5. THE PROGNOSIS OF FAILURES BY THE SUBJECT SELECTION
From the distribution of failures by school subjects as presented in [Chapter II], this will seem to be the easiest and almost the surest of all the factors thus far considered to employ for a prognosis of failure. For of all pupils taking Latin we may confidently expect an average of a little less than one pupil in every five to fail each semester. For the entire number taking mathematics, the expectation of failure is an average of about one in six for each semester. German comes next, and for each semester it claims for failure on the average nearly one pupil in every seven taking it. Similarly French claims for failure one in every nine; history, one in every ten; English and business subjects, less than one in every twelve. It will be noted that the average on a semester basis is employed in this part of the computation. Consequently, it is not the same as saying that such a percentage of pupils fail at some time, in the subject. The pupil who fails four times in first year mathematics is intentionally regarded here as representing four failures. Likewise, the pupil who completes four years of Latin without failure represents eight successes for the subject in calculating these percentages. Every recorded failure for each pupil is thus accounted for.
It was also noted in [Chapter II] that the percentages of the total failures run higher in mathematics, Latin, history, and science, for the graduates than for the non-graduates. This fact is not due to the greater number of failures of graduates in the earlier semesters, when most of the non-graduate failures occur, but to the increase of failures for the graduates in the later years, as is disclosed in Tables [II] and [IV]. Accordingly, we may say that those two subjects which are most productive of school failures are increasingly fruitful of such results in the upper years. This does not seem to be the usual or accepted conviction. Certain of the school principals have expressed the assurance that it would be found otherwise. Such deception is easily explainable, for the number of failures show a marked reduction, and the rise of percentages is consequently easily overlooked. It is quite possible, too, that in some individual schools there is not such a rise of the percentages of failure for the graduates in any of the school subjects. In a single one of the eight schools reported here neither Latin nor mathematics showed a higher percentage of failure for the graduate pupils over the non-graduates. In the other seven schools the graduates had the higher percentage in one or both of these subjects.