them upon the negro.
In conclusion, just a paragraph upon two points: First, the sudden reduction of the age differences between the white and negro pupils of the sixth year and above, points to a difference in the rate of elimination between negro and white pupils that would bear investigation along comparative lines.
Secondly, the population of the special class for incorrigible and backward pupils in the neighborhood of the Lynd School is about 75 per cent negro, a much greater percentage than the neighborhood population would warrant. Not only, therefore, do the negro children fit so badly into the system that they have to be excluded in unusual numbers from the ordinary classes, but it results that our comparisons have been made between a group of negro children from which a large percentage of delinquent pupils had been eliminated and a group of white children from which a very small percentage had been eliminated. Since the pupils sent to the special class are mostly boys in the fourth to sixth years, the negro boys in those grades make a much better showing in the investigation than if it were possible to consider all the pupils of each race, i. e. those in the special classes as well as those in the regular classes.
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