ny repetition 52
per cent get passing grades.

No form of school compensation can be considered as adequate which does
not adapt the treatment to the kind and cause of the malady, as
manifested by the failure symptoms.

REFERENCES:

42. Briggs, T.H. Report on Secondary Education, U.S. Comm. of Educ.
Report, 1914.

43. Snedden, D. In Johnson's _Modern High School._ II, 24, 26.

44. Official Bulletin on Promotion and Students' Programs, 1917, from
Assoc. Supt. in Charge of Secondary Schools, for N.Y. City.

45. Lewis, W.D. _Democracy's High School_, p. 45.

46. Ruling of Board of Supt's., New York City, June, 1917.

CHAPTER VI

DO THE FAILURES REPRESENT A LACK OF CAPABILITY OR OF FITNESS FOR HIGH
SCHOOL WORK ON THE PART OF THOSE PUPILS?

In view of the fact that some of the pupils do not fail in any part of
their school work, there is a certain popular presumption that failure
must be significant of pupil inferiority when it occurs. That
connotation will necessarily be correct if we are to judge the
individual entirely by that part of his work in which he fails, and to
assume that the failing mark is a fair indication of both achievement
and ability. Although the pupil is only one of the contributing factors
in the failure, nevertheless it happens that cherished opportunity,
prizes, praise, honors, employment, and even social recognition are
frequently proffered or withheld according to his marks in school.
Still further, the pupil who accumulates failures may soon cease to be
aggressively alive and active; he is in danger of acquiring a
conforming attitude of tolerance toward the experience of being
unsuccessful. Therefore it is particularly momentous to the pupil,
should the school record ascribed to him prove frequently to be
incongruous with his potential powers. It has already been pointed out
in these pages that the failures frequently tend to designate specific
difficulties rather than what is actually the negative of 'ability plus
application.' This does not at all deny that in some instances there
appears to be the ability minus the application, and that in other
cases the pupils are simple unfitted for the work required of them.

1. SOME ARE EVIDENTLY MISFITS

There is a strong presumption that many of the 485 pupils who failed in
50 per cent of their school work and dropped out (reported in Chapter
IV) represent misfits for at least the kind of school subjects offered
or required. On