Earlier in this chapter appears the number and percentage of failures whose disposition was effected by discontinuance or by substitution.  Twenty-four and five-tenths per cent of the failures were accounted for in this way.  This grouping happens to be a rather complex one.  Many of such pupils simply discontinue the course and then drop out of school.  Some discontinue the subject but because they have extra credits take no substitute for it; others substitute in a general way to secure the needed credits but not specifically for the subject dropped.  Only a few shift their credits to another curriculum.  In some instances the subject is itself an extra one, and needs no substitute.  For the graduating pupils only about 5 per cent of the failures are disposed of by discontinuing and by substitution of subjects.  This fact may be due to the greater economy in examinations, or to the relatively inflexible school requirements for completing the prescribed work by repetition whether for graduation or for college entrance.  In only one school was there a tendency to discontinue the subject failed in.  So far as failures represent a definite maladjustment between the pupil and the school subject, the substitution of other work would seem to be the most rational solution of the difficulty.

A consideration of the success following a substitution of vocational or shop subjects, to replace the academic subjects of failure, offers an especially promising theme for study.  No opportunity was offered in the scope of this study to include that sort of inquiry, but its possibilities are recognized and acknowledged herein as worthy of earnest attention.  In only two of the eight schools was any shop-work offered, and only one of these could probably claim vocational rank.  Apart from the difficulty in reference to comparability of standards, there were not more than a negligible number of cases of such substitution, due partly to the relative recency in the offering of any vocational work.  In this reference a report comes from W.D.  Lewis of an actual experiment[45] in which “fifty boys of the school loafer type ... selected because of their prolific record in failure—­as they had proved absolute failures in the traditional course—­were placed in charge of a good red-blooded man in a thoroughly equipped wood work shop.”  “The shop failed to reach just one.”  At the same time the academic work improved.  One cannot be sure of how much to credit the type of work and how much the red-blooded man for such results.  But we may feel sure of further contributions of this sort in due time.

3.  EMPLOYMENT OF SCHOOL EXAMINATIONS