1.  A distribution of all entrants in reference to failure

With no purpose of making this a comparative study of schools, the separate units or schools indicated in Chapter I will from this point be combined into a composite and treated as a single group.  It becomes possible, with the complete and tabulated facts pertaining to a group of pupils, after their high school period has ended, to get a comprehensive survey of their school records and to answer such questions as:  (1) What part of the total number of boys or of girls have school failures? (2) To what extent are the non-failing pupils the ones who succeed in graduating? (3) To what extent do the failing pupils withdraw early?  The following tabulation will show how two of these questions are answered for the 6,141 pupils here reported on.

All                        all
entrants      failing     graduates      failing

Totals     6,141    3,573 (58.2%)     1,936    1,125 (58.1%)
Boys       2,646    1,645 (62.1%)       796      489 (61.4%)
Girls      3,495    1,928 (55.1%)     1,140      639 (55.8%)

From this distribution we readily compute that the percentage of pupils who fail is 58.2 per cent (boys—­62.1, girls—­55.1).  But this statement is itself inadequate.  It does not take into account the 808 pupils who received no grades and had no chance to be classed as failing, but who were in most cases in school long enough to receive marks, and a portion of whom were either eliminated earlier or deterred from examinations by the expectation of failing.  It seems entirely safe to estimate that no less than 60 per cent of this non-credited number should[5] be treated as of the failing group[6] of pupils.  Then the percentage of pupils to be classed as failing in school subjects becomes 66 per cent (boys—­69.6, girls—­63.4).

In considering the second inquiry above, we find from the preceding distribution of pupils that 58.1 per cent (boys—­61.4, girls—­55.8) of all pupils that graduate have failed in one or more subjects one or more times.  This percentage varies from 34 per cent to 73 per cent by schools, but in only two instances does the percentage fall below 50 per cent, and in one of these two it is almost 50 per cent.

We may now ask, when do the failing and the non-failing non-graduates drop out of school?  Of the total number of non-graduates (4,205), there are 2,448 who drop out after failing one or more times, and 1,757 who drop out without failing.  The cumulative percentages of the non-graduates in reference to dropping out are here given.

  Cumulative percentages of the failing non-graduates as they are
  lost by semesters

  Lost by end
  of semester 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9