3. THE SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE FIELD COVERED
As any intensive study must almost necessarily be limited in its scope, so this one comprises for its purposes the high school records for 6,141 pupils belonging to eight different high schools located in New York and New Jersey. For two of these schools the records for all the pupils that entered are included here for five successive years, and for their full period in high school. In two other schools the records of all pupils that entered for four successive years were secured. In four of the schools the records of all pupils who entered in February and September of one year constituted the number studied. There is apparently no reason to believe that a longer period of years would be more representative of the facts for at least three of these four schools, in view of the situation that they had for years enjoyed a continuity of administration and that they possess a well-established organization. The fourth one of these schools had less complete records than were desired, but even in that the one year was representative of the other years' records. The distribution of the 6,141 pupils by schools and by years of entering high school is given below.
| HIGH SCHOOL PUPILS IN: | ENTERING HIGH SCHOOL IN THE YEARS | NUMBER STUDIED |
|---|---|---|
| White Plains, N.Y. | 1908, '09, '10, '11, '12 | 659 |
| Dunkirk, N.Y. | 1909, '10, '11, '12 | 370 |
| Mount Vernon, N.Y. | 1912 | 224 |
| Montclair, N.J. | 1908, '09, '10, '11, '12 | 946 |
| Hackensack, N.J. | 1909, '10, '11, '12 | 736 |
| Elizabeth, N.J. | 1912 | 333 |
| Morris H.S.—Bronx | 1912 | 1712 |
| Erasmus Hall H.S.—Brooklyn | 1912 | 1161 |
| —— | ||
| TOTAL | 6141 | |
As it is essential for the purposes of this study to have the complete record of the pupils for their full time in the high school, the 6,141 pupils include none who entered later than 1912. Thus all were allowed at least five and one-half or six years in which to terminate their individual high school history, of successes or of failures, before the time of making this inquiry into their records. No pupils who were transferred from another high school or who did not start with the class as beginning high school students were included among those studied. Post-graduate records were not considered, neither was any attempt made to trace the record of drop-outs who entered other schools. Manifestly the percentage of graduation would be higher in any school if the recruits from other schools and the drop-backs from other classes in the school were included.
No attempt has been made to trace the elementary school or college records of the failing pupils, for our purpose does not reach beyond the sphere of the high school records. In reference to the differentiation by school courses, some facts were at first collected, but these were later discarded, as the courses represent no standardization in terminology or content, and they promised to give nothing of definite value. As might be expected, the schools lacked agreement or uniformity in the number of courses offered. One school had no commercial classes, as that work was assigned to a separate school; another school offered only typewriting and stenography of the commercial subjects; a third had placed rather slight emphasis on the commercial subjects until recently. Only four of the schools had pupils in Greek. The Spanish classes outnumbered the Greek both by schools and by enrollment. In the classification by subjects, English is made to include (in addition to the usual subjects of that name) grammar, literature, and business English. Mathematics includes all subjects of that class except commercial arithmetic, which is treated as a commercial subject, and shop-mathematics, which is classed as non-academic. Industrial history, and 'political and social science' are regarded along with academic subjects; likewise household chemistry is included with the science classification. Economics is treated as a commercial subject. At least a dozen other subjects, not classified as academic or commercial, including also spelling and penmanship, were taken by a portion of these pupils, but the records for these subjects do not enter this study in determining the successful and failing grades or the sizes of schedule. Yet it is true that such subjects do demand time and work from those pupils.