"Working permits may have a very direct bearing on school problems or none at all, depending on how they are issued and what use is made of the information obtainable through issuing them. Statistics of working permits are vital statistics of the school. They correspond to the death rate of the community. The usefulness of statistics of the death rate depends on how accurately the records are taken and how carefully they are analyzed. Most communities plan their campaigns of health and sanitation on the basis of their vital statistics. The statistics regarding working permits should have just as direct a bearing on school problems. But statistics of working permits have one great advantage over statistics of the death rate. Death closes the account of a man so far as this world is concerned, but leaving school does not necessarily close a child's account so far as the school is concerned, though it has done so only too frequently in the past. The schools are now beginning to feel that it is a matter of interest and importance to them to know what happens to children who leavewhere they succeed and where they fail, and how, accordingly, the school might perhaps have done better for them than it has." The vitalizing use of these statistics in reference to school problems, Mrs. Woolly classes under the following heads: 1. Significance of number of permits issued. 2. Retardation. 3. Information of what happens to children who leave school. 4. Supervision of employment. 5. Departments of investigation and research to become the medium through which the adjustment between the Educational System and the Community is made. It seems amazing that the School should not have constantly watched this barometer of child labor to be found in the rise and fall of the number of work permits issued each year. Indeed the ignorance of school authorities and teachers of the first step the child takes on leaving school, has been more than astonishing a positive failure in fundamental knowledge. Such knowledge as the evasion of child labor laws by parents and children; the non-enforcement of these laws by State officials; the number of children going to work at an early age, varying with school and economic conditions; the number of girls show ing changed relation of the woman to industry; all of which Mrs. Woolley is now giving in the analysis of these numbers in the superintendent's annual reports. The causes of retardation are now receiving a fair amount of consideration in many school systems, but the most patient and pains-taking analysis of facts will be necessary before final conclusions are reached. In the initial stages of these inquiries, perhaps the zealous advocate for "vocational" work has been as hasty in his blame of the "system" as the sole cause for failure, as the critic of vocational training, to whom we before referred, has been in ignoring this group of children. of children. In the In the process of Mrs. Woolley's research, we have been constantly surprised to find that inferior mental endowment constituted a very large factor in retardationmuch larger than we had ever imagined. The following general facts about retardation were given in Mrs. Woolley's last annual report: "The table of retardation (VII) based on the standards that 14 or 15 years is normal for the completion of the eighth grade, 15 or 16 years for the completion of the first year High School, etc., shows that for this year the proportion of retardation among children from the public schools who received employment certificates was 75.2% for boys, and 85% for girls, while from the parochial school it is 50% for boys and 86.3% for girls. The percentage of retardation for the last four years is summed up in table (VIII). It shows that retardation is always greater among public school than among parochial school applicants for employment certificates, and that in response to a change in the law the proportion of retardation fluctuates more violently at first, and recovers itself more rapidly in the parochial school, than it does in the case of the public school. These facts suggest that the parochial school regime is adjusted with direct reference to the requirements of the Child Labor Law to a much greater extent than in the public school." In a previous report, the relative importance of mental endowment and social conditions in the problem of retardation were discussed. Through a series of mental and physical tests a close correlation between the averages of the tests and the school grades was established. There were a few exceptional cases, however, where this correlation could not be shown. Although the group was small, 28 out of 775 cases, a careful investigation was made into the social environment of these children. An interesting fact became apparent. "The fourteen year old children whose tests showed good native ability, but who nevertheless had completed only the fifth grade" had been reared in "unfortunate social conditions which caused retardation in school in spite of their superior endowment." On the other hand, the children "whose tests showed poor native ability, but who had nevertheless completed the eighth grade at fourteen years," had been placed in "favorable social surroundings which assisted them through school in spite of inferior endowment." While such knowledge brings to our attention the keen necessity for saving the promising child through better economic conditions, we are even more greatly impressed with the suggestion that the dominating factor in retardation is mental endowment, so much so that we pause for a moment of wonder over the superhuman task we again and again place upon the teacher, without adequate assistance to gain accurate and invaluable information concerning the children as individuals, or at least as special groups. These conclusions are further advanced in a special study of First Year High School Failures, which the Bureau has just completed under the direction of Mr. Coxe, a member of the staff. The material was a group of 81 students who had failed to pass the requirements of the first year at Woodward, and who were sent to the Bureau for mental tests. After home visits, inquiries into School conditions, conferences with teachers and parents, in addition to the tests, a preliminary report was made from which I quote: • Journal of Educational Psychology, November, 1915. "A New Scale of Mental and Physical Measurements for Adolescents, and Some of its Uses." Helen Thompson Woolley. Pages 7 and 8. |