rcentages under 50 per cent, while in three others they are above 60
per cent.

Further confirmation of how the increase of failures accompanies the
pupils who stay longer in school is offered in the facts of Table IV.
Here are indicated the number of pupils who before graduating fail 1,
2, 3, etc., times, in semesters 1, 2, 3, etc., up to 10. Of all the
occurrences of only one failure per pupil in a semester, 50 per cent
are distributed after the fourth semester. In this same period (after
the fourth semester) are found 53.2 per cent of those with two failures
in a semester; 67.6 per cent of those with three failures in a
semester; 71.6 per cent of those having four; 78.6 per cent of those
having five; and all of those having six failures in a single semester.
One could almost say that the longer they stay the more they fail.

The statements presented herein regarding the relative increase of
failures for at least the first three years in school are likely to
arouse some surprise among that portion of the people in the
profession, with whom the converse of this situation has been quite
generally accepted as true. Such an impression has indeed not seemed
unwarranted according to some reports, but the responsibility for it
must be due in part to the manner of presenting the data, so that at
times it actually serves to misstate or to conceal certain important
features of the situation. Since the dropping out is heaviest in the
early semesters, and since the school undertakes the expense of
providing for all who enter, it does not seem to be a correct
presentation of the facts to compute the percentage of failure on only
the pupils who finish the whole semester. Such a practice tends to
assign an undue percentage of failures to the earlier semesters, one
that is considerably too high in comparison with that of the later
semesters where the dropping out becomes relatively light. It is not
sufficient to report merely what part of our final product is
imperfect, instead of reporting, as do most institutions outside of the
educational field, what part of all that is taken in becomes waste
product. This situation is sufficiently grievous to demand further
comment.

In his study of the New Jersey high schools, Bliss states [28] that one
of the striking facts found is the "steady decrease of failure from the
freshman to the senior year." If we bear in mind that Bliss used only
the promotion sheets for his data, and took no acc