e American people have expressed their faith in a scheme of universal
democratic education, and have committed themselves to the support of
the free public high school. They have been liberal in their financing
and strong in their faith regarding this enterprise, so typically
American, to a degree that a secondary education may no longer be
regarded as a luxury or a heritage of the rich. No longer may the field
be treated as either optional or exclusive. The statutes of several of
our states now expressly or impliedly extend their compulsory
attendance requirements beyond the elementary years of school. Many,
too, are the lines of more desirable employment for young people which
demand or give preference to graduates of a high school. At the same
time there has been no decline in the importance of high school
graduation for entering the learned or professional pursuits.
Accordingly, it seems highly probable that, with such an extended and
authoritative sphere of influence, a stricter business accounting will
be exacted of the public high school, as the great after-war burdens
make the public less willing to depend on faith in financing so great
an experiment. They will ask, ever more insistently, for facts as to
the expenditures, the finished product, the internal adjustments, and
the waste product of our secondary schools. Such inquiries will indeed
seem justifiable.

It is estimated that the public high schools had 84 per cent of all the
pupils (above 1,500,000) enrolled in the secondary schools of the
United States in 1916.[1] The majority of these pupils are lost from
school--whatever the cause--before the completion of their courses;
and, again, the majority of those who do graduate have on graduation
ended their school days. Consequently, it becomes more and more evident
how momentous is the influence of the public high school in
conditioning the life activities and opportunities of our youthful
citizens who have entered its doors. Before being entitled to be
considered a "big business enterprise,"[2] it seems imperative that our
"American High School" must rapidly come to utilize more of business
methods of accounting and of efficiency, so as to recognize the
tremendous waste product of our educational machinery.

The aim of this study is to trace as carefully and completely as may be
the facts relative to that major portion of our high school population,
the pupils who fail in their school subjects, and to note