The American people have a large faith in the public high school. It
enrolls approximately 84 per cent of the secondary school pupils of the
United States. High school attendance is becoming legally and
vocationally compulsory. The size of the waste product demands a
diagnosis of the facts. This study aims to discover the significant
facts relative to the failing pupils.

Failure is used in the unit sense of non-passing in a semester subject.
Failures are then counted in terms of these units.

This study includes 6,141 pupils belonging to eight different high
schools and distributed throughout two states. The cumulative,
official, school records for these pupils formed the basis of the data
used.

The schools were selected primarily for their possession of adequate
records. More dependable school records than those employed are not
likely to be found, yet they tend to understate the facts of failure.
It is quite possible that a superior school, and one with a high grade
teaching staff, is actually selected by the requirements of the study.


REFERENCES:

1. _Annual Report of United States Commissioner of Education for 1917._

2. Josslyn, H.W. Chapter IV, in Johnson's _Modern High School_.

3. _The Money Value of Education._ Bulletin No. 22, 1917, United States