There is in no sense any intention here to condone the large number of failures simply because it is pointed out that they do not operate chiefly to cause elimination from school. The above facts may lead to some such conviction as that expressed by Wooley,[33b] after giving especial attention to those who had left school, that "the real force that is sending a majority of these children out into the industrial field is their own desire to go to work, and behind this desire is frequently the dissatisfaction with school." A somewhat similar conviction seems to be shared by King,[35] in saying that "the pupil who yields unwillingly to the narrow round of school tasks ... will grasp at almost any pretext to quit school." W.F. Book tabulated the reasons why pupils leave high school,[36] as given by 1,051 pupils. He found that discouragement, loss of interest, and disappointment affect more pupils than all the other causes combined. Likewise Bronner notes[37] that the 'irrational' sameness of school procedure for all pupils often leads to "serious loss of interest in school work, discouragement, truancy, and disciplinary problems." Still it may be that the worst consequences of multiplied failures are not to those dropping out. W.D. Lewis observes[38] that the failing pupil "speedily comes to accept himself as a failure," and that "the disaster to many who stay in the schools is greater than to those who are shoved out." To the same point Hanus tells[39] us that "during the school period aversion and evasion are more frequently cultivated than power and skill, through the forced pursuit of uninteresting subjects." A pupil who acquires the habit of failing and the attitude of accepting it as a necessary evil may soon give up trying to win and become satisfied to accept himself as less gifted, or even to accept life in general as necessarily a matter of repeated failures. In a similar connection, James E. Russell says,[40] "the boy who becomes accustomed to second place soon fails to think at his best." Such psychological results in regard to habits and attitude accruing from repeated failures are both certain and insidious. And an education which purports to be for all and to offer the highest training to each must abandon the inculcation of attitudes of mind so detrimental to the individual and to the very society which educates him.
4. THE PERCENTAGES THAT THE NON-GRADUATE GROUPS FORM OF THE PUPILS WHO HAVE EACH SUCCESSIVELY HIGHER NUMBER OF FAILURES
By merely adding the columns of totals for Tables [VIII] and [IX], we are able to obtain the full number of pupils who have each number of failures from 1 to 25. We may readily secure the percentages for the non-graduates in each of these groups by referring again to the numbers in the totals column of [Table IX]. The following series of percentages are thus obtained.
THE PERCENTAGE FORMED BY NON-GRADUATES WITH 0, 1, 2, 3, ETC., FAILURES
ON THE TOTAL NUMBER WHO HAVE 0, 1, 2, 3, ETC., FAILURES
| No. of Failures. | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Per Cent | 68.4 | 65.7 | 68.5 | 77.2 | 69.0 | 68.0 | 70.6 | 67.3 | 63.5 |
| No. of Failures. | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17+ |
| Per Cent | 61.8 | 63.6 | 69.0 | 61.2 | 66.0 | 65.3 | 70.0 | 61.5 | 69.4 |
That these percentages would be higher for the non-graduates than for the graduates (that is, above 50 per cent) would certainly be expected by a glance at their higher numbers in every group of their distribution. But it would hardly be expected by most of us that the percentages would show no general tendency to rise as the failures per pupil increase in number, yet such is the truth as found here. The reverse of these facts was found by Aaron I. Dotey, with a smaller group of high school pupils[41] (1,397), studied in one of the New York City high schools. Still he also asserts that failure in studies is not a cause of elimination to the extent that it is generally supposed to be. We may gain some advantage for judging the general tendency of the extended and varied series of percentages above, by computing them in groups of larger size, thus yielding a briefer series, as follows:
(A CONDENSED FORM OF THE PRECEDING STATEMENT)
| No. of Failures | 0 | 1 to 4 | 5 to 8 | 9 to 12 | 13 to 16 | 17 to 25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Per Cent | 68.4 | 67.6 | 67.3 | 63.9 | 65.7 | 69.4 |
Not only do the percentages of non-graduates not increase relatively as the numbers of failure go higher, but there is a slight general decline in these percentages until we reach '17 or more' failures per pupil. Then for '17 to 25' failures per pupil there is an increase of only 1 per cent over that for failures. The number of failures does not seem directly to condition the pupil's ability to graduate or to continue to in school.