el that they are getting along well without any
definite assurance of the amount of their improvement.

In one large school system in which the writer was permitted to have the
principals measure compositions collected from the sixth and the eighth
grades, it was discovered that almost no progress in the quality of
composition had been accomplished during these two years. This lack of
achievement upon the part of children was not, in the opinion of the
writer, due to any lack of conscientious work upon the part of teachers,
but, rather, developed out of a situation in which the whole of
composition was thought of in terms of the formal elements mentioned
above. The Hillegas scale, together with the values assigned to each of
the samples, is given below.

A SCALE FOR THE MEASUREMENT OF THE QUALITY OF ENGLISH
COMPOSITION

BY MILO B. HILLEGAS

VALUE 0. Artificial sample

_Letter_

Dear Sir: I write to say that it aint a square deal Schools is
I say they is I went to a school. red and gree green and brown
aint it hito bit I say he don't know his business not today
nor yeaterday and you know it and I want Jennie to get me out.

VALUE 183. Artificial sample

_My Favorite Book_

the book I refer to read is Ichabod Crane, it is an grate book
and I like to rede it. Ichabod Crame was a man and a man wrote
a book and it is called Ichabod Crane i like it because the
man called it ichabod crane when I read it for it is such a
great book.

VALUE 260. Artificial sample

_The Advantage of Tyranny_

Advantage evils are things of tyranny and there are many
advantage evils. One thing is that when they opress the people
they suffer awful I think it is a terrible thing when they say
that you can be hanged down or trodden down without mercy and
the tyranny does what they want there was tyrans in the
revolutionary war and so they throwed off the yok.

VALUE 369. Written by a boy in the second year of the high
school, aged 14 years

_Sulla as a Tyrant_

When Sulla came back from his conquest Marius had put himself
consul so sulla with the army he had with him in his conquest
siezed the government from Marius and put himself in consul
and had a list of his enemys printy and the men whoes names
were on this list we beheaded.

VALUE 474. Written by a girl in t