failing non-graduates. The semesters were frequently completed by such
pupils but the records were left incomplete. Their previous records and
their prospects of further partial or complete failure seem to justify
an estimate of 55 per cent (1,070) of these uncompleted grades as
either tentative or actual but unrecorded failures. Therefore we
virtually have 1,070 other failures belonging to these pupils which are
not included in Table I. Accordingly, since the number can only be
estimated, the fact that they are not incorporated in that table
suggests that the information which it discloses is something less than
a full statement of the school failures for these pupils. In the
distribution of the totals for ages, the mode appears plainly at 16,
but with an evident skewness toward the upper ages. The failures for
the years 16, 17, and 18, when added together, form 68.1 per cent of
the total failures. If those for 15 years are also included, the result
is 86 per cent of the total. Of the total failures, 65.7 per cent are
found in the first two years (11,801 out of the total of 17,960). But
the really striking fact is that 34.3 per cent of the failures occur
after the end of the first two years, after 52.2 per cent of the pupils
are gone, and with other hundreds leaving in each succeeding semester
before even the end of the eighth. In Table II we have similar facts
for the pupils who graduate.


TABLE II

THE DISTRIBUTION OF FAILURES ACCORDING TO THE AGES AND THE SEMESTERS
OF THEIR OCCURRENCE FOR THE GRADUATING PUPILS

AGES
SEMESTERS 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 TOTALS