The success of the failing pupils in passing the Regents’ examinations does not give endorsement to the suggestion that they are in any true sense weaklings.  That they succeed here almost concurrently with the failure in the school testifies that ‘they can if they will,’ or conversely, as regards the school subject, that ’they can but they won’t.’  Of course it is possible that differences in the type of examinations or in the standards of judgment as employed by the school and the Regents may be a factor in the difference of results secured.  The great difficulty then seems to resolve itself into a technical problem of more successfully enlisting the energy and ability which they so irrefutably do possess in order to secure better school results, but perhaps in work that is better adapted to them.  Again, the success with which these pupils carry a schedule of five or six subjects, besides other work not recognized in the treatment of this study, and retrieve themselves in the unattractive subjects of failure pleads for a recognition of their ability and enterprise.  Their difficulty is without doubt frequently more physiological than psychological, except as they are the victims of a false psychology, that either disregards or misapplies the principles which Thorndike terms the law of readiness[50] to respond and the law of effect, and consequently depend largely on the one law of exercise of the function to secure the desired results.

Some additional evidence that the failing pupils can and do succeed in most of their subjects is provided by their earlier and later records, as disclosed by the total grades received for the semester first preceding and the one next following that in which the failure occurs.  There were of course no preceding grades for the failures that occur in the first semester, and none succeeding those that occur in the last semester spent in school.  It is quite apparent from the following distribution of grades that these pupils are far from helpless in regard to the ability required to do school work in general.

  GRADES OF THE FAILING PUPILS IN THE SEMESTER NEXT PRECEDING
  THE FAILURES

  Total A B C D

13,857 Boys                 315        2883        6668       3991
17,264 Girls                245        2868        9509       4642

  Per Cent of Total 1.8 18.5 52.0 27.7

  GRADES OF THE FAILING PUPILS IN THE SEMESTER NEXT SUCCEEDING
  THE FAILURES

  Total A B C D

14,724 Boys                 319        2772        7406       4227
16,942 Girls                281        2788        9114       4759

  Per Cent of Total 1.9 17.7 52.1 28.3