The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-10-28
E.. H.. DILLON & co.
Helping The Public Understand Public Schools School Officials Swept by Conagon of AtoInquy Study ing the Needs of 20,0O0,OOO Children Awakening
 of Spirit of Cooperation

William H. Allen, Director Bureau o
 Municipal Research, New Yorl
 City. (Exclusive Service THE SUR
 vEY Press Bureau.)
 So characteristic of the present yea are school inquiries that 1911 IS cer tain to go down in history as marking a change in the attitude of Americai educators toward their working ma terial-their pupils and their publics The nearly 2O.000,000 children regis tered this fall in public, parochial and private schools will be studied understood and helped as never, be fore.
 The National Bureau of Education has made public the results of months study of Baltimore's schools Montclair, city of 10000 has pub lished the important findings of four days study by Prof Paui II
 Special reports on investigations o1 the business management of the Cleve- land and St. Louis schools will soor be published, and there are available a number of important documents dealing with the af-year school, in termediate school, school mortality shorter course, emphasis upon the . three R's, etc., by Superintendent El- son of Cleveland and his colleague Dr. Frank P. Bachman. State Com missioner Howell Cheney, nanu- facturer prohting from snn,narr eIrsciefes ef ,, number of Connecreeut cities toward self-analysis and has published some valuable bulletins.
 This contagion of auto-inquiry at- tackled even the insurgent-swept Ma t{onal Education Association at San Francisco, and it appropriated no less than $6,000 for several school 1n- quiries.
 The layman who has not tried to learn which children fail of promo tfon will be surprised when told that tendent has no idea what proportion of the children in each grade are not promoted and the, probable reasons. If you will look at your school re port, you will probably find that the total number of children on the rolls during the year is put in one column, and if given at all, the total not pro noted in another, and that is all you are told. The study of retardatiOn which is now sweeping the country finds out the total number of possi- bilities of promotion after subtracung etc. When, in this manner, the non- promotions are obtained, fnvestiga- tors try to learn the relation of phys ical defects to non-promotions, how many children are over age for their class orr under age, how many have
  than twice.
 Studying school problems from the standpoint of the child has been prompted by the wholesale adoption of examination for physical defects. Because the first experiments in re- moving adenoids and eye troubles were followed by rapid progress in school school men and women took it for granted that finding the defect would of course lead to remedy. But from one end of the country to the other finding the defect has led of ten to nothing more than piling up records of physical defects. Then come efforts to learn the reasons, and then the house instruction of mothers. and a long list of remedial steps which are imposing when put together, but which unfortunately are more apt to be found isolated than 1n clusters.
 Inquiry and challenge being in the air, editorials in newspapers and magazines have raised questions in