43 34 59 33 Total per grade ☺ ☺ ☹ a w w w sw of pupils 2 15 32 32 38 40 36 34 40 43 5 8 Totals: O 3 55 54 73 46 73 72 43 30 10 5 Total number of pupils Total number of pupils advanced 464 25 127 FIGURE 5. Washington School 65 pupils or 8.6 per cent of the whole were These represent 67 years of advancement. advanced 1 year advanced 2 years From the enrollment of 919 pupils in the Lyndale (Figure 4) 99 pupils or 10.7 per cent were advanced. 95 pupils or 10.3 per cent of the whole were advanced 1 year 4 pupils or .4 per cent of the whole were advanced 2 years The 99 were advanced 103 years. From the enrollment in the Washington (Figure 5) of 464 pupils, 25 pupils or 5.3 per cent were advanced. 23 pupils or 4.9 per cent of the whole were advanced 1 year These represent 27 years of advancement. Normal age, as has been said, was called 6 to 8 years for the first grade, 7 to 9 years for the second grade, etc. Was the actual average different from the theoretical normal age? The statistics for average age computed from the four schools were as follows: To summarize, 17.8 per cent of retardation is contrasted with 8 per cent of advancement; 764 years of retardation with 236 of advancement. The Lyndale School, representing families living much above the marginal standard of living, presented the lowest retardation per cent and the highest advancement per cent, while the Washington with its many dependent families showed the opposite results. The average age was found in all but one grade to be in the first year of the two years called normal. The one grade showing an exception was 4A, which instead of giving an average age of 9+ gave 10.08 years. This would indicate that retardation was especially acute at that period. In comparing the Washington and Lyndale, it was found that while the Washington had 12.08 and 12.09 years as average ages for 6B and 6A grades, the Lyndale had 11.1 and 11.7, a difference in 6B of nearly a year. The 4A grade presented the most striking contrast-11.05 years for the Washington and 9.5 in the Lyndale-thus showing the pupils in the Washington 1.55 years older. These facts alone forecast the deduction that there is a definite relation between dependency and retardation. RETARDATION AMONG CHILDREN OF DEPENDENT FAMILIES Having determined normal school progress, thereby establishing a standard by which the retardation of children of dependent families might be measured, the next step was to select a typical group of these children. This was accomplished, it was judged, by considering the children from the families coming under the care of the Minneapolis Associated Charities between October, 1916 and March, 1917. In general, children falling between the ages of 6 and 16, on February 1, 1917, were selected from the records for study. The grade for each child was established at any specific time, and the age at the beginning of that semester ascertained. Such procedure caused variation in dates but prevented the dropping of many children who could not be located at one set time. Most of the grades and ages were for February 1, 1917, a large number were for September 1, 1917, while smaller numbers were for February, 1918, February and September, 1916 and 1915. The sources of information for the grades of the children were fivefold, being, in order of the frequency of their use, grade record cards, teachers' registers, school directories, the child's teacher, and the principal's memory. The relative merits of these are varied. Most accurate were the grade record cards. As these were classified generally according to grades and were often distributed in the rooms, it was not practical or possible to use them entirely. When these cards were once located their information was authoritative. Least trustworthy were the principal's memory and an old directory wherein the advance from the fall grade to the spring grade was not consistently noted. In ascertaining grades the greatest difficulty lay in the location of the child. The school district he was in at the time the Associated Charities case was active was very often not the one he was in at the time of the study. The schools of Minneapolis have not yet afforded the expense of an alphabetical file for all pupils giving their school district. Therefore when a child had once moved and his census card was transferred to his new district, he was extremely difficult to find. Two other methods were used to find the grades of children who had moved from the original school which they attended at the time the Associated Charities case was active. The first was made possible by Mr. David H. Holbrook, director of the Department of Attendance and Vocational Guidance of the Board of Education. To forty-five school principals, circulars containing children's names were mailed with the request that the grades and present place of attendance be indicated. In this way some 227 children were located. The second method used for obtaining the grades of the residue of children still remaining was the telephoning of schools. The birth dates of the children were taken from the school census cards. These dates are considered sufficiently reliable for court evidence and are secured from "nativity cards" filled out at home by the parents of the child. In comparing them with the dates given on the Associated Charities records, many differences were found. As the Associated Charities records did not completely give the birth dates for all the children, and as the method of obtaining them was usually subtraction by each Visitor of the given age, and was not done with pencil and paper in hand at the time of receiving the information, it was decided that of the two the school census cards were more accurate. However, in cases where deception was purposed, it is realized that ages given the school tended to be older than was true, for two reasons. An over busy parent may first have wished to enter the child in school early, and secondly, may have planned to secure an employment certificate for him as soon as possible. In regard to ages, it is especially emphasized that a child was not called, for example, 14 on February 1, 1917, unless he had fully completed his fourteenth year at that time--even if the incompleteness may have been only one day. This tended toward the report showing children younger than they were and explains, for example, the twelve five-year-old children in 1B grade (Figure 6) who were in reality probably six during the first month of the semester. This was the basis upon which the study of normal retardation was made. Such was the method of procedure. The names of 2,052 children were taken from the Associated Charities records. Of these, 386 children could not be located, and for 41 the birth dates could not be found, as the school census cards were misplaced; 226 children were listed as attending parochial schools although their attendance there was not verified. These children were dropped as the normal retardation in parochial schools was not known. Twenty children had employment certificates and were therefore not in school, 14 had "home permits," 11 were in special state schools such as state reformatories, hospitals, or feeble |