RETARDATION (WHITE PUPILS).

It was shown in Chapter III that the unfinished group, which consisted of 194 children, had made only 76.8 per cent of normal progress in seven years. Table 14 shows the grades and ages where this retardation took place, as well as the number of times certain individuals were retarded. It is read as follows: Twenty-five boys and 24 girls were each retarded one term, and therefore made a total of 49 retardations; of this number the 1A grade received 6 from the boys and 2 from the girls; 1B grade received 0; 2A grade received 2 from the boys and 3 from the girls, etc., while age 7 received 2 retardations from the boys and 0 from the girls; age 8 received 3 retardations from the boys and 2 retardations from the girls, etc. These 194 children made in the seven years in which they were in school 611 retardations.

Manifestly, then, in this group of children the chances for failure are almost as great at one age as at another between 8 years and 14 years. The chances for failure are slightly greater, however, at the ages of 9, 10, and 13 years.

Number of retardations received in certain grades.

These percentages of retardation can not be taken to indicate the relative difficulty of the several grades to the child, especially after he has passed the 4A grade. The diminishing percentages for grades 4B to 7B, inclusive, are due principally to the fact that fewer children of this group have reached the grades from the 4B grade up than attained the grades below the 4B. Therefore there are fewer chances for retardations to occur in these grades.

However, since all but 7 of the 194 children in this group had passed through the 4A grade, the high percentage in the 1A grade indicates the difficulty which children have in the early years of their school life in adjusting themselves to school conditions. Moreover, some of this retardation in this grade is, no doubt, due to the fact that many of the children who are of very low mentality never get beyond it.

That the children in the public schools of Richmond do encounter difficulty in the 1A grade and that the higher grades present as much and even more difficulty than the lower grades, especially since only a selected group reach these grades, is shown from the following table:

TABLE 14A.-Percentages of promotion by grades from 1911 to 1914.

From these percentages it seems that grades 1A and 4A to 7A, inclusive, are the most difficult, and grades 1B to 3B, inclusive, and 7B are the least difficult.

It is surprising that some of these children had repeated as many as 8 terms in 7 years and were still in school. From an analysis of the number of times the different individuals in this group repeated it is found that—

49, or 25.3 per cent, had repeated 1 term.
34, or 17.5 per cent, had repeated 2 terms.
33, or 17.0 per cent, had repeated 3 terms.
29, or 15.0 per cent, had repeated 4 terms.
26, or 13.4 per cent, had repeated 5 terms.
14, or 7.2 per cent, had repeated 6 terms.
7, or 3.6 per cent, had repeated 7 terms.
2, or 1.0 per cent, had repeated 8 terms.

The median number of terms of retardation for the boys is 2.9 and for the girls is 2.2. It is evident, then, that many of the children of the group who were still in school September, 1913, had remained there in spite of frequent failures to be promoted.

Table 15 gives some information concerning the retardation made by the 285 children who had left school. These 285 children had made 873 retardations.

In this group of children it would seem that the ages 9, 10, 11, and 12 are the ages when a child's chances for failure are relatively high, since a very large proportion of the children of this group remained in school until they were 12 years old. (See Table 6.) The rapid falling off at 14 would indicate that children become discouraged and leave school for work, or are compelled to go to work as soon as they are old enough.

In this group there is even greater variation of retardation than with the unfinished group. Some of these children made as high as 9 repetitions in 7 years. Of these 285 children—

71, or 24.9 per cent, repeated 1 term.
66, or 23.1 per cent, repeated 2 terms.
41, or 14.4 per cent, repeated 3 terms.
47, or 16.5 per cent, repeated 4 terms.
28, or 9.8 per cent, repeated 5 terms.
14, or 4.9 per cent, repeated 6 terms.
11, or 3.9 per cent, repeated 7 terms.
5, or 1.8 per cent, repeated 8 terms.
2, or .7 per cent repeated 9 terms.

The median number for the boys is 2.5, and for the girls 1.8. It would seem then that most of the children did not give up and leave school without an effort to regain the position which they had lost through failure to be promoted, or without trying at least to avoid another failure. The tendency to remain in school in spite of failure is stronger, however, with girls than with boys.

In this group the retardations are most frequent in grades 1A to 3A, inclusive. These high percentages of retardation in the lower grades and low percentages in the higher grades are caused by the fact that the children who are compelled to repeat become discouraged and leave school. Consequently, only a few children ever attain the higher grades. They are not in school to be retarded.

1A 1B 2A 2B 3A 3B 4A 4B