In two of the schools studied, an X, Y, and Z division was formed in certain difficult subjects for the failing pupils, by which they take three semesters to complete two semesters of work.  This plan, as judged by results, is obviously insufficient for such pupils and tends to prove further that the kind of work is more at fault in the matter of failing than is the amount.  Frequently a pupil who fails in the A semester (first) will also fail in the X division of that subject as he repeats it, while at the same time his work is perhaps not inferior in the other subjects.  The data for these special divisions were not kept distinct in transcribing the records, so that it is not possible to offer the tabulated facts here.  There are numerous recognized illustrations of how some pupils find some particular subject as history, mathematics, or language distinctively difficult for them.

4.  AN INDICTMENT AGAINST THE SUBJECT-MATTER AND THE TEACHING ENDS, AS FACTORS IN PRODUCING FAILURES

The evidence already disclosed to the effect that the high school entrants are highly selected, that few of the failing pupils lack sufficient ability for the work, that they have manifested their ability and energy in diverse ways, and that particular subjects are unduly emphasized and by the uniformity of their requirement cause much maladjustment, largely contributing to the harvest of failures, seems to warrant an indictment against both the subject-matter and the teaching ends for factoring so prominently in the production of failures.  There is clearly an administrative and curriculum problem involved here in the sense that not a few of the failures seem to represent the cost at which the machinery operates.  This is in no sense intended as a challenge to any subject to defend its place in the high school curriculum, but it is meant to challenge the policy of the indiscriminate requirement of any subject for all pupils, allowing only that English of some kind will usually be a required subject for the great majority of the pupils.  It is simply demanded that Latin and mathematics shall stand on their own merits, and that the same shall apply to history and science or other subjects of the curriculum.  So far as they are taught each should be taught as earnestly and as efficiently as possible; but it should not be asked that any teacher take the responsibility for the unwilling and unfitted members of a class who are forced into the subject by an arbitrary ruling which regards neither the motive, the interest or the fitness of the individual.

This indictment extends likewise to the teaching method or purpose which focalizes the teachers’ attention and energy chiefly on the subject.  Certain basic assumptions, now pretty much discredited, have led to the avowed teaching of the subject for its own sake, and often without much regard to any definite social utility served by it.  This charge seems to find an instance in the handling of the subject of English